In his column last week, “An Editor’s Farewell And A Call To ‘Return’” Gary Rosenblatt wonders “whether there is enough of a sense of shared history and belief in a common fate that will hold (American and Israeli Jews) together as a people.” That it no longer a question. Because there is virtually none.
The real problem is not whether liberal American Jews lack a sense of shared history with Israel. The problem is that — as they beat an exit from the Jewish stage — they lack even a shared history with themselves. Jewish illiteracy and ignorance in America is pathological and appalling.
The result is an evaporating American Jewry that conflates Judaism with the progressive wing of a Democratic Party that is, not coincidentally, hostile to Israel. As such it is an increasing reality that the last manifestation of Jewish selfhood among liberal Jews in America is an escalating and vocal hostility toward the Jewish state.
Online comment
The New York Jewish Week brings you the stories behind the headlines, keeping you connected to Jewish life in New York. Help sustain the reporting you trust by donating today.
