From: Shmuel Rosner

To: Adam LeBor

Dear Adam,

Thank you for your thoughtful response. The lesson of your experience seems quite obvious: if even someone like yourself, whose instincts (I suspect) are much more pro-UN than mine, has turned skeptical, then the organization is really as useless as I imagined. And the point you've raised regarding its treatment of Israel is but one example of why it should be scrapped, or at least marginalized. Giving it more power will be very costly to Israel, as instead of working to better the world as it should, what I expect the UN to do it is to try and use any power it might obtain to make Israel less secure.

So let us agree (I think we do) on that, and turn to the question of Darfur, and to Jewish-American involvement in trying to make this cause a keystone of using Jewish political power to improve the world.

The facts are indisputable: Jewish Americans were on the forefront of the battle toScene From The Armenian Genocide: Jews fought against genocide even before the Holocaust save Darfur. If you happened to attend the largest Washington demonstration for Darfur you couldn't ignore the fact that although it wasn't a "Jewish" rally, most of the participants happened to be Jewish. Jewish legislators (among them the late Tom Lantos) were vocal, Jewish activists were, well, very active, Jewish organizations were, and still are, making space for this issue on their agenda.

But what is the reason for all that?

One possible explanation should make all of us very proud: Jews, who suffered the most from genocide, feel compelled to raise their voices against it in every part of the world. They feel they have the moral authority and obligation to do so. And they're right.

But there's also a second possibility (which isn't mutually exclusive from the first): For the past few decades, American Jews were spent most of their political capital on the just cause of securing Israel --- and then got tired of it. They got tired of being seen by some elite groups as particularistic and tribal. They got tired as the cause (Israel) has shifted from being David to being Goliath. And they were looking to prove that American Judaism is not a hostage of the Israel-first school of thought, that it has its own priorities.

This comes out in discussions of Darfur as well as other humanistarian causes. One expression of those sentiments the outrageous letter (former IDF civilian volunteer) Representative Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) sent to Israel's Ambassador in Washington, demanding that Israel be more receptive to Sudanese refugees who reach Israel's borders. Another expression was the denunciation (in which Jewcy played no small part) of the Anti Defamation League after its leader, Abe Foxman, came out in opposition to the Armenian Genocide bill presented to Congress by --- you guessed it --- a Jewish legislator. (The bill was defeated for the very reasons on which Foxman based his opposition, but you didn't hear much criticism of its sponsors and of the leadership of the House when they failed to deliver on their unrealistic pledges).

So you see where I'm going with this --- and I hope the readers will spare me comments blaming me for not caring enough about genocide. I'm happy to see the Jewish community as active as it is in humanitarian causes. I do also think, however, that there's some merit to this niggling question that keeps coming back: Will universalist causes eventually replace Israel as the great political cause of American Jewry?

One might suspect that domestic considerations are also in play here. American JewsBeta Israel: The Jews of Ethiopia were always at the forefront of fighting for the rights of African-Americans. They were marching alongside Reverend King in the high days of cooperation between the two communities, but sometimes along the way the bond between Jews and African Americans have soured. The Jewish community has been trying to prove, ever since, that it did not abandon African-Americans for racial reasons --- hence some of the appeal to Jews of Barack Obama, offers the community the intriguing hope of repairing those historic relations.

That's why Israelis interpret the intense involvement of American Jews in shaping the policies toward Ethiopian Jews, as being motivated by domestic considerations. The same logic applies to the very active role Jews are playing in trying to help Darfurians. The Jews, arguably, were not as involved as a group during the crisis in the former Yugoslavia. (Interestingly, Ariel Sharon opposed international involvement in the crisis, fearing it would set a dangerous precedent. He anticipated an effort by the countries in control of international organizations hostile to Israel to influence the outcome of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by the use of international force).

And again, this is not an indictment of the Jewish community for acting for the "wrong" reasons. Motivations that lead to the outcome of fighting genocide are all "good". However, I think one should be able to have an honest discussion of such motivations, because other than implicating the just war against genocide, it also raises issues related to the relations between Israel and Diaspora Jews, especially in cases in which the interests of the communities come apart.

Such contradiction was visible in the case of Turkey and the Armenian genocide, when fighting to establish historical truth ran contrary to Israel national interests (and American interests, to judge by the coverage and the outcome). The case the Ethiopian Jews was a similar story of American Jews pressuring Israel to accept more immigrants than it wanted to.

So: we started with the UN and its inability to stop genocide, and we now turn to explore Jewish involvement with stopping genocide. Is there a special Jewish responsibility here? Does it also apply to Israel? And what happens when the preservation of the State of Israel contradict the cause of stopping genocide?

I'm looking forward to your answers.

Best,
Shmuel

Barack Obama's speech at AIPAC was so winning, and his applause so warm, that it may be easy to overlook what a complicated task he had. (You may watch the video here.)

AIPAC is nothing if not sensitive to what Israeli élites think and say. For severalObama At AIPAC weeks now, the Israeli press has been oddly condescending toward him. A Haaretz review of Dreams From My Father focused on, of all things, the question of whether a 33 year-old could have "total recall," implying that authoring the book was a crafty anticipation of his run. Along the same lines, the curvy, sababa young anchor, who just took over at Channel One, made a show of her exasperation for Obama’s (mis)remembered story of his great-uncle being stricken with grief after liberating Auschwitz. The camp he really liberated was --- here she raised a knowing, gorgeous eyebrow --- Buchenwald.

As if most of her Tel-Aviv pals have a clue where these camps were or who liberated what. As if they know South Dakota from South Carolina, Michael Schwerner from James Earl Ray—as if they don’t think that Jim Crow is a bourbon.

Their real problem with Obama, of course, is that he has had the brass to insist on persistent diplomacy, not military action, against Iran. He would meet with Iranian officials and even lessen sanctions if they played ball. Israelis are not persuaded. Many would like to see a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities before Bush leaves office, or at least they think they would, or want a president who at least entertains the idea, which they imagine (rashly) can be something clean and decisive, like the strike against Iraq in 1981, or the one on Syria last year.

Obama has spoken of America's power to attract over its power to deter, the building of alliances over unilateral military attacks, the need (even Iran's need) to globalize economically, and, in any case, America’s need to stop bleeding treasure in far away places. McCain says he will be the Jihadist's worst nightmare. Obama reminds us that the war McCain supports has been their dream come true.

But ever since Rabin endorsed Nixon in 1972, most Israelis --- even those on the center-left --- have felt fine with tough talk from Republicans, the more rock-ribbed, the better. They've loved Bush for applying the lessons of Munich, even if his history comes in PowerPoint. They've liked Americans who know in their gut that the only thing those others understand is force. (If there is nuance in the region --- honor cultures, Islamic theology, insider political intelligence, etc. --- Israeli experts want to be relied on to tell, not just AIPAC, but all of Washington, what to think.)

