I have many friends who, like me, are baby boomers (or close to it). We are the children of those who lived through World War II and then witnessed or assisted the creation of the State of Israel.
Our parents and grandparents carried the scars of statelessness: murdered relatives, erased communities, nations that shut their doors. To them, Israel’s birth was redemption after catastrophe – a refuge and a miracle they supported with activism, fundraising, even arms and rescue.
But our children and grandchildren know a different Israel.
They have grown up with an Israel that is a 21st century power – brimming with military might, cutting edge technology, even nuclear capabilities.
Theirs is the Israel of Netanyahu, Ben Gvir and Smotrich. An Israel ruling perpetually over millions of Palestinians – where settlements expand, land is seized, homes are demolished, extremist violence flourishes and a two-tier reality shapes daily life in the West Bank.
The David we were raised on has become Goliath.
And then came the Gaza war.
The atrocities of October 7 were horrific. Yet the response – tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians killed, neighborhoods flattened, millions displaced and hungry – left young Jews confronting a wrenching question: What does Jewish power mean if it inflicts such suffering?
For our generation, Israel’s survival was justification enough. For theirs, Israel’s ethics matter just as much.
And for many of us, the distance our children are creating from Israel feels like a rupture – as if the chain of memory forged by generations who endured relentless persecution might snap – and on our watch.
So I hear, constantly, the anxious question from parents and grandparents: How do we keep this generation connected to Israel? How do we stop them from walking away?
We must also acknowledge the world they inhabit. Their peers – Jewish and not – often see the Palestinian cause as the moral struggle of our time. Israel is framed not as threatened, but as the oppressor.
Young Jews caught in that current often feel they must choose between being loyal to their heritage and family or loyal to their values. When we respond by dismissing their critiques or branding Israel’s critics as antisemites, we do not win any arguments – we simply lose trust.
Some criticism is antisemitic. Much is not. And they know it.
If we want the next generation to stay connected, we must offer more than nostalgia or denial. We must teach real history – not the Exodus myth on which we were raised – and be honest about the beauty and the damage. A relationship built on fantasy cannot survive Gaza livestreams or videos of settler violence.
Israel is a homeland, refuge, and center of culture. It is also a state like any other – capable of great things, and also of injustice. The very existence of a Jewish state is not proof of virtue; it is a test of it.
A love that lasts will not come from shielding our children from Israel’s flaws. It will come from engaging them in the work of addressing them.
Let them see Israel’s brilliance – yes. Its innovation, resilience, cultural vitality. Let them see also the harm: checkpoints and displacement, olive groves torched, extremism tolerated, Palestinian life constrained.
Here in the US, we demonstrate our patriotism on the streets - rallying for ‘no kings’ and against rising fascism.
We should embrace it when the next generation joins Israelis and Palestinians fighting for equality and peace and wrestling with the responsibility that comes when Jews, after two thousand years without power, exercise it in their national home.
Because Israel is not the end of the Jewish story. Israel is the moral question at its center today.
The country cannot and should not be an object of blind devotion. It is one country among roughly 200 in the real world, run by real people – imperfect people. And, as with all human efforts, it requires constant attention and repair.
Will Israel treat others as we wish Jews had been treated when we lacked power?
Will sovereignty be wielded with justice or exerted through domination?
Will we uphold dignity even when it is inconvenient?
These questions – not sentimental tourism, not Birthright gloss – are what can root young Jews in Israel. Invite them to love Israel, yes, but also to be part of the ongoing work to make it ever better.
So when people ask me: How do I make my kids love Israel? I say:
Show them the whole truth.
Teach the painful history – not only the heroism.
Acknowledge Gaza, occupation, settlement expansion – not as footnotes, but central realities.
And give them responsibility, not propaganda.
Love built on mythology breaks. Love built on honesty and moral obligation endures.
If we want our children to love Israel, we should encourage them to wrestle with it – not demand they worship it.
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Your piece on how do we “make” the young generation become attached to Israel, appreciate and identify with it. etc. is a pressing question. I am one of those old boomers, one year older than the founding of the state, and find myself much less interested , attached to or caring about Israel for all of the reasons you mentioned. How much more so it must be for the younger kids? Sadly Israel has become just another country for many American liberal Jews and in general for the world . And age- old antisemitism has made Israel a pariah, for many of the young.not. And we have our own, constant political turmoil to be confronted with on a daily basis. It’s hard to keep up.
I read Ha aaretz, follow the news daily about Gaza and the West Bank and mostly feel that the Israelis blew it much as we have. For me where Israel was always a fall back, a safe place for all Jews, I’d more likely consider a move to Canada if things got more ugly here in the US. The other important question for all of us Jews now that the cracks have appeared and being Jewish means more than Israeli nationalism as a surrogate religion for some, what does Judaism, as a religion, mean to us.
Can there be a return, a teshuvah , to spirituality here in the diaspora?
I have two seven year old grandchildren. What could Judaism mean for them? Learning Jewish history? Celebrating holidays together? alternative services when they are older as, for example, a group like Wilderness Torah created in the Bay Area or traditional services perhaps?
I don’t have the answers, but the centrality of the state of Israel, while an important part to understand it would not necessarily be paramount. The purpose of its creation for good and ill, has been served. They need to come to terms with their new reality. As do we here in the US.
Complicated and changing times we live in, changing before our very eyes.
you can start by explaining to them that just like America Israel is a democracy that has been taken over by a group of fundamentalists who are out of step with the values that created it. Remind them that over 40% of Israeli voters did not vote for the current regime and have been protesting in the streets like we have by the millions. Democracy is not some static beautiful thing, it's forged out of struggle between various factions view of it if they dislike Israel, then they dislike America because we're both facing the same fundamental crisis of confidence. The underlying dream to both of these societies needs to be remembered and that complacency and indifference supports the very forces they dislike. they also need to be taught or reminded that the Palestinians have had numerous opportunities to work in peace with the Israelis and that it's their leaders who have and are leading them into this nightmare. The Palestinian people have the ability to change the equation just as much as the Israelis do.