The Transnational Struggle for Jewish Pluralism

This chapter examines the relationship between the American Jewish community and Israel from the perspective of a transnational struggle over Jewish pluralism. The question of Jewish identity in Israel and in the United States, the continuing insistence of many Jewish Americans on perceiving Israel as a critical source of their own identity, and Israel's direct or indirect involvement in the lives of all Jewish communities create a dynamic in which reciprocal influences mutually constitute Jewish identity. The new modes of Jewish American participation in Israeli affairs - domestic and international, on the one hand, and Israeli rethinking of its own position vis-à-vis the Diaspora in terms of legitimacy, status, power, and identity, on the other - has opened the way for greater negotiation over, and coordination of, the meaning and purpose of Judaism in our time.