Obama is also an African-American with a hybridized identity, indeed, a fierce cosmopolitan, the kind of person Jews ordinarily love, but whose election would not quite fit the nationalist logic Israelis think vaguely consistent with Zionism. Virtually all my Israeli friends, young and old, smart and smarter, have been willing to bet me that Americans are "not ready for a black president." Apparently most Israelis are not --- not this man, no matter how many times, or how sincerely, Obama speaks of Jewish victimization, or Jewish support for civil rights, or his love for Philip Roth’s and David Grossman's books, or his Zionist camp counselor.

The reasons are many. Israelis instinctively fear charismatic leaders whipping up distant audiences. Or is it that Obama is tapping a pure strain of optimism that, as he told some young people after his speech, should make cynicism seem negotiable? When the Israeli press repeats, again and again, how "inexperienced" Obama is, this is code for their fears, the saddest of which is the fear of hoping for peace again.

In the back of their minds they fear that two generations of special pleading --- about how Israel’s occupation should be rationalized as the Jews’ special need to (how does Prof. Yehezkel Dror put it?) "subordinate morality to survival" --- may not quite work on Obama, much the way it did not work on Kissinger. Obama has heard Jabotinsky-like apologetics for victim exceptionalism from the Sharptons --- indeed, from the Wrights --- for two generations. It takes one to know one. The most frightening question is this: If democracy makes a black man a mainstream American, can it also make an Arab a mainstream Israeli?

So there is a peculiarly Israeli condescension for Obama just now, which I predict will dissipate as he grows in stature, and the world he is sketching feels more imminent. It is the same condescension most have, since Oslo, for people who trusted Arabs, or still trust politicians, or stop for pedestrians, or think voters are not just selfish. It is the condescension people in the peace movement endure day in, day out. The thing is, Obama is not a graying professor at a Van Leer Institute seminar. He is quite possibly the next president of the United States.

Not without Florida and/or New Jersey and/or Pennsylvania, however, so Obama came to AIPAC knowing that he had to make his case in a way that both reassured (better, enchanted) his audience yet did not undermine the very basis of what differentiates him from McCain. This he did.

He chose his words carefully. He checked off all the ways he is committed to Israel's security, which indeed any American president must be. He also made sure to emphasize that a friend of peace is a true friend of Israel; he promised that he would not wait until the end of his term to get involved in the peacemaking. He spoke compellingly about the need for a diplomatic surge with Iran. He also recommitted himself to a two state solution. He did it all with a grace that earned a standing ovation and made me wonder why I was not a member of AIPAC myself.

But even the most apparently contentious thing he said --- contentious, at least, outside the room --- was carefully worded. Obama said that in any two-state solution Israel would have an “undivided” Jerusalem as its capital. He did not --- note well --- say a "united" Jerusalem, which would have pushed him from the Democratic Party to the Likud.

Indeed, let's be clear about this, since some (including Mahmud Abbas, alas) have interpreted his phrase to mean exclusive Israeli sovereignty in the city. Again, when Israeli rightists say that Jerusalem should be exclusively theirs they say the city should be Israel’s capital and united. "Undivided" is the Labor Party euphemism for a city whose Arab and Jewish quarters are not separated by a wall, as before 1967 (and --- though this is not usually mentioned in this context --- the wall Israel has more recently thrown up).

"Undivided" does not prejudice the question of who is awarded formal sovereignty where. The Geneva Initiative, for example, proposes an undivided Jerusalem with international forces helping to keep the place an administrative whole.

Obama, to be sure, didn't make any new friends in the Arab world yesterday. But he is likely to be the only president who will get something of a honeymoon from the Arab world nevertheless, as with the rest of the world. He is establishing himself as the Mohammed Ali of conflict resolution. If anyone expected the jabs to start landing yesterday, nobody laid a glove on him.

Don't shun Diaspora Boy: He needs your kindness Less than a month ago, Eli Valley's instant classic "Israel Man and Diaspora Boy" made nonsense of "Negation of the Diaspora" philosophy. Somebody in the Israeli government must be reading, because lo and behold:

A new government strategy to redefine ties with the Diaspora to be "less patronizing and more humble" will be unveiled on June 22...

While "aliya is an important Zionist goal that remains important in our value system," [cabinet member Ovad] Yehezkel said, "we have to move away from a dynamic based on money and aliya. We have to add more values, to establish cooperation. Israel has to take responsibility for Diaspora issues as well, such as Jewish identity, education and continuity."...

Israel stood at "a complex crossroads," Yehezkel said. If it failed to "completely redefine" its relationship with the Diaspora, "we will find ourselves, God forbid, dividing again into Judah and Israel. There will be a Jew of Israel and a Jew of the Diaspora, and they will be more different than they are alike."

The new relationship, Yehezkel said, must have "a whole different purpose. We have to change the language we use when speaking to the Diaspora and even the tools with which we communicate."

QED.

To: Shmuel Rosner

From: David Samuels

Oh, come off it, Shmuel.

You don't think American Jews are a tiny little itty-bitty bit weird? You think that Israeli Jews are a proud, normal, happy, contradiction-free people inhabiting our ancestral Jewish homeland of Israel-Yesha-Palestine-Hamasland? The Israeli religious establishment isn't corrupt, isn't an arm of the state, and doesn't decide who can get married, buried, or divorced based on its medieval definition of Judaism? Iran doesn't pose an existential threat to Israel? Gee, sign me up for whatever planet it is that you are living on.

I thought Ha'aretz correspondents spent their time moaning about the evils of checkpoints and Occupation, urging the government to negotiate with Hamas, covering up the corruption of Israel's Prime Ministers, and sucking up to Norwegian diplomats. And here you are, telling me that everything is perfect.

While I plead guilty to provoking you for the sake of argument, you are guilty of the greater sins of silly logic-chopping and arguing in bad faith. You turn my musings about existential conflicts and contradictions between the American and Jewish identities into "allegations" that "Jews are liars" and then say that such statements are "dangerous" and that "words can be weapons" while proclaiming yourself to be an "adult" and calling me a "rebellious child."

So please believe me when I assure you that the goyim in the FBI are too busy worrying about Barack Obama and John McCain and the price of gas right now to revoke your visa or put me in prison for speculating about the deeper implications of the fact that thinking American and thinking Jewish are not always and exactly the same thing. No one cares besides us Jews and the 15-20% of the population who are already confirmed antisemites. In fact, no one is reading this dialogue on Jewcy besides you, me and my mother, a beautiful and highly intelligent lady who doesn't like it when you call me a Nazi.

