A question only an Israeli Jew would pose

Well I started up quite the thunderstorm at work today.

In my morning email I received the heartbreaking news that a close family friend (a girl I've known my whole life) has decided to raise her children Christian with her newly-engaged pastor fiance. The family is a mess, and I immediately felt sick to my stomach.

I shared the news with my friends at work, and one of them proposed a question to me. (Apparently, this is a common 'would-you-rather' that Israelis provoke one another with): Would you rather your child tell you that they're gay, that they've decided to become ultra-religious, or that they're marrying a non-Jew?

I almost laughed I thought the question was so ridiculous. OBVIOUSLY, marrying a non-Jew was the worst news a Jewish parent could hear from their child.
My response ignited a passionate tirade from another co-worker whom i adore dearly but i'm not gonna lie, she can be a bit intimidating on her soapbox :-) she challenged me with this question: what's more important, that your child be a good person or a believing Jew? she went on that this is exactly the problem today with the Diasporan Jews - that we still have the "ghetto" mentality. Not enough Jews in America think like the 'new, strong/Israeli Jew', where being confident in the Jewish people and focusing on being a good person and fulfilling one's individual potential are the primary values, and not merely blind survival. She said as long as Jews in the Diaspora think like an endangered species, we'll continue to be one.

I see her point (obviously) and she makes good, logical points (obviously) but -- as she herself pointed out to me -- she can only make this argument BECAUSE she is Israeli. Israelis think about the problem of Jewish continuity with a security blanket wrapped around their mind. They grew up in Israel, surrounded by Jews, and have no idea what it's like to grow up in the Diaspora.

Maybe shes right, that American Jews do think too much with a ghetto mentality, and maybe we do worry too much about survival rather than living life for life's sake. BUT - we are aware of the reality of the 'Jewish situation' in a way that most Israelis simply do not feel. (and this is not in response to anything my co-worker said, but I would like to now share my own thoughts). Jewish continuity is not a joke. The assimilation statistics are real. Here are the latest stats from the World Jewish Population site, just to back up my point:

"The worldwide Jewish population is 13.3 million Jews. Jewish population growth worldwide is close to zero percent.

Approximately 37% of worldwide Jewry lives in Israel. Israel's Jewish population rose by 1.6% the past year, while the Diaspora population dropped by 0.5%.

One study predicted that in the next 80 years America's Jewish population would decline by one-third to 3.8 million if current fertility rates and migration patterns continue[3]."

Not to mention the intermarriage rate in America fluctuates somewhere around 50%.

So while I agree that 'being a good person' if of COURSE a paramount value, there is good reason behind the 'ghetto mentality' that preoccupies so many Diasporan Jews.

None of us know for sure why the Jewish people continue to exist, after 3,000 years of persecution. Is it because Gd is watching over his chosen people? Is it a miracle? Is it sheer chance? Or is it because so many Jews worried about and made our continued presence on earth the priority?

We don't know. And we don't know what our future will be either - whether Israel's Jewish population will continue to grow to match the disappearing Diasporan population, or whether Gd forbid something terrible will happen to Israel and its population, or whether there will be a sudden revolution in the Diasporan Jewish population. What seems most likely of course is that the Jews will continue to populate the planet and continue to be persecuted.

So how should we think about those Jews that choose to intermarry/abandon the Jewish faith? In my opinion, it's all a matter of your frame of reference. It's good that there are Israelis who think the way my co-workers do, but it's also necessary that there are Diasporan Jews who consider our continuity our paramount value.

Happy Birthday Israel - and 1-year Aliyah to me!

Summer is creeping into Tel Aviv and I'm loving it.
This Monday, April 26 marks the 1-year (Western-calendar) anniversary of my aliyah. On the Jewish calendar it happened on erev Yom Hazikaron last week, but I'm going to celebrate it by the American calendar with a few good friends and drinks. I can't believe it's been one year. So much has happened that it feels like the longest year of my life, and yet I remember everything so vividly, it can hardly seem like a year ago. But it was a wonderful year.
This past week we celebrated Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day - the 62nd year of the modern Jewish state. I think Yom haatzmaut is my favorite holiday - it's better even than my own birthday. Everyone's so happy and celebratory and patriotic and united - it really feels like the most holy day of the year in that way. Also I love the fact that basically nothing is illegal on Yom Haatzmaut - you can play music as loud as you want as late as you want and nobody can do anything about it. the parties are crazy. the streets are destroyed with garbage. and it seems every other building's rooftop is flashing with lights and dj's and dancers. There's simply no other night of the year that can compare!
I've learned many things about Israel and Israelis this year - most of them positive. But I do want to take a minute to note something new that I discovered recently about Israelis - to my horror - that I never knew before. Israelis (generally speaking of course) are seriously uneducated about STD's. It's crazy. Israelis just don't know much about them. Many schools (and of course the religious ones) don't teach sex ed. I guess the planners of Israeli education and society think they have bigger priorities than gonorrhea and chlamydia. But, it's really dangerous, because Israelis just don't know about these realities and the dangers of them - they think the only purpose of a condom is to prevent HIV/AIDS and pregnancy. And I've been taking a poll of my Israeli friends, and most of them tell me, most of the time, that they and their friends don't use condoms. Practically everyone's on the Pill and has been tested for AIDS, so what's the point of a condom? it's almost expected not to use one. and Israeli men can be aggressively antagonistic towards using one. But take for example genital herpes - there is no cure for genital herpes, and it can be a serious disease - women with herpes can't have a vaginal birth, for example. It's not a joke. And yet when I've asked my Israeli friends 'aren't you concerned about getting an STD like genital herpes' they say something to the effect of, well a lot of people have herpes, it's not a big deal. IMAGINE saying something like that to an American. It's just a completely different reaction. I was thinking about it and I realize that baby-making is one of the top priorities of Israeli society, so maybe it's not that shocking that condoms aren't as much of a given as they are in America. But as a friend of mine pointed out, if the country were under attack and the men had to go to war and half of them had herpes, we wouldn't be much of a fighting army. So maybe it is time for Israel to catch up with the Western world in this respect - put sex ed in school!!!
Thank you :-) That's enough of my tirade on that subject.
On a side note, hip-hop star Rihanna is coming to perform in Israel in May and the only way to get tickets to the concert is by volunteering 4 hours of community service. It's an awesome project that they set up, and I'd be all for it - except all the community service interferes with my work schedule. I'm hoping they'll set up opportunities in Tel Aviv on a weekend so I'll be able to get tickets... fingers crossed...