Jewish American Or American Jew??? - éäåãé- àîøé÷àé àå àîøé÷àé-éäåãé?
Resource
Type:
Discussion
in:
English
Age:
13-15
Group Size:
5-100
Estimated Time:
45
minutes
Goal: Based on everything we have seen so far on the trip, the assimilation, but success of Jews in America, the chanichim should discuss the question; is it ok to call America our home or not? Either way, they should understand that they can never fully feel totally at home in
JEWISH AMERICAN OR AMERICAN JEW???
By Sarah Gordon
Goal: Based on everything we have seen so far on the trip, the assimilation, but success of Jews in America, the chanichim should discuss the question; is it ok to call America our home or not? Either way, they should understand that they can never fully feel totally at home in
Trigger: Show the chanichim the slogans for this year’s
- Is there a contradiction in feeling totally at home in
? What about the fact that 3 times a day we daven to leave toAmerica ??Israel - At the same time, the Jews have never been at home anywhere as much as in
. Here, inAmerica , in the government, you have tons of Jews who work at very high position, (Ex: Joe Lieberman).Washington - Is it possible to be totally loyal to both
andIsrael at the same time? Why?America - Show the chanichim the Oath of Allegiance. Would you feel comfortable signing this if you had to become an American citizen?
- Would you feel bothered by the fact that it states that (a) you give up any other allegiance to any other country and (b) that if
goes to war you would have to fight with them, even if it was againstAmerica Israel - We say we are loyal Americans, but at the same time, if you had two political candidates running for president, and one would be great for
but bad forAmerica , and the other one would be terrible for American but good forIsrael , who would you as an American vote for? The loyal American would vote for what’s good forIsrael , but it’d hard to say that any of us would vote for someone we would know to be bad forAmerica .Israel - Would you feel comfortable fighting in the American army either against or for a cause that would hurt
?Israel - There is also the law that you are not allowed in
to fly the flag of a foreign country without having a bigger American flag flying too. We always fly Israeli flags. What does this show about our loyalties?America - How do we balance having these dual loyalties??? According to the Oath we must only be loyal to
, and according to our davening 3 times a day, we should only be loyal toAmerica !Israel - The Reform Movement deals with this by originally taking out all mention of Israel and returning to Zion in any of their tefilot, as to ask to return to Israel shows you don’t really want to stay in, or be loyal to the country you’re in now!! The reform understood the stirah and held that way. (See their statement in the Declarations of the Pittsburgh Conference in 1885). Also on M.O.L. , you can see Reform shuls that have taken out in their shuls all mention of
!!! Is this a proper response or no??Israel - Do we have these dual loyalties issues if we live in
? It seems only living inIsrael , where everything the government does or anything you do is for the Jewish people do you get rid of the contradiction. Food for thought.Israel
o How do we balance the fact that we as Jews have never been as accepted and as free as we are today in
o Are we too at home here? Is it negatively influencing us?? Think about the American Culture quizzes we took today and how well or badly you guys did on it. Also, think of all the communities that no longer exist. Those Jews chose to be American first and look what happened.
o It is no coincidence that “G-d bless
o If Moshiach came today, would Jews in
Conclusion: There are no answers here, but the point is to show that it is impossible to be a 100% loyal American citizen while still being loyal to
For the Israelis: This concerns them too, as they too should want the American Jews to come home, so that we don’t have repeat occurrences of
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