So why not be honest, Shmuel: You know that what I am saying about the creativeNow doesn't this look a tiny little itty-bitty bit weird? tension and lack of total congruence between Americanism and Judaism is true. You would just rather that I didn't say it. In fact, you think that I am an idiot for saying things that could "ruin" America for the nice Jews who are all exactly like their neighbors despite the fact that they hurry their children past Christmas trees (guilty!) and celebrate New Year's in September, (guilty!) and pray in synagogue for Ehud Olmert and the IDF (guilty!) --- the same way that Italian Catholics pray for the health of Silvio Berlusconi and the carabinieri in Milan (not).

I speak Hebrew and go to shul every Shabbat, so enough with the personal slurs and the self-righteous propaganda, please.

What do you imagine might be the results of further public discussion of the weirdness of American Jewry? Pogroms? Show trials for Elliott Abrams and Norman Podhoretz? A ban on playing "We're an American Band" at Bat Mitzvah parties? Luckily for us, the real America is a pretty tolerant place that long ago embraced the real world knowledge that blacks, Jews, gays, Hispanics, woman --- nearly everybody, except White Protestant Males, as far as I can figure out --- think about the world in ways that run counter in small and big ways to more commonly accepted American narratives, with blacks and Jews being the most visible and influential counter-narrativists.

I think that discussing the often productive and creative tension between American and Jewish identity is important for the present and future of the Jews who choose to live here. What I said was:

If Americans are self-made people who embrace an imagined future in order to escape the burdens of the past, American Jews seek to have their cake and eat it too by embracing the future-oriented American idea without relinquishing their historically bound identity as Jews. While I don't think that the American and the Jewish identity principles are always necessarily opposed, I do think that keeping both ideas in one's head at one time can be the source of a tremendous amount of creative tension.

I am not saying that "Jews are liars" (or traitors) but that there is an inherent and often productive contradiction between the life-shaping stories that "normal" American Christians and American Jews tell each other about where they come from and where they are going. As a writer, I believe that people live through stories that are handed down through the ages by parents and grandparents and that we pass on in turn to our children.

Americans believe, very deeply, in the value and necessity of abolishing the past and living in the future. Americans believe that each individual has the capacity for finding God's grace within him or herself, and can only find it by being born again --- independent of family history and ties. While you don't have to be a Christian to accept historically peculiar American ideas about the individual, the past and the future, it is hard to ignore the fact that these ideas are Christian in their history and, I would argue, in their essence.

The stories Jews tell ourselves are different. We tell ourselves stories about our unbroken connection to a common set of tribal ancestors to whom all Jews are connected by blood. We tell ourselves about the unbroken chain of interpretation that connects today's Torah sages to the medieval commentators to the sages of the Gemarra and Mishna to the revelation given to Moses on Har Sinai. We tell ourselves stories about our survival as a people through thousands of years of exile and persecution in which we still claim to be able to see the hand of God.

As a Jew who was educated in religious schools until I was 18 years old, and who travels often to Israel to do reporting and blah blah blah, I have a pretty good grasp of what our common Jewish narratives are supposed to be. I also believe that the stories that American Jews tell themselves fuse elements of American narratives and traditional European Jewish narratives together in ways that don't always make sense.

Now for the question of deception. Let's look at what I actually wrote:

It is also inherently deceptive, in the sense that one is quite often signaling to others that one has agreed to dissolve one's particular heritage and historically bound point of view into a common Christian-inflected, highly individualistic and alienating, yet incredibly productive future-oriented social whole that most American Jews view with a high degree of distance and skepticism.

This part of what I wrote is more controversial, even if I don't state (or believe) that "Jews are liars," to quote your phrase. There is an added complication in the way that Jewish narratives contradict mainstream American narratives: Jews can pass for "normal" Americans today in a way that most blacks or Hispanics can't. And yet the personal, internal, mental act of identifying ourselves as Jews necessarily commits us to some version of a story about Jewish specificity and difference that in turn contradicts some fundamental aspects of the larger story that unites most other Americans.

I am not saying any of the things that your very literal-minded way of reading is forcing on our patient readers. I don't believe that American Jews are likely to spy for Israel, or that being Shomer Shabbat is un-American. I don't believe that the way Jews understand ourselves and our relation to society is a superficial question of customs and manners (although manners too can be important).

I am talking about something deeper. The ways that Jews see the individual and his or her place in the world contradicts core American beliefs about abolishing the past, living in the future, and making yourself up from scratch. Sometimes we acknowledge this contradiction to ourselves, and sometimes we pretend that we think and see the world the same way as everyone else. Sometimes we acknowledge our difference to ourselves and to our friends but not to our Christian neighbors. We are double agents. That's what it means to be a Jew in America.

As an American Jew, you can chose to make sense of the inherent contradictions of our existence in a creative way, which is what I try to do in my own life. Or you can simply live your live as a Jew who randomly happens to reside in America as opposed to Israel or France, like the ultra-orthodox do. Or you can embrace mainstream American notions of personal identity and cease being Jewish in any meaningful way. Finally, one can gratefully acknowledge the contributions of one's long-ago Jewish ancestors (see: John Kerry, William Cohen, Madeleine Albright, etc.).

You are way too eager to overstate the case that superficial cultural blending is somehow essentially "American" and that therefore no contradictions between being a Jew and being an American can possibly exist. That's a silly, ahistorical argument. American history is not Jewish history. You can understand your life according to one narrative, or the other narrative, and sometimes according to both at the same time; but they are two different stories.

Perhaps the one-dimensional version of American Jewish life that you offer is intended to make you sympathetic to your English-speaking audience while concealing your actual, more nuanced and interesting views of the relative weirdness of Jewish life in Israel and America.

It is also possible to understand your arguments here as a symptom of a larger American disease. Not the repugnant suggestion that Jews in the state of "exile" are diseased --- an idea that was and is part of the foundational myth of Zionism, and which has little to do with the history of the Jews in America. What is most American about your argument is the fact that you are lying to yourself and to others by reasoning backwards from what "should be true" --- for pragmatic reasons --- to what is true.

I admit to using techniques of misdirection and deception in my writing in order to bring readers closer to a more nuanced perception of some fraction of reality. Your behavior in this argument is no more or less calculated than mine. The difference between us is that you expect to be taken at your word --- and when your convenient version of "reality" is challenged or questioned you get angry and call people names. If that's what you mean by "adult" behavior, don't blame mean-hearted skeptics like me when your kids turn out to be rebellious.

Yours,

David

To: David Samuels

From: Shmuel Rosner

Dear David,

How lucky I am to have a thick skin.

So, thank you for complimenting my relatively meager talents; I'll just ignore the insults, as I'm sure you did not really mean any of the bad things you said about my lack of literary skills. You're right: "Kafka and Babel, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth" were all geniuses of literary work. It was probably my short-sightedness that prevented me from making the connection between your work and theirs.

