<HTML>The issues raised by Michelle Farber remind me of similar discussions I've
had in Yeshiva High Schools in the States for many years, whether dealing
with humanitarian aid to victims of civil wars in Africa, natural
disasters or local homeless. There was generally little internalization of
the values of tzedaka to extend beyond the local parochial needs (Israel
was also considered a local, parochial need). I don't believe that it
emanated from a carefully constructed halakhic analysis of the mitzvah of
tzedakah nor from a general breakdown in the moral development of Jewish
teens, as some have suggested. My sense was there were at least two
factors operating in the thought process.
1-The effort to build Jewish identity and Jewish pride, a significant
component of day-school education, emphasizes the uniqueness of the Jewish
People and their relationship with God. Even when that did not take the
nasty form of the denigration of other people's and religions, the benign
version of that message portrays the Jews at the center of God's world and
the other peoples of the world as there to serve our purposes. The
implication being that the other nations have obligations toward the Jews
but not vice versa. My sense is that much of the religious community in
Israel takes a similar approach.
2-Many perceive Jewish History to be nothing more than a long string of
Antisemitism - bekhol dor vador omdim aleinu lekhaloteinu. Perceptions of
the Jewish People being under constant threat (either physical or
spiritual) are a significant component of the focus inward. Anyone with a
sense that they are under siege will turn inward to take care of their own
exclusively. In the States, the fear of the secular world, assimilation,
the emphasis on Jewish continuity and survival, demand a parochial
exclusivist approach. In Israel, any sense of feeling threatened by the
neighboring nations, abandoned by the world community and the UN,
alienated by the European Union and the African nations, will contribute
the sense that we need to take care of our own first.
Rabbi Zvi Grumet</HTML>
