Isaac Luria, 26, On How The Jewish Mainstream Has Lost The Kids
I've discovered this from hard experience.
If I go out to speak to Jews in college or in their 20's and 30's about Israel. I'll get an enthusiastic response. But if the event is dominated by seniors -- as most Jewish events are -- I'm in big trouble.
Young Jews are either dovish on Israel or, most commonly, not interested in Israel at all (that latter group tends not to show up). But Jews in the 65-100 year old range skew heavily to the right. When I spoke in Rhode Island recently, I think I would have been murdered by rampaging (and racist) seniors if Lincoln Chafee had not been there to offer me ex-senatorial protection.
Why are young Jews so dovish on Israel (or indifferent)? Simple, they do not buy into the ethnic solidarity thing that the WW2 generation adheres to. They are friends with all kinds of people. They are not ethnic chauvinists or racists. They like the nice things about being Jewish (the culture, faith, food, the good parts of Israel) but do not buy into the paranoid "the whole world hates us" shtik. They are Americans. They aren't scared. And, with rare exceptions, they would not go near the mainstream Jewish organizations with a mile long pole.
Here is Isaac Luria, 26, who is the brains behind J Street's communication operation explaining his people to the rest of us here. In Isaac's words: "Consider, for a moment, the world in which my generation is growing up. Previously well-defined boundaries between ethnicities, religions and countries are blurring."
As Whitney Houston taught us :-), "I believe that children are our future."
Thank God.
Consider, for a moment, the world in which my generation is growing up. Previously well-defined boundaries between ethnicities, religions and countries are blurring.
it is happening and has always been happening, however small the movements. the direction of the internal movevement of our inner being is towards letting go of rigid attachments to ethnic-racial-religious identities. that does not mean obliterating one's ethnic identity. it's just not taken seriously and yet it can be fully celebrated.
ethnic identities are like clothes that our inner being wears. we have our favorite jeans and shirts. so too we have our favorite identities. at no time do we mistake our favorite jeans and shirts for who we are. so too we do not mistake our acquired identities for who we are. we can celebrate our heritage and embrace everyone else.
welcome to one humanity.
July 15, 2009 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
how can you gauge your attachment to your identities? simple, it's like this. you have a favorite pair of jeans and you lose them or you spill ink on them. or your brand new car gets a big scratch. if you obsess about it for hours or days, you are too attached. in the same way, if someone offends, criticizes, or makes fun of your ethnic-religious-racial identity and that pushes your buttons and you obsess about it, you are too attached to your identity.
July 15, 2009 10:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course, if that identity is also subject to violence by other segments of the population, then that criticism or making-fun-of can be a signal of a potential threat or a reminder that to walk down the street might mean taking one's own life into jeopardy.
Is a gay man being too attached to his identity when he sits in audience of Bruno and he feels unease as the audience is laughing at the over-the-top gay character? But, hey, it's all in good fun, right? Bruno can't be associated with gay bashing, can it?
July 15, 2009 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
So... is the straight audience laughing at the over-the-top Bruno character guilty of gay-bashing? How widely does the hate-crime curve skew?
July 17, 2009 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Jeff Sessions or Lindsay Graham in the Sotomayor hearings couldn't have put it any better.
July 16, 2009 10:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
So how's Lincoln doing these days? In the country's turning upon the Repubs, he was one the few victims. I can only wonder how different things would be going for Obama right now if he had a Chafee on the other side of the aisle.
July 15, 2009 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's running for governor. He'll probably win too. I felt bad when he lost (I supported Chafee) but Whitehouse is very good.
July 15, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
It sounds like some older members of my World Affairs Counsel are attending your speeches!
They even heckled Reza Aslan.
July 16, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Given the holocaust, reducing the Jewish response to a "world hates us" schitk seems a bit off target.
And if they now consider themselves "Americans," have they just switched one identity jacket for another. And doesn't the newest jacket merely subject them to fears and trepidation of islmo-fascists who hate us for our freedoms?
There has been a blurring. Sometimes this has been a result of identities being connected to a more inclusive view of community, one that rises about ethnicity and nationism (ie I'm a American). Sometimes this blurring comes from an apathy that leaves the individual identifying with nothing but personal need (the ones that don't show up.)
Obama's candidacy showed the younger generation in this country is a hung up on race: so many of them just didn't get what the big deal was about the fact he wasn't white. Youth turn out show there is a still long way to go to get them engaged at the apathetic level of those older Americans.