Moving forward: you started by asking many questions, and some of them merit an answer. But I need to warn you first: this might not be the literary, sophisticated answer you'd expect, but rather an answer that resonates with the simple narrow-minded people of "Potomac, Maryland" (I'm in Rockville, not far but a little bit different). Anyway, I'm going to try:

Why do they pray every Sabbath for the welfare of a foreign government and its leaders, and the soldiers who defend its borders?

That's easy: because they care about this country and believe it is the homeland of the Jewish people. They also see the people inhabiting this country as their brothers and sisters, and wish them well.

Why do they celebrate the new year in September instead of in January?

Because they are Jews, and according to the Jewish calendar the year starts in the fall, not winter.

Why do they insist on converting their goyish wives or children's children to their religion instead of simply letting them chose to be whoever they want to be?

Because people, generally speaking, tend to want their children to value the same things they value. That is why educated people tend to want their children to succeed at school and artsy people tend to want their children to go to the theatre.

Now let me turn to one of the things you've said at the bottom of your letter. "You", you write, referring to Israelis, "live in the largest Jewish ghetto in history, under threat of nuclear catastrophe, and under the thumb of a corrupt ultra-orthodox religious establishment whose definition of Judaism is quite literally medieval." Like many of the other assumptions you've made in your letter, this is both condescending and factually wrong.

Israel is not a ghetto, but rather a place in which Jews get to live and make decisionsIsrael: Not a ghetto about their own lives. If the ghettos of the past were like Israel, there would be no Zionism --- which, contrary to your assumption, is not just about making Jews safer, but even more so about making them the masters of their own fate.

But this is not the end of it: You also claim that Israelis live under the "thumb of a corrupt ultra-orthodox religious establishment." I don't know when and if you ever visited Israel, but such description is laughable. I could easily argue that the influence of religious zealots in the US is much more significant than the influence such zealots have on Israel's society and daily life. (Though of course, you can always argue that your literary imagination allows you to fabricate such nonsensical-realities.)

And anyway, how did this become a debate about my assumed Israeli mindset? I think what happened is that you pushed aside all the arguments I was making and was trying to get away with it by simply claiming that as an Israeli I'm probably too dumb to understand your position. Then again, your position is not that complex, and the quasi-courageous posture you've adopted cannot hide its many flaws. So many, in fact, that it's scarcely a position.

To make this long story short let me first summarize our differences:

You said that Jews are liars, pretending to be Americans when they are not.

I disagreed and said that the "weirdness" you ascribe to Jewish Americans is what makes them even more American.

You got angry, though I'm not exactly sure why. "We live as Americans even as we also live sometimes contradictory lives as Jews," you wrote. I can live with that, but still insist that "contradictory lives" is not the equivalent of "double-ness, lying and imposture." I also said that such allegations are dangerous. This is not a difference of opinion, but one of style. Like a rebellious child, you're toying with naughty words so as to impress us with your "speaking the truth." Sorry, but I'm not at all impressed. Words are not just toys, they can also be weapons. Maybe it is time to grow up?

You argue that if all Jewish Americans are lying, because their Americanism is a posture. But on the other hand you seem to praise the Jewish "outsider" state of mind. It seems as if your prescription will only allow American Jews to be in one of two problematic situations: the lying outsiders, or the boring insiders. They can never get it right, can they?

And this is funny because you blame Israelis for thinking that "the doubleness of the Jew in exile is a diseased condition." But the way I see it, you're the one claiming time and again that the American Jewish condition is inherently diseased.

In holding this position, you're certainly in the company of many thinkers. And I was not thinking of Babel and Kafka.

Regards,

Rosner

To: Shmuel Rosner
From: David Samuels

Dear Shmuel,

You are right to say that we do different kinds of work. You are a reporter with a gift for simplifying Israeli politics and Jewish institutional wrangling in a way that makes outsiders like me feel like we are informed about an exotic world that we actually know very little about. My purpose is to captivate readers into leaving the orderly and reasonable-seeming place that you inhabit when you sit down at your keyboard for the wilder pastures of reality. I take the same facts you have available to you, filter them through my subjective consciousness, and create a universe whose particular combination of familiarity and strangeness causes readers to get The New York Times and Shmuel Rosner out of their heads and see the world with fresh eyes.

American Jews: Freaks even by their own standards So yes, when you seem unsettled by the idea that life is full of paradox and contradiction, I feel like I am doing my job --- though I also wonder why you have chosen to devote your particular gifts to thinking about literature. The demand that people "mean what they say and say what they mean" is futile in everyday life, and simply nonsensical when applied to literary work. If you think my mildly personal and contradictory brand of journalism is troubling and frustrating, just wait till you clap eyes on Kafka and Babel, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, or any of the other major or minor literary masters whose habit of forceful contradiction defines 20th century Jewish writing everywhere except perhaps in the Hebrew language --- and even there.

Now that I've complemented your very real talents while mocking your naïve and uneducated approach to literature, let's get down to the thread of my response that worries you the most, namely the idea that American Jews may not be exactly like other Americans.

I am sure that you have met plenty of patriotic, God-fearing Jews in Potomac, Maryland who say hamotzi every Shabbat under a Norman Rockwell portrait of George Washington crossing the Delaware River. But please believe me when I tell you that these people are freaks even by their own standards. If these people are really so uber-American, why do they pray every Sabbath for the welfare of a foreign government and its leaders, and the soldiers who defend its borders? Why do they celebrate the Independence Day of a small country in the Middle East? Why do they celebrate the new year in September instead of in January? Why do they insist on converting their goyish wives or children's children to their religion instead of simply letting them chose to be whoever they want to be? I'm telling you, Shmuel: by American standards, American Jews are pretty weird people.

But a more germane question may be why even such a mild assertion of the fact that American Jews are not exactly like all other Americans makes you so nutty. You say that my rather benign allusion to the double-ness of American Jewish identity is "a serious charge, with potentially grave consequences." I assure you that the Cheka or the FBI will not come knocking on my door --- even in this age of AIPAC prosecutions, and with Jonathan Pollard still behind bars.

I believe that American Jews are different, in the same way that blacks are different. Jews and blacks are both guilty of embracing an alternative historical narrative that at times trumps the mainstream narratives commonly accepted by our fellow citizens. I am not "ruining" anything for my fellow Jews in America by speaking the truth about the fact that we live as Americans even as we also live sometimes contradictory lives as Jews. Telling the truth is part of how I see my job as a writer, even if I choose to speak in opposites and misdirection some of the time.

One reason you may be such a timid mouse when it comes to discussing these subjects is that the word "double" suggests "double agents." To clarify this point, I want to state clearly that I do see American Jews as double agents in American society. I think both Judaism and America have been greatly enriched by the creative tension produced by trying to live two very different narratives at the same time.

