For many of us American Jews, Israel holds a special place in our hearts. We feel an intrinsic, natural and deep connection to the land, the people, and the state. We are taught from a young age to love Israel and to proudly defend and support it and its institutions through donations, public support, and political organizing. Our sense of community is directly linked to the fate of Israelis, and we see ourselves as one people. When Israel is attacked, we are all victims, when Jews are put in danger, Israel is there to protect us. We are truly interdependent. We need Israel as much as Israel needs us.

Or so I thought. When I first visited Israel as a teenager, I encountered an essentially foreign culture, one quite unlike anything I had experienced in Jewish-America. The holidays were the same, and the prayers too, but most things were as foreign as one could imagine. I recall the overwhelming sense of otherness as I struggled to communicate, with an embarrassingly heavy accent, in a foreign language, while attempting to learn about Israeli culture from a point of pure ignorance. I knew very little about Israel, and Israelis, and came back home feeling guilty for not having prepared myself better for the trip, regretting not having stayed longer. I became more curious about Israel, and, eventually, I emigrated there with the goal of fully integrate into its society.

I both succeeded and failed. I succeeded in becoming Israeli. I feel now as much Israeli as I do American. I failed at reconciling the romantic vision I had of Israel with the mundane reality of what I experienced living there. I blame my childish naiveté and an overly ambitious mindset. I blame personal lapses and mistakes, and unlucky fate. But, I also blame the inflated expectations that were beaten into me by my Jewish-American Zionist upbringing. I was not solely responsible for the overly-rosy and forgiving view of Israel that led me to make one of the more ill-informed decisions of my life.

Upon returning home, I found that my personal disenchantment with Israeli society was unappreciated by my community. My experiences, both the good and the bad, seemed to interest no one. My critique of Israel, both positive and negative, fell on deaf ears, or worse, offended and ‘triggered’ those who had been conditioned to the same ideology that I had fought in vain to maintain for so long. Even the pride that I expressed in my new Israeli identity tended to upset many who interpreted it as condescending and uninspired. The mere fact of the existence of a distinct Israeli cultural identity appeared to threaten the ideal relationship that so many of my community envisioned for themselves and Israel: organic, automatic, ethnic.

The notion that one must expend effort and experience difficulty in order to become truly Israeli was anathema to most. They saw me as a failure. I had not completed my education, I had not struck it rich, and, worse yet, I had not served in the IDF. No matter how connected I felt to the land and people, all was for naught if I could not express my Israeliness on their terms. The vast majority of Jewish-Americans lack a working knowledge of Hebrew and show little to no interest in bridging the cultural gap with their Israeli peers. Even those who eventually move to Israel usually settle down in homogenous bubbles, unapologetically ‘Anglo’ communities. For most Jewish-Americans, Israel is not a living society, it is a sacred object of quasi-religious devotion, an anthropomorphic representation of their abstract Jewish identity. It is far from reality and anything but Israeli.

The evolution of this sociological aberration, while not unprecedented, is unique in its timeline. Most ethnic identities in America start off strong, then peter out over a number of generations until they fully join the ‘melting pot.’ Just like the Irish, Germans and Italians, the Jews also experienced an era of ethno-cultural vitality, marked by the abundance of Yiddish-language arts, books, food, etc. Just like the Irish, Germans and Italians, the Jews also saw their ethnic culture fall into relative obsolescence. However, unlike other groups, most of whom have already accepted themselves as Americans, the Jews attempted to reassert an alternative identity, Zionism. By adopting Zionism, the Jews in America recreated the communal immigrant dynamic by imposing upon themselves a novel ethnic construct.

While most Americans generally believe in the tolerance of diverse cultures and religions, ethnic insularity remains a sore point. Collective attempts at resisting natural assimilation pressures tend to arouse suspicion, and powerful communities that voluntary choose to self-isolate are seen by many as inherently problematic, potentially dangerous and subversive, and perennially in conflict with the authorities. Historically, such dynamics have played a large part in the formation of cults and organized crime networks, both community-based structures determined to extract themselves from the sphere of influence of the American government and society. In the specific case of the Italian-American community, the parallels are clear.

