Casey smiled at Asher, who drank in every word she said. “I’m afraid I didn’t give you a very balanced picture of Arendt’s views. You should read her yourself. She’s so good. But enough of that. It’s my thesis topic, and I could go on forever. I want to hear about you. I’m intrigued to see a boy in a kippah championing Palestinian rights.”

“I try to speak out about human rights violations wherever they occur,” Asher said. “I’m Jewish and feel a bond to Israel, but I disagree with some of its policies, just like I’m American and disagree with plenty of US policies.”

“You’re not a exactly a Zionist, I take it.”

Asher shook his head. “I accept Israel’s right to exist and defend itself because, for better or worse, it exists, just like the US exists, even if its territory was stolen from indigenous people. You can’t undo history, but we should try to do the best with the existing situation. If I was alive fifty or sixty years ago, I probably would have been a Zionist and supported the creation of a Jewish homeland, but now that Israel exists, I’m not even sure what Zionism means. Maybe it’s just be another word for Israeli nationalism, and I’m a wary of excessive nationalism anywhere.”

“I understand. Jews needed a refuge, no, more than a refuge, a country of their own, as victims of pogroms and injustices throughout Europe, and the Holocaust helped turn that idea into a reality. Zionism these days, though, seems to be associated with expansion of its territory based on biblical promises, and reminds me of the American doctrine of manifest destiny.”

“That’s right!” Asher was beside himself, hearing his companion express views that could have come out of his own mouth. “I think Israel should have returned the territories captured in the Six-Day War, and tried to work out how to live with the Palestinians they share that land with. The desire to expand is causing all these problems now and driving Israel to do terrible things. Listen to these excerpts from the State Department’s human rights report that just came out.”

He picked up the handful of leaflets he’d salvaged and began reading. “‘…. 366 Palestinians were killed in 1988 as a result of the uprising, most of them by the IDF, some by Israeli settlers…. Over 20,000 Palestinians were wounded or injured by the IDF.’ It goes on talking about the beating of Palestinians, the breaking of bones, demolition of homes, use of torture to extract false confessions, and imposition of collective punishment in defiance of the Geneva Conventions.”

“That’s a huge report. It cites violations all around the world, more than 150 countries, if I remember correctly, but you’re focusing only on Israel. How come?”

Asher took a deep breath. “I’ve reported about other countries, too, but I suppose there’s something personal about this. It seems fitting for me, as a Jew, to be critical of Israel. It’s taken for granted that an Arab or Muslim will criticize Israel, but criticism from an Israeli or a Jew gets more attention. You know, when a Russian calls out racism in America, it’s just propaganda, but it’s different coming from an American.”

“I see your point. In a way it reminds me of how a person can joke about his own race, ethnicity, or nationality, but it’s offensive when an outsider does.”

“That’s right. Jews tell jokes about Jews all the time, but the same jokes sound different if they’re told by neo-Nazis. I’m sure the same is true for African-Americans, Latinos, Gays, and any other group. We have more of a right to criticize and joke about ourselves than people outside our group do. It’s a right and also a responsibility, and that’s why I’m handing out these flyers.

Casey nodded. “Do you follow Israeli politics pretty closely?”

“Not really, but there are things that get me riled up, like the Pollard business.”

“Oh, yes, Jonathan Pollard, wasn’t it, the American who was convicted of spying for Israel?”

“Uh-huh. That was a disaster.”

“That he was caught?”

“No, that it happened in the first place. It created a dilemma for American Jews because we thought of ourselves as Jewish and American, and there was no contradiction between those two parts. But the Pollard case made us choose sides. Some Jews defended him because he was helping Israel, and for them he’s a hero. Others saw him as a traitor for selling US secrets to a foreign power. It forced us to decide which of those two identities, suddenly in conflict with each other, was paramount. Were we Jewish Americans or American Jews? It was very polarizing.”

“Polardizing, you might say. Which side did you come out on?”

‘The American side. I’m Jewish, not Israeli, and I don’t think Israel should be stealing secrets from its closest ally. What he did was no different from spying for Russia or China.”

“Don’t you think the US spies on its allies all the time?”

“That may be true, and I condemn that, too. You know the way the US rounded up the Japanese during WWII and sent them off to internment camps? I’ve always thought it was an awful thing that was done to them. Just because they they had Japanese blood, it didn’t mean that they weren’t loyal to the US. But Pollard’s spying meant he and the people who defended him were more loyal to Israel than to the US, so maybe the relocation of Japanese, which is anathema to me, made some sense after all.”

“So, there’s no conflict between being Jewish and American, but Israel complicates things?”

“That’s right. You asked me about Zionism. The connection between Judaism and Zionism is getting stronger in this country. We Jews in the diaspora, especially in the US, are confused about our identity. All we have to show for our Jewishness, at least those of who aren’t religious, are some odd traditions and holidays that we honor in a tongue-in-cheek way, some distinctive foods, and a few Yiddish words we sprinkle into our speech. We’re not sure if Judaism is a religion, an ethnicity or a nationality.”

“Why do you think Judaism and Zionism are being conflated these days?

“I don’t know, but it’s an idea that that Israel promotes, especially the Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and his right-wing Likud Party. You know he’s been trying to stop Soviet Jews from immigrating to the US, right?”

“I heard something about it. What’s that about?”

“Well, when the USSR started allowing Jews to emigrate, Shamir lobbied the US not to let them in, saying that they’re being permitted to leave because of their Jewish heritage, so they must go to Israel, the Jewish homeland. For him, real Jews live in Israel. As far as he’s concerned, the Russians can immigrate to Israel or stay in the Soviet Union and be damned. He wants more Jews in Israel, more settlements, and more displacements of Palestinians.”

“So you’re saying he’s not acting for the sake of the Jews in Russia, but only for Israel?”

“I’m not sure it’s for Israel. I personally believe expansion is bad for the country. He’s doing it for Zionism. He’s always been a fanatic for that cause. Even during WWII, he was ready to team up with the Nazis.”

“What?”

“It’s true. Before Israel became a state, he was an Israeli Freedom Fighter, a Zionist extremist, and belonged to a terrorist militia called the Stern gang. They tried to form an alliance with Hitler because he was fighting against England and so were they. They wanted European Jews sent to Palestine to fight the Arabs.”

I’m curious about something, Asher. You said ‘we Jews in the diaspora’ a minute ago. Do you think of yourself as someone displaced from his homeland?”

“Did I? Well, in a way, everyone in this country is in diaspora, except indigenous people, who are treated like they don’t belong and who have, in fact, been displaced from their native homes. So really we’re all in diaspora, but yes, that word is strongly associated with Jews. At the end of the Passover seder, we say, L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim,’ which means ‘next year in Jerusalem,’ so we seem to be saying we aren’t really Americans, but just residing here temporarily, even though we’re perfectly free to pack up and move to Jerusalem tomorrow, with Shamir’s blessing.”

“So it’s not a true sentiment, but an expression of longing for something that doesn’t exist?”

“That’s it! Jews in every part of the world have been saying those words for six centuries, but I don’t think it’s the actual city of Jerusalem we yearn for, but some mythical Jerusalem in their mind. It’s part of the Jewish character to feel we are in diaspora and are displaced people not living the lives we are meant to live. It’s a way of reckoning with the impermanence of life, just like Christians talk about going home to God and Jesus when they die. To be in diaspora means to be in limbo, waiting to go home to a permanent place free from the sorrows of life.”

Note: This story is a modified extract from my novel The Best of Times set on a college campus in 1989.