Look at the history of progressive political movements in America in the 20th century, and lo and behold, you find Jews. Look at the history of anti-Communism in America, and lo and behold, you find Jews. You find Jews on the front lines of aesthetics and commerce, and for the same reasons, namely, that we don't see things exactly the same way that lots of our fellow citizens do. The struggle of American Jews to be both American and Jewish, and to bring two sometimes conflicting kinds of narrative consciousness to bear on the society in which they live, has had such an outsized effect on American life over the past century in part because many of the best minds of the Jewish people emigrated here. There is also the fact that the country was founded by a group of uniquely philo-semitic Protestant dissenters for whom "Jewish" ways of thinking and acting were more congenial than they were to the Catholic regents of France or Spain.

The other reason this conversation scares you is that you are an Israeli, meaning that you are a product of a 19th century ideology that believes that blood, soil and language must be united in order to form a healthy, unified self. It is no secret that Theodore Herzl and his fellow Zionist ideologues were heirs to many of the antisemitic stereotypes of the 19th century European nationalists they sought to imitate.

Israelis can't help but believe that the doubleness of the Jew in exile is a diseased condition that needs to be healed, and that the mark of being a healthy Jew is to be a member of a free nation living in its own land. That's why Israelis have such trouble understanding what it has historically meant to be a Jew in all other times and places --- and what it means to be Jew today for those of us who are not Israelis. The irony of course is that the Jews of Israel are in many ways the ones who are stuck in the past: You live in the largest Jewish ghetto in history, under threat of nuclear catastrophe, and under the thumb of a corrupt ultra-orthodox religious establishment whose definition of Judaism is quite literally medieval.

While I am a strong political supporter of the State of Israel, I don't see Israel as the necessary solution to the historical condition of the Jewish people, just as I do not necessarily believe that American Jews will always be at home in America. Perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that I believe that the Jewish condition is, in its essence, contradictory. I am Jewish, not because I think things are rosy, but because I chose to be Jewish, because I feel lucky to carry the historical weight of 3500 years of contradiction and argument and exile, and because there is something irreducibly slippery and human and contemporary about having to be two or more things at the same time.

From: Gregory Levey
To: Shmuel Rosner

Dear Shmuel,

I’m in a bit of an awkward position. This dialogue has had the feel of a debate up to here, but I now find myself in substantial agreement with most of what you’ve written in your last missive. All I can really say is, “ditto.”

But I’ll try to explore a few of the ideas you’ve offered. First you suggest that the incidents outlined in Shut Up, I’m Talking where I tried to play mind games with some of Israel’s harshest foes at the UN are both funny and sad. I couldn’t agree more, and I think that pairing might be at the heart of my book. Buckets of ink have been spilled outlining the tragic aspects of the Middle East situation, and I wanted to try to shed some light on the comically absurd ones. That obviously doesn’t mean that I don’t see the sadness. Rather, I just see it intertwined with the humor, as I would venture to say it is in most corners of life.

In fact, I think that one of the most remarkable things I noticed during my sojourn in the Israeli Government was that even during some of the most intense situations, those around me were able to demonstrate a real sense of levity. I heard sing-alongs in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, saw top government officials playing practical jokes on each other, and once went to a meeting where a senior diplomat showed up wearing only his underwear (though nobody there seemed to find this as funny as I did).

Let's Hope The Pilots Have A Sense Of Humor In this context, I’m glad you brought up the dialogue you had with Jeffrey Goldberg, which I thought was a fascinating discussion. One line in it that particularly interested me was when Mr. Goldberg wrote “I’ve always thought the reason so many Israelis lack humor is because Israel has an air force. Who needs jokes when you have F-16s?” I’m a fan of his journalism and loved his book, but I’d quibble with this idea. I think it’s precisely those with F-16s that most need a sense of humor.

It was interesting to hear that you think that “Israelis tend to forget that they are part of a larger Jewish world. And this should be fixed.” You should stop worrying about sounding “out-dated” with this opinion. I think it might be more modern than you realize. And you were right to anticipate my surprise at hearing that you think the burden of bridging the gap between Israelis and American Jews lies more with Israelis. That’s not the kind of thing I’m used to hearing from your countrymen.

The new Atlantic article by Mr. Goldberg that you mention included many of the fears that you and I seem to share about Israel. One of the sections that most resonated with me, and which seems apropos our own discussion, was when he quoted from defense minister and former prime minister, Ehud Barak.

Barak told him that “Jews know that they can land on their feet in any corner of the world. The real test for us is to make Israel such an attractive place --- cutting-edge in science, education, culture, quality of life --- that even American Jewish young people want to come here. If we cannot do this, even those who were born here will consciously decide to go to other places. This is a real problem.”

I think there is definitely something to that. My own bizarre experience was in the political realm, so I can’t really speak much about those other areas of society. As it says in the synopsis of Shut Up, I’m Talking, though: The Israeli Government was no place for a nice Jewish boy.

Gregory Levey

From: Shmuel Rosner
To: Gregory Levey

Dear Gregory,

“For some time now, I have been testing them,” you write in your book. We both agreed the book was full of funny moments, and those looking for it can find it in this episode. Or, they might think that this one is rather sad:

During tedious UN sessions, I would look straight at the Syrian, Libyan or Iranian diplomat until they felt that they were being watched and turn to face me. When they saw who was looking at them, they would quickly turn away, desperate not to make contact with the Israeli delegation…what’s the worst that could happen, I thought. They lodge a formal complaint with the UN saying ‘the Zionist entity was looking at me?’

Now, let’s think about these moments of pleasure for a second. What was it that made you want to tease the poor Syrian and the miserable Libyan? It was your young age, no doubt, and your boredom in this shrine of nothingness, and the oddness of you being there. However, I suspect there was something else too. Can it be a sense of pride? Or maybe the urge to tell these people that as far as you’re concerned they can all go to hell?

In your second response you felt the need to remind me that the uniqueness of Israel’s situation “doesn’t mean it’s not part of the rest of the world.” Well, I know that. But you have a point: I also think that Israel is more different than other “different” countries, including many of those mired in territorial, religious and national conflicts.

And you know what? I think you know that too --- hence “the stare!” episode at the UN. You were looking at the Syrian as to let him know that ignoring you will not make you disappear. That nothing will make you disappear. Israel is only a “part of the world” in the eyes of those who accept it as such. For many others it is still a temporary nuisance.

Israel: Only a part of the world, and only a part of the Jewish world, much as that might surprise some Israelis The May issue of The Atlantic Monthly asks (on the cover), “Is Israel finished?” That’s an interesting question for someone like me, as I’m planning on going back to Israel someday with my four children in tow. The author of this Atlantic essay, Jeffery Goldberg, is someone whose work I respect and can even admire. But then this nagging question arises: Why doubt the future of Israel of all countries? And also --- why is it that The Atlantic was asking the same question about this same country again? (I have a long memory. Here is Benjamin Schwarz asking, “Will Israel live to 100?” in the May 2005 issue of The Atlantic.) This can seem like a weird choice for an editor if he believes --- like you seem to do --- that mentioning Israel “in the same breath as Canada and Switzerland” is a natural choice.

