Jewish American or American Jew? Reconsidered - March 4, 2019 (Post on Facebook)

When I was in youth group, one of the discussions we had focused on this question: “Are you a Jewish American or an American Jew?”  

   When a professor at NYU with whom I was at a 7 week Jewish summer camp in 1970 said in a magazine article several years ago that she engaged in this same discussion in her youth group in a major city far from mine, I knew that it was on people’s minds. 

     It was two years after the war of 1967 (Six-Day War).   It was still a time when, even after the events of that week drastically changed the map of the Middle East, there was still a concern for not only the persistence/existenceof Israel, but also for Jewish survival.   

     A lot has happened since then, but the questions remain. 

     So....am I an American Jew? 

    Yes, because being Jewish is at my core spiritually and historically.   My ancestors lived mostly in a village in Lithuania at the time the Declaration of Independence was signed.    That puts being a member of the worldwide Jewish community at the core of my identity. 

      Am I a Jewish American? 

      Yes, because I am an American citizen who grew up in a thriving midwestern city, the same city in which my parents were born and raised.  I vote in elections.  I do what I can to improve the well-being of the general community in which I live.  

     I don’t know that I can tell you which one of these terms alone really captures my identity.    You might think that I should just say I am an American.   I could do that, but I don’t because it doesn’t describe “all of me.”  

     Now, what about that “allegiance” question that is coming up these days?   

      I am an American.  

      I am an American Jew/Jewish American who sees it as his duty to bring Jewish values of freedom, education, justice, generosity, fairness, compassion and peace into our local and national community.  

       I am also an American Jew/Jewish American who sees the land of Israel as a place that figures into my history and also into my present, because I have family and friends in the State of Israel, and also because, as a member of one of the largest Jewish communities in the world, Israel is the place where the other large Jewish community resides.    It’s like a large extended family. 

       Allegiance, for me, is reserved to the country of which I am a citizen.   

       Support and concern is appropriate for all sorts of people, in include those who are  family and who are like family. 

      Of course, family members don’t always get along, and sometimes they don’t even speak, but they are still family.   

       We have seen that fellow citizens also don’t always speak with each other.   Hopefully,  they try to do so for the good of country. 

       As for me, I will hopefully be able to keep the lines of communication open with citizens in the greater community  from a wide range of backgrounds.

        And I will try to stay in touch with and to understand people who are part of my extended family, individuals from many countries with whom I am connected in the past and in the present.    And I may try to engage them in substantive dialogue when necessary. 

      And perhaps, as is stated in Psalm 85:11, “Love and truth will meet; righteousness/justice and peace will embrace/kiss.”  

      Hopefully...one day.