If you can pronounce it, you’ll know that the root of “diasporism” is “diaspora.” By definition, it’s any place where Jews made their homes outside of Israel. Since the chaos surrounding judicial reform in Israel, and the horrifying events and their aftermath of October 7th, Jewish groups have been lining up according to their political views regarding Israel. The result is that some progressive Jews are laying claim to “diasporism,” instead of just calling themselves anti-Zionists.

“Diasporism” was introduced to readers in Marc Tracy’s article in the New York Times. He did a fair job of explaining Diasporism’s roots and how it’s experienced by religious and non-religious Jews, today. Likening it to ancient times when Jews thrived in exile in Babylonia, and from where the Babylonian Talmud was produced, the title of his article aptly asks, “Is Israel Part of What It Means to Be Jewish?” Rather than hold you in suspense, the answer is, unequivocally, Yes.

In truth, diasporism is an old idea. In the 1940s, our beloved Beth Israel was led by Rabbi Hyman Judah Schachtel. He was a great rabbi whose name was linked to strong interfaith relations and profound Jewish leadership; but he found himself on the wrong side of Jewish history when Israel was born in 1948. Schachtel stood with anti-Zionists and created the Basic Principles, which required Beth Israel members to subscribe to “diasporism” to be Temple members. Overnight, 200 families left Beth Israel to create a pro-Zionist congregation called Temple Emanu El. The rift between the congregations, let alone the families it divided, was notorious. For nearly 20 years, the rift remained intact until the Basic Principles were rescinded with the 1967 war in Israel. Though Beth Israel leadership realized the errors of its ways, and that a unified Jewish community and Jewish world was better for Jewish survival, it still took decades to overcome diasporism’s effects completely.

In Torah, God promised our patriarchs and matriarchs that the Promised Land, the Land of Canaan, would be our people’s inheritance. Up until the Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, Jews were a people and a nation at home in the Land. Expelled for the last time by the Roman conquest, and though some Jews always lived in the land, they were in exile for 2,000 years. Even when they lived in the diaspora under the rule of benevolent governments, they never stopped praying for and believing that they might return to the Land. For hundreds of years, Passover Seders ended with the hope, “Next Year in Jerusalem!” Today, we take it for granted; but in the past it was a longing that one generation bequeathed to the next “להיות עם חפשי בארצנו” to be a free people in our Land (words from HaTikvah, Israel’s national anthem).

Jews are a people and this people has a home in Israel. We are also Jews at home in America. How Jews thrived in the past in exile, or in the diaspora in England, Spain, or Germany, are short stories. They would have been longer stories except that new rulers arose who, like a new pharaoh who “knew not Joseph” (Exodus 1), didn’t recognize Jews as citizens. Israel might not be for Americans whose families fled pogroms to come here, or for those who were born here. But Israel isn’t a choice for us to ponder.

Israel is our people’s homeland.
Israel is also part of our psyche, a beacon of hope for our people.

Israel, the size of New Jersey, reflects the depth and breadth of Jewish life – past, present, ancient, modern, western, middle eastern, democratic, religious, and secular. Without Israel, we will always be a small minority living under the rule of a benevolent government. The virulent rise of antisemitism and the display of swastikas in major American cities and on Houston’s major highway overpasses should alarm us and move us to action. We cannot allow our history in America to be part of another short-lived story. We cannot allow 75 years of Jewish sovereignty in Israel to be another short-lived story, either. Israel has been, and will always be, part of what it means to be Jewish. As generations-past learned to do, we can live in America and Israel can live in our hearts.

L’Shalom,