By GARY ROSENBLATT
NEW YORK (N.Y. Jewish Week)Â — A second-year rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary (www.jtsa.edu) says her year-in-Israel experience, as part of her academic training, has been “enriching and incredibly painful” in terms of what she sees of Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians.
“The Israel I see does not seem to reflect so many of the Jewish values that my family and community raised me with,” she wrote in an e-mail to The Jewish Week.
The woman, who asked that her name not be used, said she is part of a group of American rabbinical students in Israel who meet every other week “to share our struggles and hopes and dreams for Israel.” She added that “it was through this group that I ended up” at a “birthday party in Ramallah” for a fellow student at a bar featuring anti-Israel slogans in Arabic.
The birthday incident was cited in a recent Jerusalem Post opinion piece by educator Daniel Gordis as an example of the disturbing level of discontent with the Jewish state among a number of Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbinical students spending a year in Israel.
Read the rest of this article at the New York Jewish Week: http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/editorial/future_rabbis_conflicted_about_israel
