Founder of Birthright Israel, Michael
Steinhardt,Thinks American Jews Should Stop
Focusing on Religion
Allan C. Brownfeld, Editor
Special Interest Report
August 2017
Michael Steinhardt, the hedge fund billionaire who is the founder of
Birthright Israel, which sponsors free 10-day trips to Israel for Jewish
young adults, says that American Jews should stop focusing on religion.
Steinhardt, an atheist who rejects Judaism as a religion, instead focuses on
creating an attachment between young American Jews and Israel. In a sense,
support for Israel has become, for him, a substitute for religion.
In an interview with the .Jewish Telegraphic Agency (Washington Jewish Week,
June 15, 2017), he says that instead of focusing on religion, “… we have to
spend far more energy to the .last 300 years. The last 300 years is the most
enlightened — it is when Jews really shined. I would use the word superior,
except people blanch when I use that word. But it’s really what I mean: Jews
have accomplished so much, so inexplicably out of proportion to their
numbers, in these 300 years, and it’s one of the great failures of Jewish
education that that’s not focused on at all.”
Steinhardt admits that, for him, Israel has become a religion: “The modern
state of Israel is the Jewish miracle of the 20th century, but it’s the
secular part of Israel that’s the miracle. It’s the extraordinary
achievement, it’s the technology, the military, the development of a society
out of nothing using Zionist ideals, taking people from terrible places and
making them Israeli citizens. Israel has become, for me, the substitute for
religion.”
Mr. Steinhardt declared: “Israel is to me the most moral state on this
planet, (even) with the occupation, with the differences between rich and
poor, with the other issues, but it’s really an exceptional place.”
More than half a million young Jews have visited Israel on the Birthright
program. Contrary to Mr. Steinhardt’s intention of tying American Jews to
Israel, the gap between young American Jews and Israel is growing.
The Times of Israel (June 21, 2017) carried the headline, “Survey Shows Huge
Loss of Israel Support Among American Jewish College Students.”
It reports that the group Brand Israel commissioned a large-scale study in
2010 and a follow-up in 2016 studying the attitudes of American Jewish
college students to Israel. Fern Oppenheim, co-founder of Brand Israel,
called the results “devastating.”
Oppenheim spoke at the annual Herzliya conference in June and reported that
the 2016 study shows that the current Israeli campaign of depicting the
country beyond the conflict specifically highlighting high-tech achievements
is not effective. In fact, the more study participants knew about Israel,
the less favorably they felt about the country.
The study shows that since 2010, claimed knowledge of Israel has increased
14 percentage points nationally (from 23% to 37%). These increases, however,
have not translated into increased favorability, which is down 14 per cent
(from 76% to 62%) nationally.
The key to emphasize, she said, was common values: “Shared values have been
the bedrock of the American-Israeli relationship. Without this connection,
the future of the alliance is in jeopardy. And the biggest value gap is
between core Israeli supporters — basically older, wealthier, more
conservative, whiter Americans — and those who are labeled ‘at risk’ —
younger, minorities, liberals.”
The picture is even more dire, reports Oppenheim, when looking at the next
generation of potential Jewish leadership. Between the 2010 and the 2016
surveys, Jewish college students dropped 27 percentage points on the
question of whether they lean towards the Israeli side. This is explained by
a perceived lack of shared values between liberal college students and
Israel.
Oppenheim declared: “The future of America no longer believe that Israel
shares their values. This is huge! Devastating!” •
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