Reacting to "The Jewish American Paradox"

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

I want to disagree about what the author is saying about an Israeli perspective on the israeli-palestinian conflict, mainly that the internal conflict in Israel is about the right of the settlers to occupy territory in the West Bank. I think that within a centrist Israeli crowd, the security concern shouldn't be understated. The withdrawal from Gaza makes the picture much more complicated, because the settlements/troops in Gaza were forcibly removed, and a subsequent power vacuum/anti-Israel sentiment led to the rise of Hamas, which is viewed as a terrorist organization by many groups, infamous for rocket attacks from the roofs of schools and hospitals. It's hard for me to say that a complete exit is a good thing for the people in the West Bank, as the current government already struggles with corruption and faces poverty. Many residents of the West Bank work in Israel, and adding separation/changing the political organization in the West Bank risks internal conflict, especially with large neighbors like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Qatar having major vested interests. Iran and Qatar currently provide major financial support and weapons to factions in the West Bank, and the political interests of the different sovereign states probably don't prioritize the well being of the people in the region. So, effectively giving autonomy without opening the door to an external actor is a major challenge in resolving the "conflict". While there are definitely Israeli's who care about preserving the settlements to support the expansion of Israel, this, to me, is a right-wing perspective, not a central one. To add a positive spin, allowing Palestinians to work in Israel, and allowing greater permeability between the two "states", arguably has a great long effect. If Israelis can freely visit and work in the West Bank, and Palestinians can freely visit and work in Israel, this can help ease the disconnect, stabilize the Palestinian economy and kill the "power vacuum" argument. Even now, I think the continuity in the current Palestinian government is great, although it would be a million times better if they demonstrated non-violent transitions of power (decreasing corruption, open government, etc).

Raising Jewish Kids after intermarriage

Thinking about raising kids with a non-Jewish spouse (i.e. raising Jewish kids with one parent who's not Jewish and one parent who is), I'm replaying little situations in my mind. Like if the kids want a Christmas tree, because all of the other kids have one in their house. Kids: "If we invite our friends over, everyone will think we're weird because we don't have a tree!" Mom (not Jewish, open to have a tree). Dad (Jewish, potentially open to having a tree): "That's silly, most of the families in the world don't have trees. Even most of the Christian families don't have trees. What is the reason that some families do have trees? Where did the tradition start?" [Me looking this up rn- google "where did christmas trees come from", answer: 16th century Germany because nature is pretty and stars etc/started in America around 1900 after Queen Victoria made it fashionable] Kids: "Ummm. But everyone will have a tree! It's a tradition! Everyone at school will have one. Please?!?" Dad: "What if we start our own family tradition? Instead of copying everyone else and having just another boring tree, maybe there's something else we could do..." ^Me, typical annoying parent response because many traditions aren't initially started so they can be traditions that will catch on everywhere. I.e. Germans who thought pine trees looked pretty and brought them inside weren't expecting everyone in Germany or across Europe and America to start farming trees so that everyone could have one in their house. **Also imo the ultimate move would be to just raise them speaking Hebrew. Really hard to disassociate at that point

What is means to be Jewish

TLDR it's 1. Tradition and 2. Values (worn out things like "argue, question right & wrong, education, family, charity/giving back" - in no particular order)

Basically the focus of the book, and I think this is a super interesting question, especially when thinking about what attaches people to the "religion" (quotes because I don't think it's the religion. I mean ofc there are multiple things that tie people to Judaism, but in a year over year generation over generation, positive experiences with cultural traditions have a huge weight in deciding your "identity", so you associate strongly and positively with culturally jewish things, like eating challah with your family on a friday night, or lighting candles on chanukah, spinning dreidels, gelt, soofganiyot, latkes, humantachen/oznei haman on purim and dressing up, matzah and finding the afikomen on purim. Stories like the passover story, purim story, creation/adam and eve, jonah and the whale, etc. All of these are huge on the list, and complex, where you might fight to try to come up with a connection/theme across these. But even if there is a them, and there doesn't have to be, you could come up with other "traditions" and other stories which follow the same theme, and they wouldn't be Jewish because they wouldn't be part of The Tradition and The Culture (big Ts don't tease). Where am I even going with all of this? There are 2 things I focus on in Judaism when I try to pin it down. 1 is the culture/tradition, and 1 is the belief system. I say belief system kindof because this is my definition of religion (not the gods one) and kindof because I think the the thing that is tying people together is an approach/personality, and that behavior (which can definitely be linked to culture), is not about tradition, it's about the approach/personality. If I teach my kids to think critically and question all, if my community is a community of people who think critically and question all, that to me is a priority in my "belief system". Aside story about this- I went to get my keys copied [this will be proof I'm an old person one day because I used real keys and got them copied instead of just opening the door with my phone like a smart person], and after I got the copies (copied the key for the apartment building and the key for the apartment), I checked them and they looked identical (which they should not have been since they were for different doors), so I was sure the key copying machine was defective. I checked the new keys against my old keys, and they didn't match at all, so I drove to Home Depot and got the keys copied by a person there, while I called customer service for the key copying machine to get a refund on the defective copies. When I got home I tried the "defective" keys and they all worked just fine, because apparently it doesn't matter if they look the same. So I though critically and covered my bases at Home Depot, and I'm not ashamed because I value that behavior, and it taught me a new thing about keys.

In Judaism, I think we still have a lot of unanswered questions about why we do what we do, and a lot of questions that will go unanswered or have many opinions (i.e. we do what we do for those around us in our community, and the world we live in, etc, etc).

Why Would I want to Continue Being Jewish vs What makes me Jewish

Super interesting to me. It looks like culture/tradition is the big winner in making someone Jewish. Like if you have a great cultural upbringing (great Hanukah parties), you will love Judasim and stick with it. Other people will join for the great parties.

But what about the beliefs?!? I'd think that someone who follows a lot of the belief system (i.e. thinking critically and giving back), is demonstrating the substance of being Jewish, not just the decorations. But if someone just had the beliefs (substance) and didn't do the culture/tradition, you wouldn't really think of them as Jewish at all. It would be like "this girl has a jewish way of thinking, but she isn't part of the community". Actually, being part of the community is part of the way of thinking, so I can claim that sticking with the belief system is the winning requirement.

Except... what if you disagree with the belief system? "*"All models are wrong"*" => there must be better things or wrong things about the Jewish belief system. I mean every solution isn't good for every problem anyway, and good is so arbitrary and even if this was a "good" solution wouldn't everyone be trying it, and in a scientific way looking for ways to make it better? So if you are following the Jewish belief system (which is hand-wavy and not formally designed), and then you want to change/update it to make it better, is it still the Jewish belief system? Questioning is a Jewish thing, but what if you were questioning/changing the questioning part of the system? At some point you've got yourself a different belief system, so I guess it's subjective there.

Maybe there are clear categories of belief systems (not about gods, but values). Should we spend time in school studying different belief systems? Do we? Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, maybe we focus on the concrete differences, but we need to focus on the different beliefs/priorities there.