Today's Jewish youth are as removed from the holocaust as I am to the Depression. For better and for worse. But having recently experience someone who has, in my experience, exhibited nothing but progressive approach and views spew some anti-semitic bile the other day, I believe that the categories of the racist hawks of old and the enlightented doves of youth is too simplistic and doesn't recognize the reality of the continuing threat that comes from expressing one's identity. In certain places at the right time in this country, to proclaim "I'm Jewish and I'm proud" is as much as invitation for a beat down as it is to say "I'm gay," "I'm Muslim," etc.
July 15, 2009 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
being rigidly attached to one's identity also shows in how one reacts to the identities of other people. people who express anti-gay or anti-jewish or anti-arab reactions have a rigid attachment to their own identity and feel very threatened. as such it is only realistic to recognize this and take precautions from deluded people who can do you harm.
July 15, 2009 11:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
excellent point. it just points out that globally we have to work out a cultural answer to the need for identity that isn't destruvtive.
July 15, 2009 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
If in fact young jews are more dovish than their elders (I have no way of knowing if such an assertion is true, but it sounds about right), it is not because they have been raised in some sort of multi-culti paradise that has caused them to reject "ethnic chauvinism" and "racism" - which MJ curiously equates with support for Israel. The obvious reason is that young folk are a generation removed from the holocaust and more generations removed from the pogroms that preceded it. The slaughter of 6 million innocents, the centuries of persecution, indeed, the antisemitism their parents and grandparents experienced as immigrants to this country, are mere abstractions. Obviously, the concept of a jewish state has a different meaning for them. The formation of a state as a refuge for the Jewish people and the expression of a centuries-long yearning for a homeland to fulfill their national identity, so significant and moving for their elders, is to some an anachronism, and an inconvenient one at that. MJ endorses the most shallow aspect of this by stating that those who don't share this view do so out of ethnic chauvinism, racism and paranoia. It really is nothing short of pathological.
July 16, 2009 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
AG, let's be more precise, and not confuse political views on Middle East problems, West Bank settlements and US policy towards Israel (e.g. I'm probably as "dovish" as they come in that regard, I like what I see of Obama's policy, and would probably vote Meretz in Israeli elections), with the sense of ethnic and communal solidarity with Jews everywhere, and acknowledgment of seminal importance of Israel for continuity of Jewish people. Indeed, in this sense the younger generation of American Jews feel less strongly than the baby boomers, or the people who lived through the Holocaust and/or Stalin's terror - they feel just like their elders when the elders have been their age, and perceived themselves as completely assimilated Germans, Poles or Frenchmen, or as equal contributors to the Communist paradise on Earth. I guess every generation has to make its own mistakes - an original thought, right? Its one thing to read that wonderful and frequently quoted Arendt's thought of 1941:
and quite another - to feel that in your guts as a result of decades of your own personal experiences and disappointments, or stories of your own parents and grandparents. Young Jews who lend their support to Hamastan are either unable or unwilling to think through, what would happen to them after their cause wins - just as Soviet Jews were mostly unwilling or unable to think through what would follow the victory of Bolshevism, which they have enthusiastically supported. They'll learn, hopefully not too late. See, e.g. a wonderful project Blue Star PR , ran by young SF Jews.I think Luria and his J Street are good guys and doing a lot of good work. They organize as Jews to support causes they think are important for Jews in America. Good for them (especially since I personally support their goals).
July 16, 2009 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said and agreed.
I am a tweener myself. Not young enough to qualify as one of MJ's young jews, but thankfully too young to have felt more than occasional anti-semitism, fully assimilated and secular.
July 16, 2009 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and I forgot to mention, the song is not by Whitney Houston. It was written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed and originally recorded by George Benson. The line is laughably trite.
July 16, 2009 12:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I love that line. It is so amazingly stupid. "I believe" that children are our future.
What is the opposing position?
I love it.
Thanks for the info on the lyricists.
July 16, 2009 8:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Two random thoughts:
1. Jews in Germany were approaching a similar opinion before the 30's. In fact, Reform Judaism was anti-zionist until about 1936(?). I think Kristalnacht changed their mind.
2. Anyone who has observed the racism and hate flowing from elders like Dershowitz and Foxman would naturally be repelled.
July 16, 2009 12:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
July 16, 2009 2:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cruel. Why?
July 16, 2009 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ, speaking as a highly assimilated Jew, I'd have to say that young Jews have a GREATER sense of identity as Jews now than we did back then, or at least than my crowd did.
