This Week
Different Priorities
Peace talks don't rank high on agenda
of young Jewish activists.
Happy 75th Wedding Anniversary
Herta & Eugene Orbach
HOWARD LOVY .
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Washington
•
sraeli and Palestinian negotiators
are resuming peace talks in
Washington this week and
President Clinton has set a meet-
ing with Syria's president, but don't tell
the details to Julianne Berkon, a cam-
paign associate with the Jewish
Federation of Greater Washington.
She'll get too angry
.
It's not that she doesn't care about
Israel and the Middle East peace process.
It's that she cares too much, so much
that she would just rather tune the whole
thing out, or just skim the headlines.
Berkon hates the idea of Israel giving
up land for peace, doesn't believe it
should cede one inch of the Golan
Heights to Syria; but she also just as ,
firmly believes that unless you live in
Israel, you have no right to tell Israelis
what they should or should not give up:
So because of her role as a federation
professional — in which she cannot be
perceived as taking sides — and as an
American Jew, she'll keep silent and leave
the future of Israel up to the Israelis.
As 3,000 Jews between the ages of
25 and 45 gathered in Washington
this week for the United Jewish
Communities' Young Leadership
Conference, the handshakes between
Israelis and Palestinians set to occur in
this same town seemed not to be No.
1 on the list of things to think about.
To be sure, many have strong opin-
ions about the emotional issues of the
Golan and the status of Jerusalem.
But some say there is too much for
them to do As Jews in their own .com-
munities to get too worked up over a
land to which they may have spiritual,
emotional and historic ties, but is still
a foreign nation.
I
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Finding A Connection
As the Holocaust, Israel's independence
and even the 1967 and 1973 wars in
Israel fade further into memory, the
shift of priorities was perhaps inevitable
for this generation — among the most
affluent of Jewish generations in history.
How can Israel reclaim these Jews?
By speaking their language, says
Sara Selber, 43, co-chair of the YLC
conference. And that language has to
involve hands-on, "tactile" experiences.
Hands-on work is what made this
generation successful in the business
world, and it can be true in its con-
nection to Israel, Selber says.
With the connection to Israel not
automatic among younger Jews, she
says, Israel has to earn their support.
The work of the activists at this
conference in helping to resettle dis-
tressed Jews from the former Soviet
Union and Ethiopia is a way for them
to see that Israel is more than simply
another Mideast nation. As Selber's co-
chair, Louis Price, put it, they can see
that Israel is a "light unto the nations.'
But for New York lawyer Stacy
Schneider, 33, there's too much to do
in this country to worry about what
Israel represents.
She came to the Young Lea
. dership
Conference because she is frightened by
the religious right in America, especial-
. ly .their resurfacing in the presidential
campaign, and wants to learn what she
can do to keep the line between church
and state in America well defined.
-More real to her than an Arab enemy
are those who would impose their reli-
gious will on her in the United States.
It's a fear that.was reinforced when she .
encountered religious ignorance and
antisemitisin among her peers in a
Savannah, Ga., newsroom, where she
once worked as a- TV news reporter.
. As for Israel, she feels a connection
mostly when there is a tragedy —
when Jews die in a terrorist attack. .
During times of peace, she says, she
feels removed.
Schneider says what little connection
she feels to Israel is media-driven. She
says "Bibi" Netanyahu -- she calls him
by his nickname because she says she
feels she knows him — offered her a
human link to Israel when he was prime
minister because he was so telegenic.
.
-
True Believers
Despite the abundance of people like
Schneider, there are also a passionate core
who do think and breathe Israeli politics
and get emotional over the peace process.
They were evident in well-attended
conference sessions on Israeli life, the
religious-secular debate in Israel and,
in one packed conference room, a