The “Come Home” videos – substance or style?
A set of commercials have been produced by the Israeli Ministry of Absorption, with the intention of encouraging ex-pat Israelis to return to Israel.
Their tone is the tone of “negation of the Diaspora”: in the Diaspora your children will call you Daddy not Abba, they will get confused between Chanukah and Christmas, and your partners will not understand your grief on Yom HaZikaron (Israel’s Memorial Day).
At the same time, Birthright-Taglit goes from strength to strength. Over 300,000 young Jews have visited Israel in the past 10 years, and the numbers are only growing. Significant Foundations and Federations have invested huge amounts of money into this program in the (not-unfounded) conviction that 10 days in Israel does more for a young person’s Jewish Identity than any other program in North America.
The tone of Birthright commercials is not “negation of the Diaspora”, but it does most certainly push a very similar idea: If you want a good strong shot of Jewish ID, you’ll find it in Israel and not in the Diaspora.
Is the uproar at the Israeli commercials only over their tone?
Is there, at root, a fundamental agreement that Israel is the storehouse, resource, and generator of meaningful Jewish identity, with the only argument about the way we express this fact?
Or is there a rumbling of discontent over the way that Jewish life in the Diaspora continues to be seen by establishments – both Israeli and Diasporan – as somewhat lesser?
For More on this…
Real Talk – educational materials for beginning a different discussion about Israel
Why Israel? An educational pack for exploring the issues
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