There's an article going around written by a
Jewish woman that is critical of Israel.
Here are a couple of responses. Personal opinions of these people aside, I will share mine.
When I arrived to America, there was a fairly strong effort on behalf of the Jewish community to get me in touch with my "roots". At one point I was even sent to an orthodox camp described in the first article.
Before I move on, I guess I should share some background about myself. Ethnically, I am a full blooded Jew. That is not something I explicitly new until I came to US. I am not religious and never will be. I consider Israel an interesting country, but certainly not a homeland in any sense. Before my wife, I only dated Jewish girls; mostly because Russians in America are primarily Jews and Baptists. I have never EVER been as happy with anyone as I am with my wife.
So the author of the first article and I have a few things in common: non-Jewish spouse, camp in Wisconsin, trip to Israel. That is why it is so strange reading this article. It is so ignorant. Apparently, growing up, Ms.
Allison Benedikt was strangely ignorant. There only way that you can be ignorant about historical and political situation in Israel is to willfully hide under a giant rock. She lost nothing by turning her back on Israel, because she never had anything, save a sense of community. Well, community is what we make it to be, and I am sure that she is a member of community, albeit a different one now. I'll leave it at that.
That summer camp was an interesting experience. I don't remember anyone ever trying to actively brainwash me so hard. I think that I was considered a bad boy at camp. I wore a leather jacket, openly made fun of all the rituals and was with my girlfriend there. The meals were not very nutritious and we had to do a lot of repetitive group activities. That's the definition of brainwashing, isn't it? The question for me was always why was this brainwashing necessary? Thoughts?