Back then, the focus on identity politics was African Americans. You didn't have anything like Jewcy or J Street or Moses House. It was just the tired Jewish establishment and...nothing. That's why the chavurah movement came into being: To give young Jews an alternative to their parents' Judaism, if you will.
July 16, 2009 6:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesing stuff MJ. It's always good to see evidence that the words "Hitler" and "Nazi" won't have the same fear-mongering effect on the wider public, especially in America where the memory of past brutality has been misused so often by pols in their justifications of foreign aggression. I've read in Ha'aretz and other papers that there is a 'brain-drain' amongst Israel's university students/professors, who are widely choosing to go overseas to live and work if they have the connections and resources. Is this all part of a broader trend? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this issue if you have time. Keep up the great work.
July 16, 2009 9:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Aish HaTorah is an energetic 'reachout' organization that targets unaffiliated Jews to bring them back to their heritage. In that, they are often extraordinarily successful. However, in the final analysis, approaching 50% of all young Jews, marry a Gentile partner.
There has been no definitive research on the causes of this phenomena but it is reasonable to assume that Jewish university graduates are either bored with the obvious propaganda that emanates from the Israel Foreign Ministry or are turned-off by the sickening violence inflicted by the IDF on an oppressed ethnic minority. Violence that is shown daily throughout the media, alongside the vehement denials from an all too often arrogant Israeli government spokesperson.
Young Jews learn very quickly that there is no obvious connection between their own peaceful ethnicity and the violence of the Zionist Movement.
As has been said many times: 'most Israelis may be Jews but most Jews are not Israeli.'
July 16, 2009 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
This Aish HaTorah?
The one that is allied with the settlers.
http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2008/10/did-aish-hatora.html
July 16, 2009 9:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
hmmm.. well, I'm not that up-to-date with such mentioned political activity. Aish HaTorah's primary objective was always to discourage intermarriage. Perhaps they have now also been infiltrated by Likud or taken over by AIPAC - like everything and everybody else.
July 16, 2009 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hold the phone! Aren't these the same young American Jews that just a few short weeks ago we were all supposed to believe were represented by all those racist barroom bellyachers in that Max Blumenthal video you turned us on to?
July 16, 2009 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, because the American Jews that Max interviewed were in Israel. Which is the point.
You know, at my Catholic Church the parishners are American and Catholic. So may I conclude that every American is Catholic?
July 16, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't follow your point.
July 16, 2009 7:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting remarks by MJ, the linked article, and readers comments. I have difficulty, however, believing that the "generation gap" within American Jewry is as significant as many of these posts imply.
Jews were important and vibrant contributors to American society, politics and intellectual culture for many long decades before anyone had heard of a state of Israel, let alone the post-Rabin Israel that has been heavily affected by hypocritical politicians competing for votes using Nazi-like ideas and policies (fear, blind prejudice, collective punishment, brutal oppression, Blitzkrieg terror, ethnic cleansing for Lebensraum, etc.) - e.g. the often corrupted, clumsy, and disgraced Israel of the last 25% of the history of that state; a period that, however, coincides with 100% of the post-primary-school life of a 26 year old today.
In my experience, at least, most American Jews are more pro-America than pro-Israel and I doubt whether that ranking has varied greatly either over the long term or across generations. Reactions by audiences of Issac and MJ may very well provide an interesting set of political and psychological barometers, but seem unlikely to be reliably representative of the attitudes of Jews in the US, either as a whole or across age sub-groups.
July 16, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe another aspect of this has to do with emphasis. I get tired of everything Jewish being about Israel and/or the Holocaust. This isn't to minimize those issues, but Judaism is about other things too.
Judaism when done right is timeless and timely. To appeal to today's youth, it needs to be presented more timely and more immediate.
In other words, don't stop talking about those things, but talk about other things too. Good rabbis do this. I think the non-religious Jewish organizations are sometimes actually scared to talk about other subjects because then they get religious.
July 16, 2009 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
@sj660
'Judaism when done right is timeless and timely' How right you are. But how will you solve the problem of Judaism being intentioanlly and cynically made a synonym for the politics of the Zionist Movement?
When you comment that 'Good rabbis do this', they may do so in America but in Israel apparently they were in Gaza inciting the troops to kill anything that moves. As always, religion is used as an excuse and many of us are too receptive to being brain-washed by people who rightfully belong in a shatnas-testing station.
Anyone with half a head could see that extreme violence against civilians is an atrocity - unless you can persuade yourself that such behavior is validated by your religion - which, of course, in Gaza and Lebanon, it was most certainly not.
July 16, 2009 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink