Yossi Klein Halevi criticizes "emotional gap" between American and Israeli Jews

“Horror.” “Sadness.” “Disappointment.” Last night, when author and journalist Yossi Klein Halevi asked the audience to express their feelings about the massacre last Tuesday of 4 worshippers at a Jerusalem synagogue, these were the words that the audience, which consisted primarily of American Jews, chose. The audience’s answers, however, exemplified the very problem Halevi addressed in his talk.

In a lecture co-hosted by J Street UPENN and the Penn Israel Public Affairs Committee, both part of Hillel’s Israel sector, Halevi expressed his deep concern about the growing “emotional gap” between Israeli and American Jews. He said that the Israeli Jews’ responses to the same question would likely elicit words like anger and fear rather than sadness and disappointment.

In a world in which the majority of the world’s Jewish population is concentrated between the United States and Israel, the need to address this gap is only growing, Halevi said. Given this fact, Halevi’s primary fear — what he termed his “nightmare vision” — is a world in which each Jewish community becomes a “prisoner of its geographical circumstances,” in which individuals in certain cultures are turned so inward that they have trouble understanding alternative perspectives.

Halevi engaged the audience by digging into the history of Israeli-American relations to assess how their interests diverged over time.

After Israel was created, Halevi said, tension emerged between the Jewish populations in the U.S. and Israel. “Two creative centers of Jewish life emerged with virtually no understanding of the inner Jewish life,” Halevi said, adding that these tensions were exacerbated by concerns about “dual loyalty” among American Jews.

At the conclusion of his talk, Halevi called for American Jews to recognize their “responsibility to deepen the conversation.” He urged American Jews to criticize Israel only once they had acquired a point of cultural understanding. Otherwise, Halevi said, they would only confirm the “American naivety” stereotype held by many Israelis.

The issue is complex, but Halevi was optimistic about the potential for a sustainable and healthy relationship between American and Israeli Jews.

PIPAC plans to host monthly discussions on other controversial Israeli issues beginning next semester.

Corrections: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that 30 worshipers were killed in Jerusalem. 4 worshipers were killed. A previous version of this article also incorrectly named the student group that will hold monthly discussions next semester. The group is JStreet, not PIPAC. The DP regrets the errors. 

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