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Jews in our curriculum before.' I said to
them, 'Huh? You've never taught about
American Jewry?' They said no — a few lit-
tle things here and there, but never
anything comprehensive. I said, 'We're
talking about the largest, most successful
Jewish community in the world:
"It turns out that every year they study
about a different Jewish community," ex-
plained Wall. "They've done Russian Jews,
European Jews, and Ethiopian Jews, but
never American Jews. It seems that
American Jews are too secure and too pros-
perous to be taught about here. It wasn't
a stated policy not to teach Israeli kids
about them. No one said, 'Don't teach
about American Jews: It was just under-
stood that you didn't."
Still another Israeli response to the
dependence on America has been to im-
pugn American Jewish life, or hope for an
outbreak of anti-Semitism there that will
drive American Jews to Israel.
Yaron Ezrahi, the Hebrew University
political theorist and a man deeply in-
volved in the Israeli peace movement, en-
countered this latter trend in its baldest
form when he was invited to debate a
representative of the Gush Emunim settler
movement before a visiting delegation of
"Jewish leaders" from Florida.
"Before the debate began," recalled
Ezrahi, "I prepared myself to try to explain
to these Jews from Florida why the Gush
Emunim settlement movement was de-
structive to our traditions and collective
identity and not helpful to our security and
dangerous for `aliya' (immigration). The
Gush man was the first to talk. He said
that the West Bank belongs to the Jews,
that it was part of Eretz Yisrael (the Land
of Israel) and that the Arabs don't count
and that no one should dictate to the Jews
what to do.
"This was a time when a lot of illegal set-
tlements were being built. Then he gave
this very impassioned speech about
biblical and historical rights. So one guy
from Florida stands up and says to him,
`You're counting on massive aliya from the
West to realize your plan, aren't you?' And
the man said yes.
"So the guy from Florida says, 'How can
you possibly expect immigration from
Western liberal democrats when what you
project through the settlements is the kind
of aggressive lack of consideration of
minority rights and all kinds of other
things which tarnish the image of Israel
and can only encourage anti-Semitism
abroad? Because the way you treat your
minorities is how Jewish minorities will be
treated. What right will we American Jews
have to claim to be treated well as a
minority?'
"So this Gush Emunim guy smiled from
ear to ear. 'Sir,' he said, 'you don't unders-
tand what you're saying. Anti-Semitism is
the means through which massive Jewish
aliya will come, so if we can contribute by
enabling you in the West to see all the anti-
Semites around you, it will encourage you
to emigrate — and especially to the West
Bank. That is what we want.'
"Well," added Ezrahi, "these American
Jews devoured him. There was so much
anger directed at him from those people
from Florida that I didn't have to say
another thing. Israelis like this Gush
Emunim guy believe only in aliya through
Apocalypse Now. For him, the best news
of the year was that Jesse Jackson was
running for president. If he lived in Miami,
he would have voted for Jackson. For him
and his kind, the worst case scenario for
American Jews is always the best possibili-
ty?'
For American Jews, discovering the
"real" Israel began in earnest in 1973,
when Egyptian troops overran the Israeli
army along the Suez Canal and American
Jews realized that their Israeli heroes were
not supermen after all.
This was reinforced by the banking scan-
dals and exposure of corruption under the
Labor governments of the mid-1970s. But
the real jolt for American Jews came in
1977, when Menachem Begin and his
right-wing Likud Party took power for the
first time, replacing the Labor Party
pantheon — Abba Eban, Golda Meir,
Shimon Peres, Yigal Allon, Yitzhak Rabin,
Simcha Dinitz — with whom American
Jews had been working since Israel was
founded.
Begin brought to the government of
Israel a whole new cast of characters, with
an agenda that was alien to many liberal,
non-Orthodox American Jews. Begin
spoke of settling the whole West Bank, and
was not ashamed to appear on American
television wagging his finger and telling
the United States that it had no right to
lecture the Jews about what to do. Begin
was ready to indulge messianic Jewish set-
tlers and ultra-Orthodox rabbis who
wanted to use the Israeli parliament to
delegitimize the Reform and Conservative
branches of Judaism. Begin was also ready
to use Israel's military might, not only for
defensive purposes, but for offensive ones
as well.
Once American Jews were dragged off
the tour bus and forced to look at Israel
as a living reality, and not just as a sym-
bol of Jewish identity, they found it quite
different — both religiously and political-
ly — from what they had imagined. Many
of them still haven't gotten over the
shock. ❑
This article is excerpted from From
Beirut to Jerusalem, by Thomas L. Fried-
man, just published by Farrar, Straus &
Giroux. Copyright © 1989 by Thomas L.
Friedman. All rights reserved. This excerpt
was made possible by The Fund For Jour-
nalism on Jewish Life, a project of The
CRB Foundation of Montreal, Canada.
Any views expressed are solely those of the
author.