Italian mobsters are unabashedly ethnic. The Mafia, or Cosa Nostra, only accepts ethnic Italians and has historically maneuvered through internal communal channels, some that spanned oceans, in an incessant cat and mouse game with the authorities. In every media depiction of the mob, Italian culture, culinary, musical and religious, sits prominently on display, serving as an identifying characteristic and a deep, venerated nostalgia for an idealized immigrant past. When mobsters are apprehended, some even portray themselves as victims of anti-Italian bias. Mob culture and its stigmas came to reinforce the insularity of Italian-American communities for many generations, and only began to subside when the authorities began to make inroads and aggressively dismantle many of the crime rings. While most Italian-Americans surely opposed the violence, many were afraid to act out of fear of reprisals, and community and family pressures.

Though they purported to represent Italian-Americans, the mobsters had, in fact, romanticized an abstract, idealized Italian identity, one that bore little resemblance to the contemporary reality of the motherland. While the initial founders of the Mafia were indeed genuinely Italian, subsequent generations of mobsters assimilated deeper into American culture and diverged from their Italian ancestors. Such tensions are a frequent theme of media depictions of the Mafia, especially in classic films like The Godfather, and in the acclaimed series, The Sopranos.

In Season 2, Episode 4 of The Sopranos, Tony and the gang set out for the motherland to do some business with their distant cousins in Naples. However, instead of finding a warm welcome, they encounter an essentially foreign culture to which they have much trouble adapting. Their rudimentary Italian language skills don’t pass muster and they must rely on translators. They have difficulty navigating the subtleties of Italian custom, are teased about their American-Italian gastronomical oddities (e.g. “gravy and macaroni”), and just generally stick out as foreigners. Paulie is particularly affected, having expressed the most anticipation (“It means a lot to me, Tony”), but, in the end, his high expectations are met with resounding disappointment as he fails to connect with his Italian compatriots and is even derided by the locals. In an iconic scene, he misuses an Italian honorific (“commendatori”) as an informal, casual greeting, a faux-pas that raises eyebrows and causes him to feel rejected. Even so, when they get picked up at the airport, Paulie ironically reflects, “[It was] fabulous, I felt right at home. I feel sorry for anyone who hasn’t been. Especially any Italian.”

In much the same way, many Jewish-Americans experience an initial euphoria upon encountering Israelis, which then gives way to a painful acknowledgment of the rift that exists between our peoples. In Paulie’s case, his Italian identity proved to have been watered down by his family’s decision to emigrate. He was not seen as a true Italian by the locals, but as an Italian-American, an Italian by blood, but lacking a deeper cultural connection. Likewise, most Jewish-Americans would feel at a loss when confronted by the foreignness of Israeli society. While formally Jewish, Israelis have moved beyond just Judaism as a unique identifying characteristic. They have begun the process of assimilating to a secular Israeli cultural identity, detached from a strictly Jewish context. Whereas two generations ago, you could still find many Jews in both American and Israel who shared Yiddish as a common language, things have changed. Hebrew has failed to replace Yiddish as a functional lingua franca for all Jews, and the divergent assimilation pressures of America and Israel have pushed us farther apart.

Nevertheless, mainstream Jewish-American leaders have insisted on reinvesting in Zionist identity as a unifying factor, even as it lacks the fundamental human qualities that sustain such collective identities over the long term. Instead of facing reality, they have taken the path of the Italian mob and fetishized a superficial construct out of a fear of becoming irrelevant, and in an attempt to maintain a controlling interest over the immense material wealth of the community they purport to represent. Our ‘leaders’ speak for all of us, no matter our personal political opinions, and they coordinate intense internal pressures on individuals who step out of line and profess their individual conscience.

Though many ‘antisemites’ blame Israel for the policing of free speech in this country, I tend to dismiss most of those claims as specious and conspiratorial, as they fail to account for the cultural and political discord between the parties. Instead, I see the active, mob-like targeting of political opponents as primarily driven by special interests. It is little more than an intimidation tactic utilizing social and legal means, rather than physical violence, and almost always ends up backfiring, creating more chaos and hate than what it aims to defeat. In fact, I cannot easily dismiss my suspicions that chaos is the end, in and of itself. Were it not for the newfound antisemitism that has now been unleashed on us Jews, many such leaders would need to start looking for real jobs.

While the fears of my fellow Jews in this country are genuine, I disagree with the crudeness by which our community’s leadership has chosen to persecute this fight. I see it as short-sighted, stupid and counterproductive. I also doubt that it will matter in the end. Nothing can stop the inexorable process of assimilation. Jewish-Israelis and Jewish-Americans will have to eventually part ways.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)