The Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee gathered this morning to discuss a bill that would effectively criminalize egalitarian and women-led prayer at the Western Wall, including areas that currently permit it, by designating any practice in violation of the Chief Rabbinate’s rulings as “desecration,” punishable by up to seven years in prison. 

There are several reasons to believe that the bill will not be voted into law on technical grounds. Representatives of the Justice Ministry noted that it is problematic to give a non-legislative body like the Rabbinate the de facto power to send people to prison for seven years, and the bill’s own author — Avi Maoz of the far-right Noam Party — acknowledged that the legislation would also criminalize Jews’ visiting the Temple Mount, a practice which he supports, as the Rabbinate has deemed that a violation of religious law. But another reason why the bill, which was backed by nearly every member of the coalition, may end up buried is that its passage would deeply alienate the vast majority of Diaspora Jews, particularly American Jews, at a time when American popular support for Israel is waning. 

It is therefore fitting that as this bill, which is nearly universally opposed by mainstream American Jewish organizations, was being debated in the Knesset, eJewishPhilanthropy was speaking with Ted Sasson, a professor at Middlebury College and the Ruderman Family Foundation Scholar in Residence in the Israel-United States Research Program at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, who is the co-author of a new report examining how the Israeli government can shore up its increasingly strained ties with American Jewry. (This includes addressing Israeli policies that reject non-Orthodox Judaism, which “continue to rankle many American Jews,” according to Sasson and his co-author, Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis.)

The 67-page report, “American Jewry Is Changing: What Israel Must Do to Preserve the Partnership,” which is based on dozens of interviews with Israeli and American Jewish figures, as well as scholarly and journalistic articles, examines both the current state of affairs for American Jews, including Israel’s policies toward them, and issues recommendations on how the Israeli government can more effectively engage with American Jews and maintain the relationship, which the authors describe as critical for the country’s national security. 

The policy memorandum describes American Jews as increasingly secular, moving away from traditional institutions and less connected to Israel than in the past. To address this, the report encourages the Israeli government to invest in immersive educational programs — Birthright trips, gap-year programs, university-level initiatives — and to scale back its more divisive policies, both those directly related to world Jewry and those connected to the Palestinians, which are at odds with American Jewry’s positions. 

Judah Ari Gross: Let’s jump right into the report. One of the things that stands out to me in your descriptions of American Jewry is that there’s no mention of “the Surge,” which has been widely discussed by American Jewish organizations. Was that deliberate? Do you not see that as a significant milestone? 

Ted Sasson: Yeah, I didn’t think it was a milestone. I thought there was a bump, not a “Surge.” That was reflected in self-reported data, which is not especially reliable. But also my friends who head up JCCs, day schools and synagogues said that they did feel that there was incremental change, some increased interest and participation, but that waned a little bit after the second year. I just don’t think it’s a structural transformation. 

Now the folks who invented the notion of “the Surge,” who described it and promoted it, did so for really laudable reasons to say, “There’s an opportunity here that we need to embrace.” And that’s the right impulse. I support it entirely. 

I think American Jewry may be on the cusp of inventing new movements, new ways of being Jewish, new cultural and intellectual directions, and we’ll see them unfold in the years ahead. 

A lot of smart observers have chronicled the decline of the establishment, of the major movements. The headwinds are just enormous. American Judaism really became a dynamic and forceful component in American life in the context of robust American Christianity in the post-World War II period. That’s when the Conservative movement took off, the Reform movement, the suburban synagogues. All of that is slowly decaying and declining together with — and not as rapidly as — mainline Protestantism.

The point of the report is not to say that Israel can correct American Jews’ problems, but that it can contribute, which is important. 

JAG: Is the development of those new movements and institutions necessarily a good thing? There’s a real downside that I see in throwing out these existing institutions that are strong and robust and starting anew. I understand the motivations and the concerns about the “establishment,” but those big organizations can also more effectively concentrate and wield power on behalf of American Jews. Without it, Israeli leaders can just pick and choose whom to talk to.

TS: That’s why the State of Israel should talk to everyone. Now, that doesn’t mean Jewish Voice for Peace, but it does mean that the State of Israel should not say that J Street’s leadership is not Jewish, which is just wrong factually, and I think is morally very damaging. 

