Indifference Worse Than Alienation Among American Jewish Youth Says Col. Bor-on

Col. Mordecai Bar-On, member of the Jewish Agency Executive in Jerusalem and head of its Youth and Hechalutz Department, said that if he had to choose between indifference and alienation among American Jewish youth he would choose alienation. “The moment youth begins to demand and challenge the existing attitude toward Jewish communal life it also means that youth begins to get involved,” he declared. “The adult leadership of the community ought to understand this.” Col. Bar-On. speaking here yesterday at the annual meeting of the National Conference of Jewish Communal Services, said, “Although much can be criticized in youth’s attitude toward Jewish life we should be pleased with such symptoms of youth involvement in Jewish life even when they embarrass us occasionally in the short run.” Commenting on recent developments among Jewish youth, Col. Bar-On said that the “large unrest stemming from the Kent State tragedy where Ohio National Guardsmen shot four students on May 4 will cause changes,” but that it’s too soon to evaluate them.

He divided Jewish radical youth today into three groupings: radicals who “try to do their radical thing” within and to the Jewish community: students, much more deeply concerned with their Jewish self-identity and identification, who seek to radicalize Jewish education and values; youngsters, who might be called radical Zionists, who have given up their hope of integration in the American Jewish community and the diaspora in general, and have turned towards Zionism. Col. Bar-On said that “all three developments are positive, though as a Zionist I am, of course, happier with the latter two.” The organized American Jewish community, he added, “must make huge efforts to help our Jewish youth in their desire to find relevancy in the organized Jewish community and the Jewish way of life. That.” he said, “is the key to holding and recapturing our Jewish youth.” Col. Bar-On, who has been in the U.S. for the past three weeks conferring with leaders of the American Zionist Youth Foundation and visiting campuses, also spoke Sunday at a Habonim dinner honoring Sidney Troy, a member of the American Habonim Association’s National Executive Board.