How A.B. Yehoshua lost his crowd

The title was promising and so were the panelists. "The Future of the Past: What will become of the Jewish people?" moderated by Ted Koppel and with the participation of the Cynthia Ozick, Rabbi Adin Steinzaltz, Leon Wieseltier, and Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua. It was the first session of the American Jewish Committee's Centennial symposium, and what a disastrous evening it was.

The blame goes first and foremost to the annoyingly impolite Yehoshua. Taking over the dialog with a simplistic (and quite old-fashioned) message of ultra-Zionism - he was such a disruptive participant as to dismantle the whole discussion. For a while, I thought the angry Wieseltier was going to punch him - but he chose a different path of protestation and just stopped talking altogether.

The crowed got angry, too. In the busses heading back to their hotels, participants were talking about Yehoshua in words unfit to print. So much so that this morning, AJC's Executive Director David Harris felt a need to comment on the evening's events. Yehoshua, he said, was "passionate" and was a "expressing classic Zionist" point of view. However, Harris added, he "didn't win many friends to his cause" - and believe me, this is the understatement of the year.

So what was Yehoshua saying that got everybody so annoyed? He said that the only way to be a Jew is to live in Israel - well, not a very original thought, nor a new one. So it was not exactly what he said, but more the way he chose to do it - the arrogant, dismissive, way in which he framed his arguments, and even more so, the fact that he didn't let the discussion to move forward.

Koppel looked simply stunned.

Late at night, when I got home, I went over my notes to find something worth writing about - some conclusions one can make of such an evening - and here is what I came up with. More fragments than real conclusion:

Loyalty

The most astonishing thing that was said in this evening was a statement by Ozick, who dared to utter the D word: "I have a dual loyalty," she said, to the U.S. and to Israel. Later, she tried to clarify. I wish I could have had a thousand loyalties, she said, but one can only find within himself enough passion as to have one or two - in her case two. To the inquisitorial Koppel, trying to understand what she will do if the two countries will some day have a difference of interests she had a vague - though interesting - answer. She just thinks - and I'm paraphrasing here - that it can't happen. That her two beloved countries will not go in a direction that will force her to choose.

Anti-Semitism

The best one-liner of the evening belongs to Wieseltier (when he was still participating). Ozick - as to make a point about the possibility of anti-Semitism in the U.S. - was bringing up the Walt-Mersheimer study, a topic without which no real discussion of the Jewish people can take place these days. The study, said Ozick, frightens me. And Wieseltier gave her an answer to be remembered: "I will take Walt-Mersheimer over the Kishinev pogroms any day."

Judaism

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Jewish Funders Network conference in Denver, and wrote about it extensively. The conference's title, "Plug and Play Judaism," referred to the way in which young Generation Y Jews deal with their Jewish identity. It was meant in a positive way - as a new means via which to connect to these youngsters. (Read "I met happy Jews" here).

But yesterday, plug and play Judaism was used in a derogatory way by Yehoshua. What kind of Judaism is it, he asked. "You're just playing - plug and play." He argued that the only way to be a "real" Jew is by exercising power, making decisions, in a complete manner - that is, in Israel, where every decision you make is necessarily, to some extent "Jewish." And if you try to pinpoint the ongoing argument of the evening, this is what it was all about.

Yehoshua was willing to talk only about Judaism in Israel - Wieseltier tried to offer the "portability of Judaism." An idea that is not only about place and state - but bigger (one can't suspect that Wieseltier is not supportive enough of Israel - he just wanted to emphasize the other alternatives). Yehoshua can think whatever he wants about his own idea of Judaism, but the one Wieseltier was trying to talk about is the one the crowd wanted to discuss, as it is the one most relevant to them.

Israel

More than anything else, this evening was somewhat sad, as it showed the huge gap between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. The problem, I must admit, rests mostly with Israelis, who do not understand (well, I'm generalizing here, many Israelis do understand) the extent to which the North American Jewish world is now a world to itself. They don't comprehend the possibility of a "Jewish Renaissance" here that is mostly not about Israel - and that it is in Israel's interest to be a part of, and not the other way around.

Yesterday, I wrote a piece about the Fifth Jew, for which I got plenty of attention from (mostly angry) readers. (Read the article, the blog that followed, and some reactions here). They weren't satisfied with the comment I made at the end of it: "Because the fifth Jew, to put it rather bluntly, is not only less 'Israeli,' but also less Jewish."

Today, let me make a complementary point that might be as inflammatory to my Israeli readers, but in which I believe as much: If the Israeli Jew does not find a way to better connect with Diaspora Jewry, it will not only make him less of a "Jew" - but also a lesser "Israeli."