I was somewhat stunned when a friend of mine (Jewish woman) told me that she once asked her mother about her thoughts regarding Jews in Israel.
Mom told her daughter that, "We are Americans first and what people in Israel decide to do or not, has nothing to do with us!"
So much for having any knowledge of their own scriptures and God's command regarding Israel.
It seems that most American Jews have no problem with being God's "chosen people," so long as it has nothing to do with they're being loyal to the land God gave them or informed about what God instructed them regarding the land nor their worship of Him.
You're rocking my world.
I'll have to stew on that.
Thank you for that! It’s time the truth be told about the bulk of American Jews, because it isn’t fair to those who do adhere to their faith to have to bear the brunt of what others are doing in their name.
Many, if not most Jews, had come to America decades before the Holocaust for the very reason that anti-semitism in Europe was so very strong and could easily result in the loss of your livelihood or even your life (pogroms, for example). In my grandfather's generation (the early 1900s), Jews who had been observant in Europe found themselves in a situation in America where they could not have Saturdays off to observe the Sabbath. Those who were devoutly Orthodox found themselves basically looking for a new job every week after being fired for not showing up on Saturday. There were plenty of Jews from Europe who therefore took the easier route and simply worked on the Sabbath. They gradually dropped off the rest of their observance and became assimilated, even marrying non-Jews.
After the Holocaust, with the influx of Jewish refugees from the camps coming to America, there was a transmission of their fear of being found out to be a Jew to their children and subsequently to their grandchildren. In Boro Park, Brooklyn, where a great many Holocaust survivors settled after the war, there is STILL a fear of dogs, especially German Shepherds, among the Jews, descendents of Holocaust survivors. Dogs had been used to find hidden Jews or to herd them toward the "showers" and their death. When I had occasion to visit that neighborhood, my casual petting of a dogwalker's large dog was regarded by horrified onlooking Chassidim as though I was petting a lion or a leopard.
"Jew" was, and still is, a pejorative in America. Many people unfortunately have striven therefore to blend in; their Jewishness was a burden to them rather than a gift from G-d. My own mother was always trying to drop her Jewishness and take up non-Jewish practices such as hanging stockings at Xmastime. I did not respect her for that at all. I was, and am, very proud to be a Jew. She couldn't understand it. To her, it was a mark of "being different" and she didn't want any part of being different.
Therefore, with the overwhelming assimilation of American Jews for the aforementioned reasons, not only did they discard Jewish religious practices but also their feeling toward Israel. If you are not reciting prayers from the Siddur (Jewish prayerbook) with their numerous references to Israel or reading the beautiful psalms composed by King David with their ever-present references to Israel, or observing the holidays which originated in Israel, you will not have any appreciation for who you are as a Jew. Israel, rather than being the center of your universe, is just another country and a pain in the butt one at that, because it is the center of such controversy. And you, trying to blend in and not be singled out for "Jew"! references, have lost your connection with your origins.
As King David said in Psalm 137,
"O Jerusalem, if I should forget you, may my right hand lose its cunning.
May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I remember you not,
If I do not set Jerusalem above my chiefest joy.
No wonder these assimilated Jews have little feeling for the welfare of Israel. And mischannel their natural Jewish compassion toward liberal causes and candidates, having swallowed the ancient accusations hook, line, and sinker, leading to "Jewish guilt" for things they never did.