September 15, 2008

By Alex Sinclair

In a recent Haaretz opinion piece, Anshel Pfeffer wrote that the Jewish Agency, by ceding its aliyah portfolio to Nefesh B'Nefesh, has "signed its own death certificate."

A more thoughtful examination of this recent decision leads to a very different conclusion: that the Jewish Agency has made a profound and admirable strategic decision about the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora in the 21st century.

In the first decades of the Jewish Agency's existence, its primary function was to bring two things from the Diaspora to Israel: money and people. Diaspora Jews, especially Americans, were urged to support Israel financially in every way possible. And, indeed, without Diaspora Jewish money, it is doubtful that the State of Israel would have survived economically in its early years.

But Israel didn't only want Diaspora Jewish money. A core component of Zionist thought, Israeli political strategy, and Jewish Agency organizational vision, was the belief that Diaspora Jews - all of them - should move to Israel. This "shlilat hagolah" (negation of the Diaspora) was central to Israelis and Israeliness. As a teenager on an Israel trip in the 1980s, I remember being asked countless times, by tour guides, taxi drivers, and shopkeepers: "Nu, why do you live in the Golah - you must make aliyah!"

Astute followers of modern Jewish history might notice that this sledgehammer approach to aliyah has had rather limited success. This is the case across the First World Diaspora, and especially in America. American Jews have stayed in America. More to the point, American Jews feel at home in America. For them, America is not "exile" - it is home.

American Jewry disproves each and every classical Zionist thinker: its integration into American society debunks Herzl's belief in the persistence of Diaspora anti-Semitism; its artistic and cultural creativity is a slap in the face to Ahad Ha'am, who believed that only in Israel could Jewish culture flourish; and its religious diversity and creativity offers a humbling rebuke to Rav Kook, or anyone else who still believes that Israel is the only place in the world where the Jewish religion can develop in a creative and holy fashion.

Any Zionist organization, therefore, that continues to operate under the banner of "here is good; there is bad" is totally misreading the map of the Jewish people today. For anyone who cares about the Jewish people, about Israel, and yes, about Zionism in the 21st century, the question is not "how can we get Diaspora Jews to make aliyah?" but "how can we get Diaspora Jews to engage with Israel and with each other?"

The Jewish Agency should be applauded for recognizing this. And now, with this new decision, the Agency has made its strategic direction clear: it is Israel education and engagement, not aliyah-mongering, that will save the connection between Diaspora Jewry and Israel.

Furthermore, we need to reconceptualize completely just what we mean by Israel education and engagement, a process that the Agency has also embarked on.

Israel education in the past too often relied on one-sided, shallow, and sometimes contradictory narratives: Israel as a despised but heroic David surrounded by a series of genocidal Goliaths; Israel as a refuge for Jews ejected from the third world; Israel as a poverty-stricken country desperate for Diaspora help; Israel as a Biblical Eden of kibbutzim and camels. The narratives of Israel that we must present to young people today are very different. We must present Israel as it really is: a society that is diverse, complex, hilarious, confusing, beautiful, ugly, spiritual, messy, frustrating, enriching, old and new.

If we do this kind of Israel engagement and education successfully, then Diaspora Jews will want to talk, think, create and work together with Israelis about where Israel is and where it's going. Complexity and conversation will lead to commitment; but not necessarily to aliyah - and that's ok.

Ultimately, we must acknowledge that American Jews don't need to make aliyah in order to be good Zionists. Israel can learn a lot from American Jewry, and American Jews can learn a lot from Israel; but that will only happen if Israel stops guilt-tripping American Jews and starts treating them like partners whom it wishes to invite into thoughtful, meaningful conversations about how, together, we as the Jewish people can help Israel flourish in every way.

Aliyah is a fine and wonderful thing to encourage. I've even done it myself. Nefesh B'Nefesh should go from strength to strength. But the Jewish Agency's job must be to advocate for and initiate 21st century Israel education and engagement. It is possible to create commitment to Israel through complexity and conversation. Let us stop negating the Diaspora and start talking with it.

Dr Alex Sinclair, who made aliyah in 1998, is a lecturer in Jewish Education at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, as well as an adjunct assistant professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.