Of course it is no coincidence that I now mention this work of Goldberg’s, who just like you lived in Israel for a while (and wrote about it the book Prisoners that we discussed a long time ago), and eventually decided that it was not the place for him and went back to live in this land of the brave. He has doubts about the future of Israel. Do I not share these doubts? Of course, we all have anxieties about the feasibility of Israel’s existence. Doubts painfully similar to those you espouse in your own book.

That brings me to your conclusion that “bridging the gap” between Jewish Israelis and Jewish Americans “is obviously a noble desire, but I’m pessimistic about its feasibility.” If both parts of this sentence are true --- if we both agree that such desire is noble --- then the question we should be asking is not whether this is possible, but rather how can it be achieved, if not in full than at least partially.

The answer to this question has both technical and more philosophical aspects. On the technical level, some measures have proven results. Take, for example, the Birthright program, which bets that getting young Jewish Americans to visit Israel will enhance their attachment to it, and their Jewish identity in general. (Somewhat ironically --- judging by your book --- it might be more advisable to have people coming for a short, touristic, kind of trips, rather than having them actually experience Israel.)

The more complicated aspect is the one you relate to: Israel has indeed “been able to create a new culture all its own” --- and the same can be said about Jewish life in America. How one abridges the differences in culture, and frankly, differences in all aspects of life-experience, is a serious question. I think my answer might surprise you: The burden, as I see it, lays more on Israel’s shoulders than it is on the shoulders of American Jewry. Let me explain.

For fifty years now, the relations between Jewish Americans and Jewish Israelis were a one-way street: Israelis were supposed to live their lives; Americans were expected to follow, understand, admire, and applaud their achievements. It was not by design of any malicious force, but rather the natural evolution of these relations. But this can no longer hold. In order to have an understanding, a bond, we need a two-way street. We need Israelis to understand Jewish Americans better, to applaud their achievements, to show interest in their lives (rather than money and support). This “new culture” needs to be one that relates not just to the lives of Israelis, but to Israelis and American Jews alike.

Is this a reasonable expectation? I think it is. After all, this is exactly what Jewish Americans were doing for decades now. Think about Jewish American culture, and you’ll find the influence of Israel written all over it. But where is Jewish America when Israel’s culture is considered? In most cases, it is absent. I think its presence is essential if one wants to foster a meaningful dialogue.

“Sometimes I worry that Israelis forget” that their country is part of the world, you wrote. Let me be less ambitious here, and more particularist in expressing my own hopes (danger zone --- this is really going to make me sound like the oldest, most out-dated, guy on the Jewcy block): Israelis tend to forget that they are part of a larger Jewish world. And this should be fixed.

Thank you so much for this conversation, and for the kind words (note to self: make parents read this dialogue) --- and most of all for the book. Looking forward to hear your thoughts on this matter.

Shmuel Rosner

From: Gregory Levey

To: Shmuel Rosner

Dear Shmuel,

Perhaps one day you will write a book for your fellow Israelis about your time spent with us wacky North Americans dealing with our misguided ways. As a devoted fan of your journalism - most mornings your writing is the first thing I read - I certainly hope so.

But if you choose to write it as a personal memoir like mine, as opposed to as an anthropological study, I'm sure you will be reluctant to see yourself as a stand-in for all Israelis. Again, all I tried to do in Shut Up, I'm Talking is tell my own personal story: I applied for a part-time internship at the Israeli consulate in New York, and instead found myself catapulted to the Israeli UN Mission and Prime Minister's Office. It's not an experience likely to be repeated often by non-Israelis, and so I would see bending it to the needs of allegory as a dangerous proposition. Readers of my book can choose to take it however they want, but that isn't really my concern.

I was very glad to hear that you found Shut Up, I'm Talking funny, because if I were to categorize its intent as either "to amuse" or "to enlighten," it would certainly be the former. Being offered leftover salami from Ariel Sharon's lunch, being forced to run around with a gun with no safety lodged next to my crotch during a security course, and even trying to sneak Seinfeld references into the Prime Minister's speeches were experiences that were, above all else, comic. I'm glad to hear that you seem to think people might be able to learn something from my book, but I was mostly concerned with making them laugh.

But enough about Seinfeld and my crotch --- let's get serious. I was surprised thatLevantine Cab Drivers: Stressed out you thought my suggestion that the cultural and the political are enmeshed was "almost outrageous," especially since I'm hardly the first to assert such a thing. My understanding, in fact, is that it's more or less a commonplace idea among cultural theorists. In any case, it's not a cause-and-effect principle, but a correlative one. The crazy driving of Israelis doesn't cause their government's policies, but the two may stem from the same underlying forces --- the rapid pace of events in the Middle East that you mention and that I very quickly had to learn to deal with when I was writing speeches for Israel. As another example, the behavior of the person I refer to in my book as "the worst person I ever met" might not be unrelated to his country being in a constant state of war.

You contend that my doubts about the soundness of certain specific Israeli policies should not be trusted simply because I happened to mention them in the same breath as Canada and Switzerland, and that this might be a product of my Diaspora mentality. Comparable arguments might be made for China, Russia, the Palestinians, or anyone else, by the way, but maybe your reflexive rejection of a fairly common idea might actually shed some light on your own Israeliness (if we're going to play this somewhat tired game). That is, Israel most definitely has to deal with a uniquely dangerous situation, but this doesn't mean it's not part of the rest of the world.

Sometimes I worry that Israelis forget that.

But let's move forward, as you suggest. You ask if I think we should aspire to bridge the cultural gap between Israelis and American Jews and whether it can be done. Bridging the gap is obviously a noble desire, but I'm pessimistic about its feasibility. One of the most astounding triumphs of Israel --- and there are, of course, a multitude --- is that the country really has been able to create a new culture all its own. American Jews have to applaud that, but that doesn't mean that they can ever fully share in it.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but some of the experiences I detail in Shut Up, I'm Talking definitely didn't help bridge my own cultural gap with Israel. Being punched at by Israeli cab drivers, waiting six weeks for a government committee to decide that I needed a cell phone in my position as "communications coordinator," and dealing with the understandably intense security apparatus made the cultural chasm seem vast.

By the way, Shmuel, let me give you a hearty congratulations on your recent B'nai Brith journalism award for your work on currents in American Jewry and its connection to Israel. It goes without saying that it was richly deserved.

All best wishes,
Gregory

From: Shmuel Rosner

To: Gregory Levey

Dear Gregory,

Having spent the last two and a half years in America (not to mention my year in Canada twelve years ago) - and being the student that I am of American politics and culture – I think I know what you mean by thanking me “for being direct.” It is really: “get lost, you and your primitive understanding of my book.”

