American aliya doomed to fail

This article is sort of an open letter to nefesh be nefesh and the Jewish Agency stating that en mass aliya from the USA will never happen. As much as I hate too, i would have to agree. Unless some sort of calamity hits the USA causing it to collapse into chaos, the Jews there will remain and eventually dwindle to small pockets of communities, much like the ones we see in Europe today.

As a Soviet born Jew growing up in NYC, I immediately noticed how indistinguishable american jews were from their gentile neighbors. The ate the same food, did the same things, dressed the same, talked the same, etc. We Soviet Jews, however, retained our identities- at least for now, since we were immigrants. I think that is why for me it was easier to move to Israel about 5 years ago... I simply was not as rooted to the US as 3rd and 4th generation Jews. Moreover, when I moved to Israel I couldn't help but notice that many if not most of the American Jews I knew who made aliay were not your typical "american jews". They were mixed with Israeli, or were born in South Africa, Australia, or were religious (orthodox or conservative).

What the author of this article also fails to mention is that for American Jews, being Jewish is based on religion. I've had dozens of arguments with American Jews about this, with religious and secular American Jews. Some Jews I knew would say, "I was born Jewish, but I am not religious", ie, I am no longer really Jewish. Others would say that Jews do have some sort of cultural or "ethnic" identity in addition to religion, but no one can really point out what that it. Unlike Latinos, Asians, and African Americans, Jews do not have specific color of skin or distinct vernacular language (not anymore at least) that set them apart. That is perhaps one reason why Jews are assimilating so fast and are finding it so hard to meaningfully relate to their Jewishness if they are not religious. On the otherhand, all the Soviet Jews I knew saw being Jewish as a nationality (as we were officially recognized in the USSR- in the West they forget that in many countries nationality does NOT = citizenship, for example, Catalan/Spanish, Quebec/Canada, Wallon/Belgium etc). Soviet Jews, like Israelis see themselves as part of a Jewish NATION, not just part of a amorphous Jewish culture and ethnicity like the current generation of American Jews see themselves.

IF the above causes for assimilation are curbed, then we'll see a natural increase in both jewish overall population growth and emigration to Israel.

Without digressing to much into what will inevitably be a volumnious discussion of assimilation and its causes, I see some basic things that can be done to increase Jewish national identity in the USA (and elsewhere in the Diaspora):

- increase Jewish day school enrollment to 80% (at least) with the hekp of subsidies from the organized Jewish community and Charter School/voucher systems

- TEACH HEBREW to attain fluency- that is probably one of the most important contributors to Jewish self preservation. Once, Jews had an all encompassing Yiddish (or Ladino, etc) language and culture to insulate our community and channel our creativity and art. Today, Diaspora Jews have lost their language (in just 1 generation may i add!). Speaking Hebrew fluently would make American Jews stand out in a non threatening way among other Americans, no differently than Latinos, Chinese, Indian and a myriad other linguistic minorities.

The two points above are just a start of course- feel free to suggest your own ideas!!!