Why So Many American Jews No Longer Understand Israel

I still remember the day I met an American Jew in a hostel in Israel.

He was from Texas, if I recall correctly. He was participating in one of the well known Jewish heritage tours through Israel. What struck me immediately was not that he was visiting Israel. It was the fact that he had hidden it from almost everyone in his life.

He had not told his family.

He had not told his coworkers.

He had not told his friends.

Instead, he had invented an entirely different story about where he was going.

Because in his social environment, being openly enthusiastic about visiting Israel was apparently something that was frowned upon.

That alone was remarkable. But what came next was even more astonishing.

As we sat together, he began telling me what he believed about Israel.

According to him, Arabs were not welcome in shopping malls.

Arabs were routinely beaten by Israelis.

Israelis spat on Arabs in the streets.

The so called West Bank was supposedly an area where Arabs were not allowed to live freely and where discrimination was the norm.

He spoke about checkpoints as if they existed purely to oppress people.

The more he talked, the more I realized that almost everything he believed about Israel was either grossly exaggerated, completely detached from reality, or simply false.

So I began explaining.

I spoke about Judea and Samaria, not merely as disputed territory but as the historical heartland of the Jewish people.

I explained why checkpoints exist in the first place.

They were not created because Israelis enjoy inconveniencing others. They were established after years of suicide bombings,........

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