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[bemildred]

It's quite another to say that such a renewal is impossible and that the ONLY way to be Jewish is to move to Israel.

I think his argument is more along the line that "Jewishness" which is not related to some practice lacks content and tends to die out from generation to generation, which I think is accurate. He considers that a bad thing. I have mixed feelings, don't really know how to sort them out.

In the first, there's a legitimate argument for reviving a several forms of faith and culture, which is something that could fairly be called for in ANY religion.

I quite agree, but I have trouble with the notion that people ought to be coerced into it, the question of how much of that sort of coercion ought to be allowed in a society that purports to be free.

In the second, there's an attempt to coerce millions of people to move to a country they don't currently wish to live in(and, probably more importantly, to force those people to silence any dissent they may be feeling about the policies of the government of that country). This is never a legitimate thing to do...it isn't a good thing to give any government anywhere an exemption from accountability, since doing that only makes the government that's granted such an exemption become more reckless and more arrogant.

See, I'm OK with that, it's the coercion that bothers me.

Also, why SHOULD every Jewish person in the world move to Israel, when doing that would give the antisemites what they really want...a planet that is otherwise totally Judenrein? How could anybody think this would be a good thing, for the world's Jewish communities OR for anyone else.

I quite agree. It is very dubious to think that being all collected together in one small place make you safer too. But I think what really drives this whole issue is the demographic trends. That's why I posted it, I was interested in the demographic information he had. I don't consider him a good source, but demographic information is hard to come by, or gets little attention, and I think it's really a fundamental issue.

We should all want THIS country to have strong Jewish communities along with strong communities representing every OTHER religious and cultural tradition the world has to offer. I want everybody to grow up knowing all sorts of people and understanding all sorts of cultures, faiths, races, whatever. Only by having a country and a world like that can we ever actually defeat any forms of bigotry. And we need as many countries as possible to be like that. Multiculturalism is the only hope for a hatred-free world, not the kind of voluntary separatist self-ghettoization that the current Israeli government is so stupidly pushing for.

I'll stay out of that one. Although I have to say its one of the things I really like about LA.