Distancing, Yet One

Abstract

In the debate about whether distancing has occurred between American Jewry and Israel one of the two sides is more convincing than the other, but both sides focus on samples of the more identified Jewish population thus ignoring the more marginal that are quite crucial in adjudicating this debate. Age specific cross-sectional data from the more broadly representative NJPS unequivocally show a blurring among the younger of the strong sense of interest, affective involvement, responsibility and caring that American Jewry historically displayed toward Israel and its needs. However, the demonstrable existence of similar patterns of Jewish identification in the U.S. and in Israel provides powerful evidence to persisting coherence in contemporary symbolic and institutional perceptions over the opposite thesis of a Jewish identification stemming from the variable circumstances of local contexts. Jews in the U.S. and in Israel may be distancing from each other, but they still are part of one Jewish peoplehood.