Here’s a recipe for strife:
Start with a population that suffers from two millennia of discrimination and violence. Add a big dash of land that many in this population feel represents their homeland, and then mix in a healthy dose of a politically fragmented secular culture.
The result is a Jewish community that can no longer talk to each other about one of the biggest issues of the day: Israel.
Jews have always had a multiplicity of opinions about nearly any topic. Engaging in healthy debate is what we do. It’s demonstrated in midrash; it’s evident within every synagogue; there are jokes about two Jews and three opinions.
“We’re so blessed that we have this rich tradition that is steeped with exactly the same type of problem, that there are groups of people who really don’t agree,” said Rabbi Scott Shafrin, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council. “And yet they can sit together and vehemently disagree, violently disagree, almost. And then they go to lunch.”
But when it comes to Israel today, lunch seems to be off the table. As a result, efforts to hold discussions about Israel that seek to include a variety of perspectives have been anemic in St. Louis. The various sides in this conflict blame each other. They feel misunderstood, judged and unheard.
“There are people from a lot of different points of view that I’ve talked with who feel like their perspective on this war and their connection to Israel is not welcome in the community,” Shafrin said. “And a lot of times, it’s not people who all have the same perspective. It’s people who have the whole variety of perspectives on their connection to Israel. But all feel independently like their connection, or their point of view isn’t welcome, and it makes it really hard to have a dialogue that way.”
For those who have long supported the Jewish state, St. Louis’ existing cultural and religious institutions provide a comfortable base. After all, the biggest communitywide efforts to raise awareness of the war and the hostage crisis have been in support of Israel. Jewish Federation has raised millions of dollars to support the needs of the Israeli people during the war, including trauma and mental health support, funds for victims of terror and the building of shelters. But that doesn’t bring comfort for staunch Zionists when faced with an opposing viewpoint.
“It was really hard to open the Jewish Light and see that letter from young people, many of whom had gone to (the former Solomon) Schechter (Day School of St. Louis) with my kids,” said Jenny Wolkowitz, referring to a December letter advocating for a cease-fire as well as more representative perspectives in community programming. “I did think, ‘Where did we go wrong?’ They’re entitled to their opinions, of course. But that public display of calling for a cease-fire without context was, personally, deeply wounding.”
Wolkowitz’s ties to Israel are particularly strong. One of her daughters served in the Israel Defense Forces. Wolkowitz also has been politically active nationally and within Missouri to make sure Israel isn’t villainized on the world stage. But she says she worries that some of the stances younger people are taking lack an understanding of history. More importantly, she worries about how dissent within the Jewish community is interpreted by non-Jews.
“I do believe there is a need for a big tent,” she said. “But I also believe some things are out of bounds and time and place. Part of the problem is that people have planted their flag. I’m either J Street or AIPAC. It’s reminiscent of our politics in general. I would hope the Jewish community could figure this out and make it a nonpartisan issue.”
Community members on the left have a hard time seeing how Israel could ever be a big-tent issue.
Shira Berkowitz, one of the board members and founders of MaTovu, which bills itself as “an inclusive Jewish space in St. Louis City,” points out that progressive Jews who are critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza don’t feel heard or recognized by legacy organizations like Federation and synagogues.
“They don’t feel like they can be their whole selves anywhere, that there’s not a rabbi in town that’s aligning with how they’re grappling with it,” said Berkowitz, who was one of the signatories of the letter that appeared in the Light. “There’s no communication out of congregations that aligns with how they’re thinking or what their viewpoints are. It’s very opposite of how they think. And so, they don’t want to go into these spaces.”
The rift in opinions is particularly acute because of the emotional meaning that Israel has for so many. Rabbi Daniel Bogard of Central Reform Congregation said disagreements sting because Jews are tribal and taking issue with how people understand Israel feels like taking issue with a person’s core identity.
“Israel as a Jewish nation state is tied up in our sense of tribe, especially post-Holocaust,” he said. “So criticisms of Israel feel like an existential threat to us as a tribe. It’s a threat in a way that atheism or Christianity is just not. So between Jews, when someone sympathizes with Palestinians and is critical of Israel, it feels like going against our tribe and siding with our enemies.”
Bogard said that understanding that context could help but that ultimately, it’s more important to understand what we, as Americans, actually have control of.
“If I could convince every single one of you that I am entirely right and you are entirely wrong, it wouldn’t change anything,” Bogard said. “It wouldn’t make any Israeli safer. It wouldn’t make any Palestinian child safer. We are tearing apart relationships right here in the Midwest over symbolic positions in the Middle East where we have no power. But the place we do have power is where we are here.”
And that means being willing to engage in conversations with people who don’t agree with you.
In the absence of the legacy institutions creating space for discussion, some organizations are doing it on their own. And the results have been largely positive.
Rabbi Andrea Goldstein said her congregants at Shaare Emeth were eager for the conversations. So, the synagogue sent a cadre of people to a training session JCRC provided over the summer on how to facilitate difficult conversations. Goldstein said the group learned that the goals of the conversations weren’t to change minds, but rather to hear one another’s perspectives. That message worked when they actually convened a discussion group.
“Overall, the session was very well received,” Goldstein said. “Congregants were grateful that their synagogue had created such a structured and safe means to begin to have these kinds of conversations. The biggest critique was that people felt there wasn’t enough time to share more deeply.”
MaTovu also determined that the community needed a “safe” place to convene and try to understand each other. Berkowitz said putting together such a discussion was nerve-racking because of the wide array of opinions within MaTovu.
“It was not successful in coming up with a solution or anything,” Berkowitz said. “It was successful in that everybody that came was given a comfortable place, or quote-unquote more psychologically safe space, to share their opinions. And the opinions were on both ends of the spectrum. Like, extremes. It wasn’t as if we had a synchronous or a monolithic understanding of what’s happening. I think that was really good for folks.”
If holding truly open conversations about Israel is helpful, then it is incumbent on each person to not fear another perspective, said Karen Aroesty, whose daughter was also one of the signatories of the December letter. But Aroesty recognizes how hard it is to let go of the fear. On top of the threat to one’s Jewish identity, there’s the worry that non-Jews will see the intrafaith strife and use it to fuel further antisemitism.
However, Aroesty’s work as a longtime community advocate has taught her the importance of acknowledging those fears and being curious about different viewpoints, of asking what people mean when they say “anti-Zionist” or “Zionist.”
“People don’t want to be vulnerable,” she said. “We want to be confident and thought of as having all the answers. Especially when we’re adults with adult children. I come into the conversation accepting that everyone has different experiences. I’ve been on a journey myself this past year. You can’t look at the scope of events over the last year and not feel different.
“I cannot just watch this and say I feel the same way as I did a year ago. Do I feel any different about antisemitism? Having family in Israel, do I feel any less protective of them? Not at all. Things can be both/and even in the most dire circumstances.”
The key to moving forward, Aroesty said, is to recognize that those with different experiences are not bad people. It just means that they understand things differently.
