Even Here:

Israel, Jewish Identity, and Life in the Minority

Rabbi Michael L. Feshbach

Temple Beth Am, Williamsville, New York

One summer, as I was walking down the street, I saw a man wearing a shirt that proclaimed a great truth. It's old, and it's obvious, but I had never heard it before. "Nostalgia," this man's shirt said, "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be."

We live in a time of Jewish history awash in anniversaries. But, alas, nostalgia isn't what it used to be. For these past few years are a tale not so much of anniversaries observed, as of commemorations marred, celebrations overshadowed by the bitter taste of present strife. Conflicts with Palestinians took away enthusiasm for the Jerusalem 3000 festivities last year, too many bombs in buses and crowded cafes and fruit stands. The centennial anniversary of the First Zionist Congress, in Basel, Switzerland, was marred by revelations of the role of the Swiss during and after the Shoah, and an eruption of backlash antisemitism in the city once witness to the rebirth of Jewish nationalism. The golden anniversary party for Israel, set for this coming spring, is amuck in politics and controversy, while sticks and stones as well as words are being thrown by Jew against Jew in Jerusalem, with answers no closer, fifty years after the founding of the country, to the question of what it means to be a Jewish state.

There are times... when I feel compelled to write about Israel. But I do not want to delve into the politics, nor even, at the moment, the conflicts that push Jews apart from one another. Rather -- at least for now -- I want to dwell on what brings us together, what experience it is we share as American Jews that Israel can still address, on a spiritual level.

On a personal level, sometimes, it is not that easy for me to write about Israel. It's like a story which doesn't sound quite the same when retold: sometimes, to really get it, you just had to be there. But I will come back to that.

It is also hard for me to speak about Israel for another reason. As I was packing up my study to leave Erie, I came across a single picture in a once lost file. It was a picture of a desert. Of Kibbutz Lotan, the Reform movement's second agricultural commune in the Negev. With that one picture all the memories came back, all the discussions, the pull of family verses the hand of history, the spindle from which spun my own thread in the story of our people. For me, this was a road not taken, the decision I made not to remain after my junior year of college, and make aliyah to Israel. I am not sure a week goes by in which I do not think about that decision. Not with regret, exactly. But with nostalgia, of sorts, for a player on the stage of Jewish life that never came to be. But one door closes. And a window opens.

For good or bad, as American Jews, most of our lives are here, not there. Because Israel is far away, we must remind ourselves that events in, even the existence of Israel affects our lives as Jews. Because religious rhetoric from ultra-Orthodox fanatics has been so harsh, we must remind ourselves of the lesson of last week, of Kol Nidrei, of the inflammatory power of the tongue, the grave importance of choosing our words with care. And because it is so easy to react to this internecine strife by pulling away, by distancing ourselves, by reducing our own commitment and involvement, we must, above all, strive to retain a larger perspective. For remember: if all of Jewish history were written on one page, all four thousand years of wandering from the time Abraham set out on a journey whose end he could not know, all of it written out on one single sheet of paper, then this century alone, indeed, events in the living memory of many of Jews in the world today, would merit two full paragraphs: the smokestacks of Europe, and the new dawn on the distant shore of a Mediterranean sea. In the awesome span of four millennia, we ourselves are witness to the great and the terrible, the best and the worst of that story called Judaism. No wonder the time is full of tumult. For the ink on the last paragraph is not yet dry. Indeed, what we are fighting over is no less than who holds the pen to write the next page.

In assessing the role of Israel in our lives, we touch much more than one land and one national government. We build bridges across continents, to reach every Jewish life, and every Jewish community in the world today. But wherever we live, outside of Israel, the fact remains: we need Israel. As Jews. Of whatever denomination. We need Israel. In more ways than one.

Do you remember the children's stories of Dr. Doolittle? He could talk to the animals! There was one creature in particular that I remember, a wonderful creature. It was a horse, sort of, only it had two heads, one on each end of the body, facing in opposite directions. I think it was called a "Pushmepullyou."

That is what Israel is. It is a PushmePullyou. A place to which Jews may turn if, God forbid, they are pushed from the lands of their birth. But it is more. There is also a pull. It is also a place that draws us to it, all Jews, persecuted or free.

The image is incomplete, however. For both of these, the push and the pull, focus on our leaving here, and going there. And Israel plays a vital role in Jewish life, even for those with no plans to settle there permanently.

Any place outside the land of Israel is called in Hebrew galut. The word means "exile." I prefer the term Diaspora, which means dispersion. It is more descriptive, less perjorative. But, there is a way in which life outside the land is an exile, although one for which even a short trip provides a ready antidote.

Newsflash: did you know that Jews are a minority in this country? Now, I can tell you that I really don't feel like quite as much of a minority as I recently did. In Erie, I was often the first Jew that many people had ever met. So, based on my recent experience, Buffalo is a bustling, cosmopolitan, and huge Jewish community. (It isn't, of course. It just feels that way for now. Almost all experience is relative. Well, I shouldn't say that, either. In some small communities, almost everyone is a relative.) But we are a minority nevertheless, everywhere in this country. Even in Brooklyn.

Being a minority means being different. There are some benefits to being different. And there are reasons why we are at home here in America, as nowhere else in the whole history of the Diaspora, reasons for another time.

But while we work hard to convey to our children that being different is not better, not worse, just different, we also know that there is a subliminal and pervasive definition of what is normal in society... and that we are not it. I believe that there is something not entirely... whole... about spending one's whole life as a minority. That to be always on the margin -- or always an ambassador -- tears at the soul.

Now, everyone is a minority in one way or another. To be a woman in a "man's" field, black in a white world, a Catholic among Protestants, any kind of Christian in China. We can live like this. Most people do. But the rhythm of time, the flow of the seasons, the inner beat of the psychic heart is set to someone else's standards. I believe that to live like that forever is not a fully integrated life. It is difficult. It is, perhaps... not as we are meant to be. Unless... unless we get a dose of help. In the form of reconnecting with normality. Of tasting life in the majority. Even if only for a short while.

This is what support groups do for many working women. Or trips to Jamaica do for African-Americans. And it is, of course, what our connection to Israel can do for us as Jews.

This is a Christian country. Not officially, and we should keep it that way. Not by doctrine, and that is why we have flourished here. But by the flow of the seasons, the cycle of time and the engine of the December-oriented capitalist enterprise, it is quite clear: we are at home here, yes, as never before... but we are also often outsiders still. Our holidays, our week, our inner clock is different than that of most Americans.

Israel gives us the chance to realign the clock. What is hard to convey is that feeling: being in a supermarket on a Friday morning, having as many people wish you "Shabbat Shalom" as cashiers say "Merry Christmas" here in December. Having the whole country shut down for this night, "our" night. No tests on Rosh Hashanah, no homecoming games on Yom Kippur. No fighting for time off for Jewish holidays. No time blown on personal days, while co-workers get religious holidays off as a matter of course. No driving down your street after Thanksgiving, and being the only house without colorful lights. (They are beautiful lights, and wonderful trees. I go out of my way to see them, on the private property of my Christian neighbors. But they are not our lights or trees.)

Just to taste what it is like to be in the majority, to realign our inner clock with the beating heart of our own history and heritage... to do this even for a short while makes it easier to carry that clock around inside us when we return to minority lives again. Except for Jewish camps for kids, there is nowhere else, there is almost nothing else, that can help recharge our Jewish battery, help mend our Jewish soul, as much as a trip to Israel. We need Israel... because of what it can do for us. For our Jewish identity. Even here.