Irit Linur is not only offended that non-Israelis were invited to participate in the official state ceremony marking 69 years of Israeli independence (“U.S. Jews Have No Place in Israel's Independence Day Ceremony”). She argues that Jews in Israel and Jews in America are heading inexorably in different directions—and she bases her argument on crude caricatures of Jewish life in both places she takes as self-evident.

I want to share a secret with Irit Linur, you might call it an “open” secret: most Israelis disagree with her, as do the facts.

Most Jewish Israelis are deeply aware of, interconnected with and are increasingly seeking to deepen their and their country’s ties with Diaspora Jewry, especially in North America. That desire reflects an evolution and a maturation of attitudes in Israel. That is why it made perfect sense for Minister Miri Regev to invite non-Israelis to join the official torch-lighting ceremony.

First, let’s get one thing out of the way. The Pew Research Center’s most recent studies of Israeli Jews and American Jews, which Linur cites too casually, documents that “most Israeli Jews say Jewish Americans have a good impact on the way things are going in Israel. In addition, most Israeli Jews say that a thriving diaspora is vital to the long-term survival of the Jewish people and that Jews in the two countries share a 'common destiny.'”

Secondly, rather than expressing the authentic voice of the Israeli people today, Linur sounds nostalgic for the separatism of the 1950s. Then, as part of an early, informal contract between Israeli and America Jewry about identities and the ‘rules of the game’, David Ben-Gurion reassured Jacob Blaustein—then a leader of the American Jewish Committee—that "Israel represents and speaks only on behalf of its own citizens and in no way presumes to represent or speak in the name of Jews in any other country.” The understandings, reached in 1950 and reaffirmed in 1961, also promised Israel would not “interfere in any way in the internal affairs of Jewish communities abroad.”

But that world has vanished.

Identities are moving away from the zero-sum, “us here, you there,” and instrumental (i.e. please send donations and immigrants) calculus that defined early Zionism and Ben-Gurion’s Israel. American Jewry is also much stronger and more confident than it was in those years.

Open gallery view American volunteers to the IDF were crucial to Israel's military success in 1948 and since. Machal volunteers in Beit Lid, 1949.

This natural evolution is bringing Israelis and American Jews closer together, not further apart as Linur (and others) suggest.

The Israeli security establishment has radically altered its view and sees a strong and healthy Diaspora as an important element of Israel’s “strategic depth;” affinity investing and economic ties by Diaspora Jews has never been stronger; and education and experiential programs like Taglit and Masa are still reeling in large numbers of young people, including the two-way traffic of Israeli madrichim and shlichim going in the opposite direction and flooding American Jewish summer camps, university campuses and community institutions.

There is a particularly close bond between the Orthodox in both countries, highlighted by the surge in American “gap-year” students coming to Israel. Moreover, our societies are cross-pollinating: Israelis are one of the fastest growing groups among American Jews and virtually no one speaks of “yordim” anymore (a derogative term for Israelis who emigrate).

American Jews continue to volunteer for the IDF, several made the ultimate sacrifice in Operation Protective Edge and its aftermath. Jewish American students, like the late Ezra Schwartz, continue to come to Israel and devote themselves to study and personal growth. The centrality of Israel to the Jewish people as a whole, not least the Diaspora, is without question.

Linur is correct to cite poet Natan Alterman’s description of the state’s establishment as “the one miracle, there is no second,” but she fails to widen her imaginative and intellectual perspective to see that this same miracle continues to inspire a growing web of the Jewish people’s ties with Israel—bonds that benefit the Jewish state in myriad ways.

Open gallery view Congressional funding for Iron Dome: Just small change? Firing an interceptor rocket near the southern city of Ashdod. November 18, 2012. Credit: REUTERS

There is no doubt some Diaspora Jews are growing apart from Israel because of the dangerously stagnant Palestinian conflict and the confusion and uncertainties in some quarters about Israeli settlement practices, not to mention those turned off by certain exclusivist, Orthodox practices supported by the government and the lack of progress on issues like egalitarian prayer at the Western Wall.

But the bulk of these alternative views remains within—and in dialogue with—an overall framework of consensus.

No one denies there are challenges to Jewish life in America, from assimilation to apathy to estrangement, not to mention external challenges like nativist political currents and anti-Semitism. To be sure, much of organized U.S. Jewry is focused on these problems and, for the first time, in partnership with the Israeli government and Israeli civil society.

But Linur only offers cheap caricatures and outmoded concepts.

The same day I read Linur’s essay, including her Potemkin portrait of Judaism in Israel where, in her words, “assimilation is almost not an option”, none other than a Jehovah’s Witness came knocking at the door in Herzliya. And davka, on Shabbat!

I never got that kind of a knock in America, but then again, there are a lot more doors. I would much prefer a knock from Linur. A warm, non-Starbucks cup of coffee awaits her. She should know - and may dismiss me for it – this is only a temporary home, since I came to Israel on “shlichut,” initially as an American diplomat, and with plans to return.

Unlike Linur’s mythological Israeli street with three synagogues, mine has none. But I do live on the corner of David Marcus Street, the American combat veteran whom Ben-Gurion admired so much. Marcus died fighting for Israel; he was a beacon of Machal, overseas volunteers who played a crucial role in 1948 and continue to arrive to serve until today.

It is a shame Marcus was not alive to light a torch this week. Perhaps his qualifications would pass muster with Linur, or others like prominent journalist Amit Segal who spent a whopping 53 characters on Twitter to express his shock at seeing non-Israelis light the beacons in Jerusalem Monday night.

Open gallery view Any American Jews here? Celebrating Israel’s 69th Independence Day all night long in the Mahane Yehuda market, Jerusalem. May 2, 2017. Credit: MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP

Similar to Linur, I also take enormous pride in the central role that Judaism plays here in Israel, including allowing the non-religious to also live a full and satisfying Jewish life. I believe Judaism in Israel is a rich tapestry, that it is flourishing and is a defining part of the renaissance that is the miracle of modern Israel. The ceremonial second-grade presentation of the Book of Genesis by the town rabbi, the mayor and the school principal to my oldest son was a crowning day of our years here.

That said, many friends and colleagues claim coercion and appreciate the alternatives and sense of modernity that American and Diaspora Jewry bring to Israel. And they certainly wouldn’t recognize their American progressive Judaism as that of Jews who don’t want to “bear the shame of their Jewishness”, as Linur characterizes it.

Linur could also meet me at our synagogue. It is Masorti and decidedly Israeli, but with deep American roots. I hope she comes on a Saturday morning when local families from outside the synagogue bring their bnei mitzvah (girls included), enjoying the open doors, the embrace of Torah, prayer and mitzvot, and the mixed gender seating.

Linur can even take a front row seat; or read from the Book of Books if she so chooses. As powerful a statement as it is to visit Iron Dome batteries and watch an F-35 flyover—riveting and concrete examples of the security alliance for which American Jewry also deserves a big share of the credit—it is also powerful to witness and join in these social, cultural and religious bonds that continue to fuse an unyielding sense of peoplehood.

Looking around the sanctuary, Linur will see a hall full of beacons, partly illuminated by practices synthesized from other lands, and each one a torchbearer for the glory of the State of Israel.

Scott B. Lasensky is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS). He previously served as the Senior Advisor to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro (2014-2017) and as a Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Ambassadors to the U.N. Susan E. Rice and Samantha J. Power. His books include The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab Israeli Peace (Cornell University Press, co-author, 2013) and Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East (co-authored with Daniel C. Kurtzer, 2008). Follow him on Twitter: @scottlasensky