Secular Israelis don’t have a Jewish identity problem like American Jews do, writes Anshel Pfeffer in Ha’aretz. That’s part of what American Jews, like Edgar Bronfman, don’t get about Israel, he writes:
While the Jews in America and other communities have been grappling for decades with the question of how to define a Jewish identity that is not tied down only to religion, secular Israelis simply don’t have that problem. Sure, many of them lack a lot of Jewish knowledge and they certainly are not very aware of the Jewish world outside Israel. But they’re not very bothered about it, because for them every moment in Israel is passed within a Hebrew speaking Jewish environment..
Israel, the Zionist project, was founded… to serve as a secular Jewish alternative to life in the Diaspora. And while it’s far from perfect, for most Israelis, it is still a credible option. They are not blind to its shortcomings, but they are still content with living their Jewish lives here.
And at least on a sub-conscious level, this contentment is galling to many Jews in America and elsewhere, especially those who are struggling to come up with an alternative Jewish life of their own that will be sufficiently attractive to a disinterested young Jewish generation
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