No Longer Silent
American Jews are loudly voicing their support for Israel.
CARL SCHRAG
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
lence among the majority?
Editor's note: This is the third in a series on the changing
relationship between American Jews and Israel.
Like Hiller, not all of today's activists came from the
traditional core. John Carey, a designer from San
Francisco, is one such newcomer. Until recently, Carey,
39, was an apolitical person who says he "had no opin-
ion on the subject" of Israel.
But the self-described "typical Berkeley liberal" was
jolted by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and he
began to read in order to understand what was happen-
ing. His reading list included Thomas Friedman, David
Shipler, Kenneth Pollack and Leon Uris, and he got
hooked on Commentary magazine. 'All of a sudden, I
was neo-con man,'" he said.
Carey and his pro-Israel friends lamented Israel's
poor public relations efforts. "Each time the Israelis
brought out another general" to speak on American tel-
evision in thickly accented English, Carey said, he
thought that there must be a better way.
Carey began to design posters and bumper stickers to
press Israel's cause. He worked with people at the
University of California at Berkeley, at the time a
hotbed of anti-Israeli activity.
Now Carey has created Blue Star PR, which has
received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant
money to improve Israel's image. Carey says his activi-
ties on behalf of Israel also help him and other Jews live
more secure lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where
anti-Israel sentiment is prevalent.
But he's bothered by a sense that too many other
people have remained silent. "The stuff that's out there
has not worked," he said. 'Am I the first person to
think of this?"
But Carey is just one example of this awakening. For
some, the turning point was the October 2000 lynch-
ing of two Israeli army reservists in Ramallah; others
say the August 2001 bombing of Jerusalem's Sbarro's
pizzeria prompted them to take action. Still others cite
the spate of attacks in March 2002, including the
Passover massacre of 30 Israelis who were sitting down
to a Passover seder. Still others say that Sept. 11
prompted a new sense of connection with Israel.
Whatever the trigger, many American Jews have
sought meaningful ways to stand up and be counted.
Interviews with activists yield a crop of similar senti-
ments:
• People point to the lessons of history, including the
Holocaust, and say they can't stand by silently.
• Some see a clear link between the terrorism aimed
at Israel and America's own war on terrorism. Israel,
they say, is the world's canary in the mine shaft.
• Some never before had paid much attention to
Israel.
• Others say their sense that Israel had been on the
Chicago
Hiller was in a jovial mood on a recent
ill im
Sunday morning. "I've got a herd of pick-
eters outside two of my stores," the 56-year-
old Detroit grocery-store owner said.
The picketers were protesting Hiller's
decision to feature Israeli products in his six-store
chain. Rather than back down, Hiller seemed to take
pleasure in digging in for what has become an increas-
ingly public demonstration of his support for Israel.
Concerned about the economic price Israel had been
paying since the start of the Palestinian intifada in
September 2000, Hiller began stocking Israeli produce,
cheeses and canned goods in his store. "You cannot
imagine a person who would be less likely than me to
do this," Hiller said while protesters handed out leaflets
to shoppers.
Until a few years ago, Hiller's main connection to
Israel was what he calls a "perfunctory" annual gift to
Federation's Annual Campaign. Now he sells 1,000
Israeli products to his mostly non-Jewish customers,
and he's a hero in the Jewish community.
Across the country, many Jews have sought ways to
show their support for Israel as the country's security
and diplomatic situation has deteriorated since the
peace process collapsed in 2000. The outpouring has
been dramatic, often coming from the least expected
sources.
Countless American Jews have been deluged by e-
mails forwarded by people who never seemed to show
any interest in Israel prior to the intifada. Petitions,
links to articles, dire warnings, heartfelt appeals —
cyberspace has opened the door to a new world of
involvement that allows people who in years past might
have remained passive to get involved with just a few
clicks of the mouse.
Many American Jews have rallied in more active
ways. Letter writing, demonstrating and fund-raising
are but a few tools in the arsenal of today's pro-Israel
activists. The common thread is passion and a sense of
mission, spurred by a feeling of connection to the
Jewish state and its inhabitants.
But how significant is this spate of activism, concern
and advocacy? Is the underlying relationship between
American Jews and Israel actually changing, or are we
witnessing a temporary upswing in the activity of a
small, even shrinking, activist core?
Are the efforts of a few concerned Jews masking a
larger phenomenon of growing distance and ambiva-
6/11
2004
30
Getting Involved
road to peace and prosperity enabled them to step back
and focus on other issues, but they felt compelled to
get involved when they saw how rapidly the dream of
Middle East peace evaporated.
Lack OfDepth
Many people expressed their concern by writing checks
to their local federation or other charities that support
projects in Israel. Through 400 local campaigns, the
United Jewish Communities, the umbrella organiza-
tion of North American Jewish federations, raised $360
million in its Israel Emergency Campaign.
Jehuda Reinharz, president of Brandeis University,
lamented the absence of research about American Jews'
connections to Israel. "People say all kinds of things
about what is going on and what the relationship is,
but there is very little data," he said.
Last year, after studying the scholarship that existed
on the relationship between American Jews and Israel
over the past 20 years, Reinharz issued a report called
"Israel in the Eyes of Americans: A Call for Action."
In it, he notes that American Jews tend to claim to
support Israel — but, for the most part, that's not
backed up by an understanding of the country or the
issues it faces. "I would not want to guess how many
American Jewish leaders really understand Israel," said
Reinharz, who came to the United States from Israel in
1961. "How many can read or speak Hebrew?
"Very few American Jews go to Israel," he went on.
"Their knowledge is peripheral, and as time passes the
young generation knows even less."
The impact of the current threat to Israel can be
compared to other tense moments in the Jewish state's
history, but there's a major difference in the response of
American Jewry. Steven Bayme, director of the
American Jewish Committee's Dorothy and Julius
Koppelman Institute for American Jewish-Israeli
Relations, noted that the weeks preceding the 1967
Six-Day War were a seminal moment that brought
Israel and diaspora Jews closer together. He asks
whether the collapse of Oslo and Sept. 11 served as a
similar moment for this generation.
His answer: maybe not. The difference, Bayme said,
is that assimilation has rendered many American Jews
unconcerned with developments in the Jewish realm.
"I don't think you can make the argument about 2004
that is made about 1967," he said, because "an awful
number of Jews do not care."
Only one in three American Jews has ever visited
Israel, Bayme noted, and far fewer actually can connect
with Israelis in their own environment. The concern
about weakening Jewish identity is not new, nor is it
limited to the Israel-diaspora paradigm.
Jeffrey Solomon, president of the Andrea and