By Yoel Meltzer Roughly 15 years ago I made a personal decision to leave the comfortable lifestyle and familiar surroundings of America in order to settle down and build my life in Israel. As important as this decision was, it had nothing to do with any negative feelings that I had towards the US. In fact, just the opposite is true and most of my memories of life in America are very positive. From childhood vacations in the Lake George region of upstate New York, to a couple of cross-country ventures in my mid-20s, to a few years of life in the middle of New York City, I can honestly say that the United States is really one incredible, beautiful country. Furthermore, the variety of quality choices and lifestyles that are available in an enormous country of nearly 300 million residents truly makes settling down in America such an attractive option. The problem is the chicken and the egg factor. Only by living here and experiencing the reality of life in Israel can one honestly come to such an internal realization. Thus, to a Jew who still lives outside of Israel, it is only natural that such a statement will be somewhat incomprehensible or perhaps even irritating. Nonetheless, I would like to present a short list of positive reasons for a Jew to consider building a life in Israel: “Sha, Shtill” By Avi Yellin A recent study conducted using students from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has led to a debate by pro-Israel organizations on how the Jewish State should be defended on American college campuses. The Israel Project, a Washington-based Israel advocacy group, conducted the recent study which showed that even the most educated and decidedly pro-Israel students are hesitant to speak out in the face of anti-Zionist accusations. The study put 15 unsuspecting Jewish students from Harvard and MIT into a small room with 20 non-Jewish peers and prompted them to candidly discuss the State of Israel. The tone of the discussions quickly became strongly critical of the Jewish state and its policies but many of the Jewish participants were hesitant to rush to Israel’s defense. Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder of The Israel Project, which works primarily in the realm of media and public opinion, found the results so disturbing that she declined to post them on her organization’s internet site. “If it had been students from any other campuses I would not have been horrified. But this was the best and the brightest. I know it involved only 30 people and that’s not the same as an 800-person poll but its still problematic. A leader is a leader, and those who are selected to attend Harvard and MIT are more intelligent and successful than the vast majority of people.” The problem, Mizrahi said, was “not that they were too open-minded, it is that they were too quiet.” In a detailed memo describing the experiment, Luntz pointed out that the students did not know the religious or ethnic backgrounds of the other students in the room. They knew that they were being paid $100 for their opinions regarding United States foreign policy but they did not know the focus would be on the Middle East or Israel. For three hours the students, who with a few exceptions did not know one another, engaged in a candid discussion facilitated by Luntz. “Needless to say, the results of the group were truly eye-opening,” he wrote. “They’re perhaps best summarized by the following exchange, which took place early on in the session. When we first started discussing Israel, it was only a matter of minutes before the phrase ‘the Israel lobby’ was uttered, along with direct references to Jewish money. The problem, frankly, wasn’t that these terms and topics were broached. The problem was the type of negativity directed toward them. This is Harvard and MIT, and yet none of the Jewish students interjected during this exchange to offer an opposing viewpoint. The question you should be asking is not why smart Jewish students are having so much trouble on American college campuses, but instead, why these students are not standing up for Israel. You can’t blame the institutions when the students who attend them are the ones at fault.”Why make aliyah?
Nonetheless, despite all the wonderful things that can be said about America, I would not trade for a second the life that I have built in Israel. Moreover, I am 100% convinced that there is no place in the world that is potentially more suitable for a Jew to live than in the Land of Israel. To someone living outside of Israel this may sound like quite a bombastic declaration, but nonetheless this does not detract from the veracity of the statement.Campus Study Validates Opposing Some Israeli Policies in Yesha
Frank Luntz, the pollster who served as the group’s facilitator and who in an earlier TIP policy paper not only acknowledged that expelling Jewish residents from their homes in Judea and Samaria would constitute an “ethnic cleansing” but also recommended that pro-Israel advocates put forward this point, said he found the results of the study to be “horrifying.”
Ted Belman
Jerusalem
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Posts
