Departing emissary urges more dialogue, less ‘consensus,’ on Israel

by Robert Wiener
NJJN Staff Writer

Three years after arriving on American soil, Guy Benshachar will head home to Tel Aviv in August, convinced that American Jews should be more vocal in their views about Israel and more willing to engage in dialogue with Palestinians and their supporters.

“I would like Jews here to be as involved as possible with everything that happens in Israel, including the tough issues, to have their own opinions, to say them, to advocate, to even demonstrate for or against,” said the departing executive shaliah, or chief emissary, from Israel to United Jewish Communities of MetroWest New Jersey.

Seated barefoot on the deck of his Livingston home as he watched his six-year-old son, Shauli, at play in the backyard on a summer afternoon, Benshachar said he was troubled by the reluctance in many American-Jewish quarters to criticize the policies and government of Israel.

“People here should have the same rights as we have in Israel to their opinions. Sometimes it is because we don’t feel the right because we are not there, we don’t live there. But it is important that the Jews say what their opinion is — especially because so many of those issues are not Israeli issues; they are Jewish issues.”

For three years, Benshachar devoted much of his outreach work in MetroWest to raising greater awareness of those issues, inside and outside the Jewish community, in an educational campaign that reached day schools and public schools, synagogues and other Jewish organizations, and interfaith forums.

But, he said, he rarely encountered pro-Palestinian viewpoints, even though he believes that “dialogues with Palestinians should happen more here.”

On one occasion when he attended a debate on the security barriers between Israel and Palestinian villages, he said, “There was some discussion with some pro-Palestinians in the room, although they were more interested in learning about the issues, which was good. Mainly, people listened very carefully, and that was very interesting. That was very good in this environment.”

Yet he noted that “it happened under Christian auspices, not Jewish auspices, and I think that the community right now is not prepared to do it yet. This I hope will change, because I think it is important that this issue will be on the table as much as possible.”

Benshachar believes American Jews are wary of such dialogue because “their main fear is that there is a lack of consensus. In Israel we don’t like consensus. I think Israelis feel more comfortable with conflict. I think Americans overall and the Jewish community in this regard see conflict as a big problem that has to be resolved, that has to be calmed down. I think that is a problem; I think we need to talk to people. I still believe most people in the world want good things, not bad things.”

When he returns to Israel, the shaliah expects to find a place that has changed in his absence.

“When I left, the main conflict was with the Palestinians,” he said. “I am coming back to a country which is much more in conflict with itself in the Israeli society. It is about the occupation, and it split the society almost in half. I don’t think it is ideological. It is about how you make Israeli society into a place that most people would like to live in.”

He said he believes that will require some big changes on both ends of Israel’s political spectrum.

“The Left has to give some answers as to how you get out of places without having such a bad effect on security, when they become places for terrorists to reorganize and attack. The Right has to answer two questions: What do you do with the occupation? People understand it just cannot continue for so many years without such a destructive outcome for Israelis. And what do you do with having a Jewish democratic state when you have the territories? You have to find the solution to this.”

Such weighty issues will be “on hold” until Benshachar returns home in late August after a vacation with his family of five in Vermont and the Hamptons.

Benshachar’s successor in MetroWest, Orli Dudaie, will arrive in the community Aug. 15

Before coming to MetroWest, Benshachar, a trained psychologist, worked in Tel Aviv for a nongovernmental agency called the Adam Institute, training teachers and facilitators in an organization that works to promote democracy.

His wife, Ruth Calderon, is well known in Israel as a Jewish educator.

Benshachar said he views the United States as a “very conservative country” with “a very formal culture, very afraid of changes, very slow in adopting changes.”

Still, he will miss “the green. I’m going to miss the quiet. I’m going to miss people being polite to each other and not shouting.”

Robert Wiener can be reached at rwiener@njjewishnews.com.