Israelis, Jews and Jewishness

As young as elementary school, we start getting lessons on America’s diversity. “What is an American? What does an American look like?” That’s when we’re taught and reminded that we come in all colors and from all parts of the world. Kids named Juan and Jamal are as American as kids named John and Mike.

Hopefully, if a kid’s parents aren’t too racist and the kid is reasonably impressionable, it works. I never questioned that Eric Chang and Maurice Moore were just as much a part of my class, my neighborhood and my world as Tommy Smith or Jason Zimring.

America’s heterogeneous makeup isn’t unique, but fairly rare in the world. Often in countries who are becoming mixed ethnic such as Britain, France and Germany, there is a dominant homogenous culture in the center which immigrant populations are expected to join and mirror because these dominant cultures are the very definition of their countries.

Israel is a country of and for Jews. We tend to think of it like a homogenous culture like Britain, France, Germany, Norway, Thailand or China. The people who occupy it have been a people since Abraham took his son up to a rock to sacrifice him.

While this isn’t my first time here, I am increasingly struck by the diversity of Israeli culture.

What is an Israeli? Dark skin and hair? Fair skin, blue eyes? Red headed? Religious? Tattooed and pierced? Kosher? Observant? Conservative? Liberal? Open-minded? Tolerant? Progressive? Warm? Cold? Angry? Militant? Peaceful? Distrustful? Open hearted? Hawks? Doves? Jews? Arabs?

I have seen all of these in our brief time here. I have seen more warmth and kindness than anything else. I have been impressed with the general level of tolerance as people with caftans, hats and beards walk the same sidewalks with the pierced and tattooed. I have seen Israelis as red haired and white skinned as my cousin Amy and as dark as the Ethiopian Jewish immigrants. I have met Arabs who speak Hebrew fluently and participate positively in the society – in what they have embraced or at least made peace with as their country.

Some see Israel as a place to observe their faith deeply, seriously and freely. For others, Israel is just a safe-haven to which they were able to immigrate, but they want nothing to do with religion.

And then there’s the interesting question of what it is to be a Jew and to be Jewish. For some, it clearly means living a life centered around continuous religious practice.

But for others, it seems to that having their entire world be Jewish makes them secure in their identity and faith without having to work so hard at it. They don’t try – it just is.

Last night as we viewed our wedding photo proofs online with Ziv and Hila, they said that they had never seen a wedding in a synagogue. They don’t have as many traditions and little “ceremonies” as part of the evening. And then Ziv got to the heart of it, “We don’t have to work so hard to make it Jewish – everything here is Jewish.”

I realized how wonderful that is – to feel so Jewish that there is no trying. I also thought that perhaps there is a need and purpose to Jews of the diaspora. Perhaps in some ways, our struggle to keep our lineages and traditions in tact – in the work it takes to be actively Jewish, marry Jewish and even harder, to raise children Jewish – amid our clinging to our identities, there are traditions we preserve.

The key to the American Jew is the legacy of our grandparents and great grandparents – the traditions, language and recipes they carried with them to America. They struggled to carry the pieces of their Judaism and identities with them and to hand them down.

Those of us who commit to our Jewish identities in a place where no such commitment is required and in which letting them go would be easier, have no choice but to look to what was given us by those who worked so hard to do so. I think of how my family on both sides revered my great grandparents for what they brought from Europe and what they gave.

Here in Israel, they remember and honor, but more in the way that we remember and honor Washington and Jefferson. Much as we take our liberties and security for granted – the work of our founding fathers successfully completed – so Israel rests comfortably in its Jewishness.

We breathe freely where they fight for their security and future. They breathe freely where we cling to and to and struggle for our identities and lineage.

Again, I find myself asking the same question I do so often on this journey – who is better off?

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