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October 5th, 2021 
Awake Goy The new president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, lamented to a leading pro-Israel organization yesterday that many young American Jews are indifferent to “the Jewish collective,” and some are hostile to Israel.
“Some of them, a very small minority, are too willing to accept distorted labels and libels against the Jewish state,” Herzog said in an apparent reference to the growing acceptance of the idea that Israel practices apartheid.
Herzog called on American Jews to defend Israel against anti-Zionists and build “love of Israel.” But he never acknowledged the issues that are alienating American Jews. Herzog never mentioned the word Palestine or Palestinians in his speech. A lot like Israeli PM Naftali Bennett speaking to the U.N. General Assembly last week.
Herzog spoke yesterday to the largest Jewish philanthropic organization in the United States, the Jewish Federations of North America, and bewailed the alienation of young American Jews from Israel:
No matter how we break down the numbers, there is no doubt that being Jewish and love of Israel is becoming a challenging, complex issue for some in the young generation of North American Jews. It is almost too painful to express aloud, but an increasing number of young Jews no longer feel a bond with the Jewish collective. Too many American Jewish youth are disinterested in what being Jewish means and in a complex understanding of the realities and challenges facing Israel. Some of them– a very small minority– are too willing to accept distorted labels and libels against the Jewish state.
By libels and distorted labels, and numbers too painful to discuss, Herzog is obviously referring to the recent poll showing that 38 percent of U.S. Jewish voters under 40 see Israel as an apartheid state, 33 percent see it as committing genocide against Palestinians, and 20 percent say it has no right to exist. (Poll by the Jewish Electoral Institute).
The charge that Israel practices apartheid is endorsed by Human Rights Watch, Rashida Tlaib, and lately Howard Dean. Americans for Peace Now has credited the charge without fully accepting it.
Herzog wants the American Jewish community to push back against these Jews. His “urgent” mission is to end the “solitude and disconnect” between Israel and North American Jews and “strengthen our shared sense of peoplehood.”
I cannot imagine a world in which Israel and North American Jewry are not intimately tied to each other… I cannot imagine a Jewish people who are not responsible for each other, a people whose prayers do not include each other, for whom the axiom of “Kol Yisrael arevim zeh bazeh” is hollow [Wikipedia translates this phrase as, “All Israelites are sureties for one another”].
“I cannot imagine a Jewish world vacant of community and solidarity. I cannot imagine a world in which Jews in North America are fearful of living publicly as Jews, and experience attacks and intimidation at times in their colleges and in their synagogue and elsewhere and the Jewish collective as well as Israelis do not feel compelled to act immediately on their behalf. Just as I cannot imagine a world where the existence of Israel is questioned and American Jews do not defend the state of Israel.
The meaning is clear: American Jews must defend Israel from anti-Zionists.
Herzog mentioned “differences of opinion, style and substance” between Israeli and American Jews, but in expressing confidence that these differences could be overcome, he never referred to Israeli rule of Palestinians, and the 54-year-old occupation.
His idea of the Jewish state is that American Jews should see that “Israel is your home away from home.” The “key” to the “Jewish future” is to preserve “the bond of our peoplehood,” Herzog said, and that means more trips to Israel.
“What we call Israel experiences, whether long or short… provide Diaspora Jewry with the real Israel experience of all facets. Teen travel is an important tool that needs to be encouraged. .. [There are] many avenues of promoting connectivity, love for Israel and fact-based understanding.”
Again, Herzog never mentioned the absence of rights for Palestinians under occupation and the second- and third-class status of Palestinians inside Israel. These are the issues that have caused American Jewish alienation.
Herzog is a liberal Zionist hero. He has appeared at J Street on a couple of occasions. Though he has also has said that American Jews are “clueless” about Israel, and said that intermarriage of Jews and non-Jews is a “plague.”
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