Eighth in a series of essays
JERUSALEM — In an editorial, the Jerusalem Post correctly points out the reason that more American Jews are not moving to Israel:
THE OBSTACLE to American aliya [moving to Israel] is not financial. It is cultural. American Jews live their Jewish lives differently from anyone else in the world. For most, their Jewishness is just one of many affiliations, one aspect among many in their sense of self. Besides being Jews, they are also profoundly American, Democratic or Republican, passionate supporters of health care reform or human rights. Their identities — even their Jewishness — are constructed by the radically individualistic culture in which they live.
For such Jews, even the most Orthodox among them, to leave individualistic American spirituality behind and join a national Jewishness is to cross a vast chasm.
If American aliya is the goal, personal self-realization must be the means. Americans generally do not emigrate, and extremely rarely join other national collectives. But nearly all Americans seek to make of their lives meaningful stories, to set challenges and meet them, to take part in larger narratives. It is this way of thinking Jewishly that brings students to spend semesters in Israeli yeshivot and idealistic college students to volunteer in Israel’s poor neighborhoods by the thousands…
To bring American Jews, Israel must become open to American dreams. A country where religion is more often a political fault line than a force for good could stand to gain from asking American Jews to live their American religious story here. A country that awaits a constitution and struggles with improving the lot of even its most loyal minorities could stand to learn from liberal-minded American Jews about their very Jewish commitment to social justice and good governance.
If we want to bring American olim [immigrants], we, as a nation, have to give them a reason to come.
Of course, the first question — one often asked by my family and friends in the United States — is: “Why did I go to Israel?” Well, the reasons were both realistic and pragmatic as well as idealistic and passionate. After I was laid off from my position as Executive Director and Publisher of Spare Change News in Boston in February 2007, I could not find a job that would pay the bills in any field since the U.S. economy was just starting its downward trajectory. (As I noted in another post, a company’s workforce is the first to suffer in a recession and the last to recover when the economy improves.)
I did not have health insurance, and I was left with no income after my unemployment benefits expired several months later. As a result, I was left with the following options: stay in Boston and make my life work somehow; move back with my family near St. Louis; move close to other friends in Chicago; or move to Israel. Obviously, I chose to move to the Jewish state. Here were the practical reasons:
- My education, skills, and native English would probably open many opportunities in the Israeli job market, and I predicted that the U.S. economy was only to become worse;
- I could finish my M.B.A. for less money since Bar-Ilan University in Israel was cheaper than Suffolk University in Boston, and I would get an education grant from the government for moving to Israel;
- I would have Israel’s universal health-care, which I would need to treat a minor, life-long condition that I discovered after moving here. I would always have health-care that was essentially free in the event of an emergency.
- The cost of living — except for rent and high-end items like electronics — is cheaper, especially if one is able to earn a living in U.S. dollars rather than Israeli shekels.
- In most cases, companies are required by law to provide various pensions, benefits, and other things that have essentially disappeared from jobs in the United States. (Although, businesses here often take advantage of new workers who do not know the law.)
As I wrote in a prior essay, the reality of globalization means that countries are also competing with everyone else for resources like manpower and talent. The Israeli government and high-tech industry — though the latter is not without its faults — can capitalize on situations like mine to attract Western brains. As the Post editorial notes at the beginning, the economic conditions in the United States might have been responsible for a recent uptick in the numbers of Americans who are moving to Israel. Young people are increasingly upset and believe that they have no economic future in the United States.
Of course, my reasons for moving to Israel were not purely financial. I could have moved to, say, Mexico and probably have had the same benefits and advantages. The reasons that I chose Israel, in the end, were personal and philosophical.
In a comment on the Post editorial, an anonymous person makes the following point:
I will tell all of my American brethren that in spite of all [of the negative things about the Jewish state], only in Israel will you go out to a public restaurant or night club where everyone will light the Hannukia [menorah] and sing out loud.
When I lived in the city of Rishon Lezion in the center of the country for a year and a half, I observed this first-hand. Even in a part of the Jewish state that is extremely secular — sometimes to the point of being anti-religious and despising Jerusalem — people will still light a Chanukah menorah in a bar (see above), of all places, and start singing and wishing everyone a “hag sameach (happy holiday).” This is just one example of how living in the Jewish state permeates every aspect of daily life. For all of the difficulties of living here, it is wonderful to experience this fact. Still, there are amazing aspects of Israeli society as well — I frequently describe this country as a perfect combination of heaven and hell (mostly the former, by far). Israel is such a complicated place that it has so far taken me sixteen essays even to begin to describe life, religion, and politics here.
Still, the fact remains that the only Americans who would want to move to Israel — and stay here — are those who are greatly attached to Judaism and the Jewish people. As the Post editorial notes, not many American Jews are likely connected enough to make the move — despite the current, economic situation in the United States.
The foundations of identity are very different in the United States and countries that have been traditional nation-states like Israel and France. Citizens of the former are united by the ideas enshrined in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution while the vast majority of citizens in the latter examples are united only by their respective Jewish and Frankish ethnicities. In the United States, a person of Italian descent has both Italian and American identities that overlap — see the comments on this post — but rarely conflict.
American Jews, however, have always been torn between assimilating into the broader culture and retaining their heritage. Over the years, more have chosen the watering down of Judaism through non-Orthodox movements and the increasing acceptance and adaptation of aspects of secular, non-Jewish society. Most American Jews, if forced to make a choice between their Jewish and American identities, will choose the latter. For example, how many choose to intermarry and eat pork? Few of these Jews will ever visit Israel more than once, let alone move there.
Therefore, most of the Israeli and private money going towards convincing American Jews to move to Israel is a waste and would be put to use better elsewhere. A connection to Jewish religion and heritage among American Jews must come before aliyah, not the other way around. If the Jewish community wants to inspire future generations of American Jews to move to Israel in the future, it needs to invest in Jewish religion, culture, and education in the United States now. The current generation will not move to Israel, but larger proportions of future generations might.
Prior essay: The Jewish Fetish, Women in Jewish Society, Jews in America.