Last update - 00:00 09/03/2008
Study: Young American Jews are not detached from Israel
By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz Correspondent
WASHINGTON - A study published last week in the United States challenges the prevailing assumption that American Jews have become alienated from Israel in recent years, and particularly the assumption that the younger generation is less attached to Israel than their parents' generation was at their age.
The study released last Wednesday by the Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University maintains that there has been no decline, nor will there be one. "Jewish attachment to Israel has largely held steady for the period 1994-2007," the study says, adding that there are "strong reasons for rejecting the prevailing pessimism regarding the future relationship of American Jews to Israel."
In a conversation with Haaretz, two of the study's three authors, Len Saxe and Ted Sasson, said the sources they examined suggest that young American Jews are indeed less attached to Israel than their parents - but precisely the same way their parents were less attached to Israel than was the grandparents' generation.
"Differences in attachment to Israel are likely related to life-cycle rather than the diverse experiences of successive generations. As American Jews grow older, they tend to become more emotionally attached to Israel," says the study, whose third author is Charles Kadushin.
The researchers looked at the Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion for the years 1994 through 2007, and found no significant lasting difference regarding Israel.
The AJC survey asks two questions relating to Israel, almost every year. One asks respondents whether "Caring about Israel is a very important part of my being a Jew." On this question, "the proportion of respondents agreeing that Israel is a 'very important' aspect of their Jewish identity holds stable throughout the entire time period [1994-2007]."
The second asks "How close do you feel to Israel?" According to the study, "Between 1994 and 2005, the proportion feeling close to Israel increased by 11 percent, from 66 to 77 percent of the sample; between 2006 and 2007, it declined by 7 percent. For the period as a whole, the spread between those indicating 'close' and 'distant' increased by a modest 8 percent."
Moreover, stability in the degree of attachment to Israel is evident across the denominations. Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jews express varying degrees of attachment to Israel, but the stability within each stream has remained unchanged since 1994.
Contrary to a commonly-held belief, the study found no significant connection between liberalism and detachment from Israel.
"General political orientation on a continuum from 'extremely liberal' to 'extremely conservative' is not related to attachment to Israel," the study says.
The new study is the latest in a series of publications on the question of American Jews' ties to Israel, most of which were far more pessimistic. A September 2007 study by scholars Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman found mounting evidence that American Jews, particularly the younger generation, are increasingly detached from Israel.
The authors of the Brandeis study reject that finding.
Both studies point to evidence that the more American Jews travel to Israel, the more they become attached to it. In this context, the new study underscores the ability of the Taglit-birthright project to completely alter the structure and strength of the ties between America's Jews and Israel.
Taglit-birthright brings young Jews on free trips to Israel; it expanded substantially in the past year after billionaire Sheldon Adelson began supporting it financially.
The new study points to the rise in the number of American Jews visiting Israel. This fact, the researchers write, "implies the likelihood that such upward pressure on Israel attachment will continue in the future."
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