Several weeks ago, when Bernard Avishai wrote a piece about APAC’S cheering reception of Bibi Netanyahu, he asked himself why these intelligent and no doubt well-meaning people would support continuous building in Jerusalem. “I do not mean to ask this question cynically. There is some kind of hole in the heart that backing Netanyahu over "Jerusalem" seems to be filling. There are intelligent and decent people gathered at AIPAC, and many young people who are eager to stand for something. What is it, other than the insistence that they, who "didn't do anything," fiercely admire Israelis who did something?”
It is impossible to write in the name of all the members of APAC or all those Jews who support Israel whether right or wrong, but I can, at least, talk about my sister, who, although not in APAC, is an ardent member of Hadassah and an unswerving supporter of Israel (far more so than her brother).
My sister Jane came of age in the 1950’s in an American suburb. The last of our grandparents immigrated to the States in 1904; my sister and I were raised with no connection to Europe, Yiddish, or Orthodox Jewish culture. But, in the 1950’s, outside Washington, D.C., it was quite apparent that we were Jews. The first two streets in our neighborhood were closed to Jews and blacks. She was the only Jew in her class in high school—and could not attend her best friend’s Sweet Sixteen because it was held in a restricted country club. Despite Jane’s economic success and assimilation into America, that insecurity still best defines her Jewish identity—she knows that in a flash she can become a persona non grata. So, in part, she holds on to Israel to guarantee herself security even in America. Israel must be steadfast to save her from her own precarious situation.
It would be wrong, however, to limit her strong support for Israel to an existential anxiety that rather easily devolves into fears of another Holocaust. For her, belief in Israel is an article of faith. What I am trying to convey is that her faith in Israel is the substance of her Judaism. She knows no Hebrew, is rather illiterate in Jewish matters (other than sentimental Yiddishkeit, which she, no doubt, learned as an adult). Her husband of 20 years is a non-Jew; both Chanukah and Christmas are celebrated at home. She is a completely assimilated Jew except for this – her devotion to Hadassah and her reverence for Israel.
But perhaps I have probed too far into my sister’s psyche, and the answer to Avishai’s perplexity is far simpler. I have only to consider my own American Zionism before I settled in Israel and learned its Zionist history. I knew nothing of the Second Aliyah or the secular, anti-religious Socialism that built this country. My Zionism was based on quasi-religious sentiment; and I would imagine that like me, those in APAC are moved by populist nostalgia, unconnected to the actual history of the modern State, and shaped by the insecurities of a minority. Or rather, perhaps, as nothing gives one a stronger sense of identity than to have an enemy, in pluralistic America, the very tolerance makes being Jewish an ambivalent proposition: Israel and unquestioning loyalty offers an escape from the intolerable quandary of liberal tolerance. Since they live in the United States, they have no urgency to be responsible or rather they have only responsibility to themselves and the nostalgic fantasy that gives them strength.
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