And this scares me, and also makes me a bit uncomfortable (am I now showing signs of being somewhat Americanized?).

So let me backtrack a little and say this: Yes, I think your book does not reveal the true nature of Israel. (You should take into account the fact that I was trying to provoke you as to make our dialog come alive.) And --- I do read your book as an allegory, which you understandably protest. However, I’m afraid that on this point, which I probably didn't make coherently enough in my first letter, I will have to insist. Let me explain why.

Reading your book (and being as “direct” as I was perhaps I should be emphasizing that it was really fun to read), I did not think about you and your personal story. I thought about the conversation we’re about to have. And I also thought about your readers, and how will they interpret the book.

And let me tell you this. I’m pretty sure that what these readers will have in mind --- assuming that many of them will be young Jewish North Americans like you --- is exactly what I had in mind. They will be thinking that your description of your Israel is a description of the actual Israel. Which I think is sometimes true, but sometimes isn’t.

A Kassam missile landing in Sderot: why Israelis sometimes get agitated Now, I don’t want to spend too much time arguing this point, as I vividly remember that the instructions I were given by the editors of Jewcy involved something about “moving the dialogue forward.” But here is one last attempt I will be making to sum-up our differences:

You think that I failed to understand the book by saying that you failed to reveal the true nature of Israel. I think that you failed to understand the minds of your readers, and ended up with a book (did I say it was fun to read?) that can be somewhat misleading in the sense that instead of helping people understand Israel you’ll be confusing them even more than they are already confused.

Having said all that, I want to go back to the real reason I’ve wanted to discuss this book in the first place: That is, the gap between educated, smart, liberal, young, Jewish Americans – and Israel, if there is such gap. As you probably know by now, this is a matter of some debate (I wrote about it here).

And your letter gave me the perfect example with which to make one of the many arguments that can be made. Here’s what you wrote:

Let me go a step further and suggest that the personal and political are actually interwoven… As they say, people get the government they deserve.

As I see it, the argument you’ve made in this paragraph is almost outrageous. You say that Canada is not asserting itself on the world stage because of the politeness of its people. You imply that Switzerland is neutral as a result of the “quintessential Swiss demeanor.”

“There are underlying cultural forces that help shape both the personal and the political. There are underlying cultural forces that help shape both the personal and the political,” you say. And this sounds misleadingly true until one thinks about it seriously.

Then you go on to say that Israel has the government it has because of what? “The way that the typical Israeli driver navigates the streets of Tel Aviv”? So let me see if I get this: The “underlying cultural forces” of Israel are those responsible for the bad behavior of Israeli drivers which in turn is responsible for improvisational governments (ones that they “deserve”) and their poorly constructed policies?

Please Gregory, tell me again that I did not understand your position.

Because this is how I see it. Canada does not have enemies, and does not have to assert itself anywhere unless it wants to. Its people can be calm and polite because the only thing they really have to worry about is winter weather. No one is threatening Canada, no one is trying to attack it, or to delegitimize it, or to eliminate it. Switzerland, may I remind you, is in Europe, surrounded by the dangerous militaristic Italy, France and Germany (yes, I know it was not always a peaceful neighborhood, nevertheless, it is now).

Merkava Mk. III: the product of Israeli ingenuity, and Israeli necessity Israel, on the other hand, has real enemies, and very real worries. It is located in a dangerous neighborhood, and has to improvise constantly, as time is of the essence. Yes, this improvisational ethic has side effects, not all pleasant. Among them: careless drivers, inventive high-tech engineers, lawless settlers, courageous fighter-pilots. All these, and many more, are the outcome of the Israeli condition.

I hope I make this distinction clear because it is an important one. It also sheds new light on your assertion, according to which you’ve developed “reservations about specific governmental policies.” And I want to be clear here: I do not think that the policies of Israel or the Israeli government are always the right ones, or the brightest ones. However, your letter made me doubt your doubts regarding these policies. How can you possibly understand the cause for Israel’s policies, while thinking about it the way one thinks about Canada?

With this in mind --- and moving the dialogue “forward”, always forward --- I would like you to address the question of the “divide,” an area on which we seem to agree (unless that proves to be a mirage).

“I can enthusiastically agree with you that the fundamental divide between Israelis and Americans is a cultural one,” you write. So here is my twofold question: Can it be bridged, and should we even aspire to bridge it?

Looking forward to your response,

From: Gregory Levey
To: Shmuel Rosner

Dear Shmuel,

Thank you for being direct.

I’m sorry if my book hit a nerve. I’m not sure how to address this whirlwind of questions, but I’ll begin by saying that I’m disappointed to hear that you think I “failed” to write a book “supposedly revealing of the true nature of Israel” --- mostly because I had no intention of doing any such thing. I “failed” only in the sense that you have failed to become America’s greatest lawn bowler (as far as I know). In other words, that’s just not what I was trying to do.

To imagine that I could reveal “the true nature of Israel” would have been grossly presumptuous of me. All I could hope to do was tell my own story of being a particular North American thrown headfirst into the Israeli government. Life is messy, and memoirs are messy. The tidy categorization you’re stretching for is the kind of product journalists sling --- not the stuff of memoir.

The Israeli Spirit: On the beach? So while I’m delighted to discuss my book with you, I’m reluctant to turn it into an allegory. With that in mind, I can address some of your other inquiries, such as whether I cut off my time in the Israeli Government for personal or political reasons.

It was both. I believe that Israel’s existence and security are moral imperatives and I remain wholeheartedly supportive of the country, but I did develop reservations about specific governmental policies --- along with severe “doubts that the country’s problems would ever be solved,” as you mention. I also, however, quickly tired of Israelis’ “directness” and of many aspects of the Israeli worldview. “Was it just because you didn’t feel at home?” you seem to be asking, as if this should be some kind of accusation. But of course I never felt at home, and I can’t imagine why I would have. I wish those living in Israel only the best, but my home is North America, and I’m entirely happy with that.

Let me go a step further and suggest that the personal and political are actually interwoven. I grew up in Canada, and I think that the sometimes paralyzing “politeness” of Canadians and their government’s tendency not to assert itself on the world stage might not be unrelated. My Swiss friends, meanwhile, have always agreed with me when I have proposed that the quintessential Swiss demeanor is of a piece with their country’s historic neutrality. There are underlying cultural forces that help shape both the personal and the political. So, for example, the way that the typical Israeli driver navigates the streets of Tel Aviv – hopping onto the curb, driving between two lanes in order to use whichever one is faster, parking in the middle of the street while going for a coffee --- jibes with how his country sometimes conducts statecraft. As they say, people get the government they deserve --- particularly in a democracy as vibrant as Israel’s.

