The editors of Sh'ma have put together a fascinating roundtable discussion on how the "next generation" of Jews perceives Israel. It merits a long, thoughtful blog post -- but I'm spending today buried in Talmud and in the Chernobyler, and I'm not sure when or whether I'll manage to really write about this. So instead, I'll just direct you to go and read it yourself; the discussion is here.

Here are two tastes, to whet your appetite:

[Editor Susan Berrin:] Israel has been for so many of my generation as essential to our Jewish lives as ether, a preoccupation so keen, so inspiring, often so exasperating that it was unavoidable and no less so for those, like myself, who have lived outside its borders. Judging from our roundtable, it seems that the next generation of Jews — including those actively engaged in Jewish life — do not experience Israel as a formative, crucial factor...

Shaul Magid: What would it take to acknowledge openly that we're in a Diaspora and it is not exile? Much of American Jewry in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was anti-Zionist, at least until the early 1930s. After the Holocaust and the establishment of the State, everything changed. Then the war in 1967 put Zionism into turbo drive in America. But by 1977, this enthusiasm started to wane slightly and it's been continuing on that trajectory ever since... There's a cycle to American Zionism, which we should confront honestly.

And what would American Jewry look like in the next 25 years if we didn't look to Israel or Zionism as a center? I think it would be healthy for us and for Israeli society, too, to separate our civilizations. Does Israel really want to be a refuge, or playground, for American Jews? I think not. I think it wants to be a normal country like any other. Maybe American Jews need to liberate Israel from our dependency on it and find other ways to cultivate our Jewish identities.

Thought-provoking stuff. Go, read, and if you want to talk about it (in a polite and thoughtful way, please) feel free to come back here and strike up conversation.

Technorati tags: diaspora, Judaism, Israel.