But American Jewry really is fractured around Israel, and that fracture extends to the right and to the left, and that diminishes American Jewish power. The State of Israel can’t turn to American Jewry the way it did in the 1980s and 1990s and expect it to effectively pressure the American government. 

It happens to have a sympathetic president in the White House right now, but absent that, it does not look like the organizations of the Israel lobby are capable any longer of exerting meaningful political influence and power, and that is because they’re so fragmented and divided and cancel each other out and are open to politicians across the political spectrum. Each can choose their own fragment of the Israel lobby to claim their pro-Israel bona fides. Democrats turned to J Street,  and the hawks turned to [the Zionist Organization of America], and that is a problem for Israel. But Israel needs to not just be indignant or disappointed, but needs to pursue enlightened public policy that makes the best of the situation. And in this case, for Israel, it’s not to boycott J Street, which represents a very significant section of American Jewry,  but instead to engage in dialogue. 

American Jewry will continue to be important to Israel, and Israel should pursue policies that enact its commitment to the flourishing of world Jewry (as mandated by Israel’s 2018 Nation-State Law).

Israel, under this government, has ignored the sensibilities, the interests, the desires of world Jewry and American Jewry, and that’s caused considerable alienation that we’re just seeing surfacing this year in hard data. Our surveys look very different now than the surveys that have tracked this for 30 years. And what I’m hearing from our network of friends in the American Jewish establishment is very different from anything I’ve heard before in the past. And I think that’s because of an Israeli government that’s been remarkably insensitive to the consequences of its policies for world Jewry. 

American Jewry is weakening institutionally and politically, and is also facing surging anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and Israel needs to pursue, we think, a much more thoughtful and enlightened policy with respect to antisemitism and anti-Zionism.

JAG: Appropriately enough, we’re having this conversation as a Knesset committee discusses a bill that would effectively criminalize non-Rabbinate-approved practices at the Western Wall — something that most American Jews would oppose but that the ruling coalition supported — and as the government is taking steps to prevent the possibility of a Palestinian state, which is something else American Jews would oppose. Are your recommendations feasible for this government or a similar one, or are you effectively saying that new leadership is necessary to shore up American Jewish support for Israel. If this coalition is reelected, is there still a way to maintain that support? 

TS: I think a lot of the activity that we’re seeing right now in the Knesset, around conversion, around the Western Wall, the moves in the West Bank, is actually evidence that this government doesn’t expect the election to go its way. It’s trying to create facts on the ground, it’s trying to accelerate through a variety of issues, take a variety of decisions that it hopes will, you know, bind future governments. I think we’re going to have a new government. It’s not clear whether that will be a new government led by Naftali Bennett, Gadi Eisenkot or Benjamin Netanyahu, but there will be a new government. 

You’re right that the report is geared toward a new government, but we try to imagine that it could be a new Netanyahu-led government that seeks to repair some of the damage that accumulated during this very long war.

It is surprising that the damage to U.S.-Israel relations is unfolding at a moment of peak strategic cooperation in the war. 

I think that where American Jewry needs to be reassured — at the level of government pronouncements and also at the level of public policy and strategic policy — is in respect to Israel’s commitment to remaining Jewish and democratic, of course, within secure borders in the future, and that it has a strategic vision that keeps alive that possibility. 

I think a new Israeli government has to be able to articulate a moral commitment, a strategic vision that enables us to see beyond the permanent integration of millions of Palestinians into Israeli society [without citizenship]. That might be a two-state solution, it might be a federation, it might be a confederation, who knows? But an incoming Israeli government has to be able to enunciate a vision of an Israel that is secure, with a Jewish majority and a democratic polity, in order to continue to benefit from strong support that extends beyond the Orthodox and the right-wing of American Jewry. 

JAG: In addition to those higher policy recommendations, what else can Israel do? 

TS: In the report, we recommend that Israel focus on the areas where it’s uniquely capable of supporting American Jewry, and that’s especially in the area of education. 

Through Birthright Israel and related initiatives and programs, like Masa, Israel played an enormously important role in American Jewish continuity and American Jewish identity formation. 

