Tuesday night it was a program on wineries in Israel’s Negev. Last night, it was a talk by Yehuda Kurtzer, co-president of The Hartman Institute, at Adas Israel. Kurtzer is a very smooth talker, and it was easy to listen as to his 45 minute speech. The general topic was: what is it like to be Jewish in Israel or America today, and what does our tradition (he terms it “Torah”) tell us about how we should be reacting. He talked about Israel, over the past two years, developing a “warrior culture”, while Jews in America have developed a “worrier culture”. I thought that pretty clever (or I wouldn’t be repeating it here).
My overall reaction was, as it often is when I listen to this type of a talk, that I wish I had the speech in print form in front of me, and I wish I had the time (or would take the time) not only to read through it thoroughly and slowly, but to annotate it, to write comments by each sentence, to see where each sentence might lead me, to agree with a sentence or disagree and explain why I did one or another, complete with links, references, quotes and notes. But clearly, even if I had the speech in front of me, I wouldn’t do that, and neither would you or virtually anyone else. There is just too much else that I have to do, or that I would rather do, or that I would feel guilty not doing. And then, of course, I am lazy.
The first part of Kurtzer’s talk was devoted to “time”, and to social danger and disruption. He has concluded that maybe we have been spoiled, or both blessed and spoiled, by living, as American Jews, in a long time of peace and quiet. Israelis have not had that luxury, although they had entered a period of relative quiet until the events of October 7, 2023 led to the start of a long period of a very unusual type of war. But maybe the typical Jewish experience throughout history was more like the Israeli history than the American history, Jews throughout the world lived most often in periods of uncertainty and danger, not in a period of extended peace and comfort.
Okay, I will accept that. But he went on to say that American and Israeli Jews today (June 25 2025) look at the future very differently. Although they have been involved in various types of war for close to two years, Israeli Jews see that they have not done too badly in these wars and that they are in better shape than their enemies are today, and that that gives them the possibility to look to the future with optimism. American Jews, on the other hand, are very pessimistic, no matter wherever you go, or with whom you speak.
He ascribes this to the fact that Israeli Jews can do something about their condition (as he terms it, they have “agency”), while American Jews by and large can only look at their phones, updating the website of The Times of Israel every five minutes, and worry. And not only do American Jews lack agency (the ability to do anything about what worries them), but they also spend so much time worrying that they often ignore taking care of themselves. Israeli Jews do take care of themselves (for you have to do this if war is raging all around you). Kurtzer then goes to Jewish tradition, which says that we should be balancing self-preservation with reaching out to others. At the current time, he concludes that American Jews are not very good at this.
But in speaking about the concept of time, and how Israelis are beginning to become optimistic about their future, I have a differenttake than he does. Kurtzer is 48 years old. His father, who was once American ambassador to Israel, is only 76. I am, as you know, 82. I believe that you look at time differently when you are 48 than when you are 82, and since most of the American Jews that I associate with are closer to 82 than to 48, and the audiences that Kurtzer tends to address are probably on the whole closer to 82 than to 48, I wonder if I can be excused in not looking at time as he does.
His talk brought me back to the end of World War II. World War II, as we all know, ended in Europe in 1945 and the continent was virtually completely destroyed at the end of the war. I believe (obviously I don’t really know) that an 82 year old, crawling out of rubble as the shooting stopped, would be pretty depressed – a good life in a world of progress totally torn apart by an extensive war and destroyed everything. Yes, for that 82 year old individual, whether he lives another 5 days or 5 years, this is the way the world ends.
But if you are 48 when the war ends, or 38, or 28, you might look at things differently. The war is over, the enemy (internal or external) is vanquished, and we have a lot of work to do. But work is healthy, and we are doing it together, and we have time, so maybe things will one day again be good.
In 1962, 17 years after the shooting stopped, I along with three college friends (and now three old college friends), spent the summer in Europe (I have mentioned this trip several times, as you may remember), traveling through Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. Everything looked prosperous and clean, and everyone looked content and happy. There were virtually no places which looked like they had recently been destroyed by war. But, unless he or she lived to be 99, those who were 82 at the end of World War II were not around to see prosperous Europe of 1962. But if you were 28 at the end of the war, in 1962, you were only 45, and you might have another 40 or so years to see Europe prosper even more. If you were young and optimistic in 1945, your optimism was validated.
Something else I thought about at the Kurtzer program was brought up not by Kurtzer, but by someone who asked a question. The question related to the different ways different groups of Israelis were treated during the current period of conflict. The subject was bomb shelters. Virtually all Jewish Israelis (80% of the population) have access to bomb shelters. But those Israelis living in Arab towns and villages and in Bedouin settlements do not have bomb shelters; the government has refused to build them. And there were apparently instances where Israeli Arabs tried to enter bomb shelters in Jewish areas and were refused entry. This is an issue that comes up whenever Israel is under threat or attack.
Thus, many Israeli Jews may be strong on the self-preservation ethic, but weak on reaching out to others. What, the questioner asked, did Kurtzer think of this? Kurtzer said he agreed with the question “on steroids”. But Kurtzer, of course, is an American Jew, not Israeli, and Kurtzer did not worry (as I assume many Israeli Jews might) that this Arab (and who knows if he is an Israeli Arab, or someone who sneaked his way into the area) might be a danger to the Jews in the shelter. In times of trouble, simple courtesies get very complicated.
He did not discuss that most American Jews vote center left, while most Israeli Jews are now voting hard right. This is another obvious difference. But people on the hard right tend to be tribalists. In this country, tribalists tend to feel themselves threatened by immigrants. This fear is a major source of Trump’s strength. In Israel, they tend to feel threatened by their neighbors, whom they look at as wannabe immigrants. It is really, I believe, two versions of the same thing.
One thing that did not come up was the surprising runaway victory of Zohan Mondani in the Democratic mayoral primary in New York, and his now assumed victory in the final vote in November. A 33 year old Muslim, a founder of a chapter of a pro-Palestinian organization as an undergraduate at Bowdoin, an individual who has expressed support for the BDS movement and for penalizing American charities which provide funding which supports settlement building in the West Bank. Even though Mondani has many Jewish supporters, including at high levels, and over and over proclaims that antisemitism is an evil that must be erased, his presumed election does raise some questions that have not previously been raised in New York City politics. (Of course, Mondani is more than a pro-Palestinian Muslim; he is a self defined socialist, who wants to redirect New York City dollars in very different directions than is currently the case.)
Is Mamdani bad for the Jews? You can’t foresee the future, but I would suspect 82 year old Jewish New Yorkers more concerned about his potential mayoral term than 48 year old Jewish New Yorkers? He may be the last mayor they will experience, while younger Jews can look beyond him to the future.
Art is 80 