Arutz Sheva - Israel National News and the Gesher Leadership Institute, in collaboration with the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Ami, teamed up to create a new video series titled "Jewish Share," an initiative aimed at helping Israelis connect with their fellow Jews in the Diaspora.
In the fifth episode, Dr. Idana Goldberg, CEO of the Russell Berrie Foundation, and philanthropist and activist Daniel Goldman meet virtually.
Goldberg begins by answering the question of who is helping whom - are Diaspora Jews helping Israel or is Israel helping Diaspora Jews? "I think that there has been this awakening that we've seen - certainly among American Jews - around the importance of philanthropy to help Israel in this moment. We've seen more than a billion dollars coming from foreign funding to help Israel. And at the same time, I think American Jews have woken up to understand the role that Israel plays in their lives and how important it is that there is a secure, safe, and democratic Israel."
Goldman notes that “the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora is obviously dynamic all the time, and if you pan through the history of modern Israel and the Diaspora, it's been a changing story from well before the founding of the state, through the founding of the state and then through the different stages of Israel's development and history and obviously the politics that goes with that."
He states that "it feels different now than it has been for a very, very long time. The overwhelming response of Jewish communities from around the world to what has happened here in the last year and a half is different, I think, to what any of us who have either been involved or observed this have seen; obviously, an outpouring of not just sympathy and empathy, but doing, giving, and taking part."
"That's number one. I think number two: I always had this strong sense that the events that take place in Israel ultimately have an effect on the lives of Jews everywhere, and that has clearly become much more obvious in the last year and a half, and unfortunately, not necessary in a good way. I'm not pinning that on Israel, per se, but clearly the situation here has led to some kind of explosion of things which either are stuff which is just stated or new things or the climax of something or the beginning of something ... But clearly, it's a different environment," Goldman says, noting that even funding for harmless charities in Israell has become a hot-button topic in places like the UK where any money that goes to help anyone in Israel can stir controversy and accusations of "genocide."
"It's kind of an exporting of the chaos which is happening here across Jewish communities overseas," he says.
Dr. Goldberg states, "The first thing I want everyone to understand is that there is not a monolithic American Jewish identity. The community here is extremely diverse in its relationship to Israel, in its relationship to the kind of country Israel is, and what it means to be Jewish. It is extremely, extremely diverse. That's the thing that I believe most Israelis don't necessarily understand about what the American Jewish community looks like. So with certain segments of the population, in the Orthodox community, for example, Israel is extremely interwoven and embedded into the educational system, into the camp system, [and] into the regular synagogue observance. But once you kind of broaden out beyond that, it becomes a different relationship, one that again shows up in camps and in schools, but may not be as present in the everyday lives of those who are less connected on a day to day basis with their Jewish identity."
She continues, "And one of the interesting things that we've seen in the last year and a half is more of an interest among the broader community - the Federation system here calls it 'the surge' - people of all ages showing up and saying, 'We want to know more about what it means to be a Jew, because all of a sudden, being a Jew has become salient in our professional lives, in our educational systems, even our non-Jewish ones.' And so lots or organizations are saying, 'How do we Jews to what it means to be a Jew and what it means to support the State of Israel as the only state for Jews?' But that sometimes is a much more nuanced and complex conversation."
She notes that nuance and complexity necessitates providing education in a manner that acknowledges the historical complexity of Israel as a homeland for the Jews, the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and doing so in a way that can speak to the next generation of American Jews.
"Those types of questions are coming up: What are the boundaries of that relationship? What are the boundaries of where our American identity ends and where our Jewish identity ends? And where does Israel fit into all of that?" she says. "And so, I really do think that depending on which corner of the community you're talking to, you're going to have a different experience of what it means to be Jewish and what it means to connect to Israel."
Goldman adds, "Israelis, I find, tend to be somewhat locked into a kind of history that is limited to 150 years of Zionism, at best, and the geography of Kibbutz Dan to Eilat. And understanding, as Israelis, as Israeli Jews, that actually we form something which has a much longer and deeper history than the modern State of Israel, and [that] from geography, the Jewish experience has been on almost every continent and almost every country in the last thousand years two thousand year - choose the timeline that makes sense for you - I think it becomes quite a rest4rictive framework to think about Diaspora."
He notes that he has seen Israelis become astounded when they visited Diaspora communities and realized how different the Jewish experience and relationship with the country and community can be in London, Johannesburg, New York, and more cities around the world. "If you don't have the basic idea of: How old is the Jewish community in America? How did it develop? Where did it come from? What type of Jewish experience exists there? Not over the last 50 years, but over the last 300 years or 250 years. It's very difficult then to understand that people have a variety of responses to what happens in Israel."
He adds that, while Diaspora Jews follow the news of what happens in Israel, Israelis are less likely to follow what is happening in the Diaspora, leading to a lack of understanding of Diaspora communities and their diversity.
What can be done to strengthen the connection between Israel and the Diaspora? Goldman says, "There are two things I'd like to see happen. Number one, our education system to take a more in-depth look, a more nuanced, sophisticated look at Diaspora Jewry and its history, its makeup. I think there are actually some really easy ways to connect up."
One such method is to ask students where their grandparents or ancestors came from. "Just to be able to then connect that on a map and say, 'Well, actually, the mosaic that is Israeli society ultimately - not in the sense that we're all immigrants, but in the sense that we all have very deep roots in the Diaspora - is a great way to reopen that engagement. I think the education system, formal and informal, can do a tremendous amount more in order to build that sort of aspirational identity of an Israeli as part of that much wider Jewish spectrum."
"The second thing, which I think is probably one of the things which annoys me most about the Israel-Diaspora relationship, is on questions of antisemitism and so forth, where the Israeli government takes a role and at least considers itself to be partially responsible for defending against that or working against that. I think they should take a much deeper look and see what the interests of the local communities who are going through antisemitism [are] before the kind of statecraft or the ministerial type of approach, which often goes right above the leads of community leaders and is driven by diplomatic or political agendas and less about what's actually happening to the community," he says.
"Ultimately, Israel has to play a role in the fight against antisemitism, but the people who are ultimately at the end of that are the Jews of the Diaspora, who are the ones who suffer through antisemitism. So that is the other thing that I would love to see as a change. I think it would make a huge difference in the engagement between community leadership and official Israel. That would be my second suggestion," Goldman concludes.