Birthright really is revelatory for American Jews who arrive and realize that there is a Jewish people, there is a Hebrew language and that they’re a part of that story. It makes such a deep impression that it causes new life decisions, which shape the future course of many of the folks who participate in those educational programs.

Over the last five years, as we show in the report, more than 100,000 fewer American Jewish young adults participated in Birthright than did in the previous five years. That’s a huge blow to American Jewry. 

Israel, for all of the challenges it causes American Jewry, is also inspirational and is a critical feature of Jewish identity globally and American Jewish identity. So, as quickly as possible, Israel needs to renew and expand upon the educational frameworks that it provides that enable American Jews to encounter Israel. 

So with Birthright, we gotta get the numbers back up. Masa and university-based programs are an opportunity for Israel to build upon and expand the role it plays in educating Jewish young adults who are facing universities that are increasingly hostile. And many more of them are interested for that reason, and also because it’s cost-effective and because Israeli academia is exciting and intellectually freewheeling. 

Israel should expand academic programs for international students, for American students. It should have in mind American Jewish students in particular, with more dual degree programs, more full degree programs, taught in English with intensive Hebrew components, and Israel should really invest in becoming the world center of higher education for the Jewish People. There’s a moment here. 

Gap-year programs are a part of that. So it’s not just a matter of restoring Birthright to the numbers that existed previously, but let’s expand gap years and make it as normative a part of the Jewish life course as Birthright had been for many years. I think there’s an opportunity there. 

We also have a tremendous ecosystem of Jewish educators in Israel who are uniquely capable of contributing to the identity formation education of American Jews. So I think that needs to be a national priority. I think we’re pushing at an open door there. I think Israel’s interested and would like to accomplish that. But I think it’s absolutely critical in the next phase. 

Another thing is political representation, not of Diaspora Jews as voters. Israelis — Jews and non-Jews — are the electorate of the State of Israel. We’re not advocating for Diaspora Jews to have voting rights, but an enlightened Israeli government will systematically take into account the impact of its policies and its rhetoric about those policies on Diaspora support for the State of Israel and the safety of Diaspora Jewry. This government hasn’t done that. And its conduct over the last three years would have looked different if it were asking, “What policies should we be pursuing and how should we be talking to the rest of the world about those policies, keeping in mind that we have an obligation to represent not only the people of the State of Israel but global Jewry.

JAG: Why the focus on gap-year programs and university-level programs and not on K-12 and even early childhood? 

TS:  We interviewed 50 people for the report, more or less, and there was division on this question of whether Israel should be funding American Jewish education. Some said, “Absolutely, it’s a state with taxation capacity, it’s got huge resources, and American Jewish education should be the beneficiary of those resources.” 

JAG: Considering there was just a report that less than 3% of Israeli ninth graders met their science requirements, I can already imagine the attack ads against any Israeli government that would improve such spending: “We can’t afford to educate our own kids, but we’re paying to educate the kids of rich American Jews.” 

TS: Yeah, others objected for that reason and also just because they thought it was an American Jewish obligation, and they didn’t want the outside interference. 

We also believe that the cost of intensive immersive Jewish experiences in the United States and in Israel really is a barrier that philanthropy has to work on, together with the State of Israel. Gap-year programs could be expanded if we can develop an adequate subsidy framework. Right now, if they cost something close to a year of college, they’re not viewed as a good source of college credit.

And cost really is a barrier, and we’ve seen that when cost is addressed, the numbers go right up. In Atlanta, the Jewish federation has a wonderful pilot [to subsidize gap-year programs], and they went from a few people going on a gap year to dozens going on a gap year by increasing funding and partnerships between federations.

And, incidentally, I believe in the federation movement. I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think it’s incredibly valuable. I agree with you that we shouldn’t dismantle organizational networks and institutions that we urgently need. Those institutions should continue to invest in innovation and in new intellectual, cultural, religious, spiritual movements that will galvanize American Jews, because I think that’s where there’s a need.

JAG: Thank you so much for speaking with me. Just one last question, have you started sharing this report with Israeli politicians? 

TS: Yes, we handed it to Yair Lapid [head of the Yesh Atid Party] on Thursday when he came to INSS, and we’re eager to circulate it widely.