On the battlefield? I’ll obviously grant you that my experience of being a fish out of water in the government didn’t give me any kind of typical experience of Israeliness. Most immigrants to Israel don’t get off the plane and head straight to the Prime Minister’s Office. Nor do most get on the plane in the first place because of an invitation from that office. I didn’t go to Israel to “make the deserts bloom,” to participate in the “ingathering of the exiles,” or because I was on a mission from God. I went because a job offer from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon when I was twenty-six-years-old would have been a hard thing to turn down.

It’s in that context that I can enthusiastically agree with you that the fundamental divide between Israelis and Americans is a cultural one. As an example of this, you rightly point to my surprise at the amount of improvisation in the Israeli government. You say that an Israeli put in my shoes --- say, voting at the UN General Assembly with no idea how he should vote --- would “have no problem making the decisions” that I was asked to make. On this point I totally agree with you. My concern, though, is that this is not a good thing.

The Israeli spirit of improvization is admirable and has often served the country well, especially in the early days of the state. Even now, the willingness to think creatively and break through rigid rules is certainly responsible for the mind-blowing innovations and successes that Israel has produced in fields including technology, medicine, business, and the arts. In these areas, improvisation can do wonders.

But is it really how a government should operate?

Many thanks,

Gregory

Is the bond between Diaspora Jews and Israel stronger than a couple of summer teen tours and a vague obligation to keep up with Israeli politics? Gregory Levey might have a deeper insight on that question than most of us who sit strictly on one side or the other of the Diaspora-Israel divide. Levey was a North American Jewish law student (imagine that) who applied for a job with the Israeli consulate and found himself, through a series of accidents, in an inner circle of the Israeli government writing speeches for Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. He recorded his experiences in the engaging and witty new book, Shut Up, I'm Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned In the Israeli Government. We asked Shmuel Rosner, US correspondent for Haaretz, to engage Levey on his time as a misplaced Israeli official and the lessons he learned in the process.

Crown Heights Anti-Zionism: What divides American and Israeli Jews?From: Shmuel Rosner
To: Gregory Levey

Dear Gregory,

Here are some things I’ve recently learned about your background:

Back in the seventies, when your parents were looking for a place to live - having decided they should be leaving segregated South Africa and find a better place – one of the options they have considered was Israel. However --- as you only briefly mention in Shut Up, I’m Talking --- Israel was “not to their liking.” No sin there.

Why exactly they didn’t like about Israel is not quite clear from the book you wrote. “We couldn’t stand the rudeness of the people,” you quote your mother as saying, without much elaboration. The family settled eventually in Canada, preferring, as you amusingly observe, “polite people who had opinions about nothing” over “ill-mannered people who had opinions about everything.”

But here is what I thought was the most striking thing about your book, and about your story --- the story of you immigrating to Israel for a fairly short period in which you worked for the Prime Minister’s office as a speech writer and press officer. Exactly like your parents back in their day, your eventual decision that Israel was not the country for you lacks reasoning too. Yes, you had your fair share of meetings with Israeli bureaucrats --- not exactly an aphrodisiac --- and you had many frustrations with the ways and habits of this country. But what was it about Israel that made you leave after such a short time? Was it the also the “rudeness,” or was it the fact that you saw Israel as a “dangerously dysfunctional family,” or maybe your “doubts that the county’s problems would ever be solved”?

In sum: was it a political problem with the country and its policies, or a personal problem of someone who does not feel as if he belongs. Does not feel at home.

And here is another question: Was this problem not magnified by the fact that you worked for the government? That instead of trying to be an “Israeli” you immediately became the lesser brand of the “Israeli official”?

A cultural or political alliance? As you can probably guess from the tone of my questions, I think I have some of the answers to these questions (now, that’s Israeli rudeness). I think that your “Israel experience” was not at all indicative of Israeli life. I think that your attempt at writing a book that’s supposedly revealing of the true nature of Israel is interesting --- because you’ve failed. Because in failing you did reveal something important. Namely, the difficulties of a nice Jewish American boy like you are (or were when you started this adventure) to understand what it is that makes Israel tick.

I don’t know what Americans, or Canadians, will think when they will be reading this book. Your writing is sharp, and your ability to make fun of Israelis, their strange ways, their abrupt mood changes, their, well, rudeness – I prefer to think about it as directness – is remarkable. But where does it lead? What new things can we learn about Israel that we didn’t already know?

What I learned from this book is that even someone like yourself --- as talented and perceptive as you might be --- has an inherent deficiency when you describe the lives of Israelis. The book describes our governmental failures in great detail, but the details do not add up to a picture of real human beings. We are caricatures, sometimes funny, often pathetic, at times annoying. We are the sum of ridiculous meetings with the taxi driver, the flamboyant spokesperson, the apathetic tow track technician.

Here is one example that keeps popping in the book: your repeated puzzlement with the fact that Israelis constantly improvise. Suddenly, you find yourself in the position of representing the country you barely know in the United Nations General assembly, or representing the Prime Minister’s office in a meeting with senior military officers. In both cases you have no real instructions, no directions. And you’re amazed, and somewhat lost.

This is what separates you from many Israelis. They’d have no problem making the decisions you’re asked to make. Moreover, they’d know that if the meeting was really important, if the vote had any meaning, you’d not be the one to make the call. In a sense, the joke is not on them, it is on you --- the dedicated, strange American who takes his job with such seriousness (and make no mistake, I’m not here to defend the many flaws of Israel’s society or the lack of process in places in which it is indeed needed).

Anyway, what I think will be interesting in this dialogue, is to try and explore your story as a way to understand the real divide that separates Diaspora Jews from Jewish Israelis. Here’s my little theory on which I will ask you to comment: I think North American Jews are not alienated from Israel to the extent they are (and as you probably know there is some debate going on about it) mainly because of its politics.

I think what separates them is a cultural divide. The difficulties Americans have when they try to understand why is it that Israel behaves the way it does, and the equivalent difficulties of Israelis to understand the possibility and viability of Jewish life in America. And I also think that your book provides us with a magnifying glass through which we can see this divide in full color. You just don’t get us – we just don’t get what it there not to get.

Agree?

Best,

Shmuel Rosner

[Ed note: Gregory Levey will be reading from Shut Up, I'm Talking at the Borders on 57th and Park on April 22 at 7pm. Details are here.]

The findings in the most recent Kelman/Cohen studyare not as blazingly obvious as "men want hot women", but they are nonetheless unsurprising.

Based on the responses of more than 1,700 non-Orthodox American Jews of all ages, the study indicates that successively younger age groups show a greater detachment from the State of Israel.

According to the report, which was based on statistics collected as part of the 2007 National Survey of American Jews between December 20, 2006, and January 28, 2007, less than half of Jews under the age of 35 believe Israel's destruction would be a personal tragedy, compared to 78 percent of those over 65. Sixty-six percent of Jews aged 50-64 believe it would be a personal tragedy, compared to 54% aged 35-49.

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