Am Echad, One People: But Are We Really?

From my first days of Jewish day school, I was taught that as a member of the Jewish community, I was one in a community of many, and we were all connected. It was a community for me to be proud of, and one that I’d feel connected to no matter where I found myself. This is the idea of “Am Echad,” a deep seeded Jewish value, meaning “One People.”  It’s a value that seeps into all aspects of Jewish life, connecting the Jewish people all around the world.

Stemming as far back as biblical times, the Jewish communal world has been obsessed with the notion of “peoplehood” and how to define it, promote it, and strengthen it.  The Jewish people are “one” in both the historical sense, and in that Jews around the world share genetic traits distinct from other groups, and that our history and stories date back to ancient times. Essentially,we are identical by descent.

Yet what we are seeing today is not a united people. We do not see the intense bond of the Jewish people remaining unbreakable, in spite of the supposed common values, shared history, and genetic makeup. Instead, the seams of our cohesion are showing. We are seeing an intense separation between members of this eternally bonded community through politics, geography, and within individual religious sects. Despite having worked tirelessly, through means of funding Jewish international youth groups, Birthright programming, and adult Jewish leadership programs, with the hopes of forging a cohesive religious and social identity, we as a Jewish people, could not be more divided.

Our community comes together when it’s convenient. It’s seen at Passover seders around the world, other religious holy days, particularly those celebrated in the diaspora, and in moments of remembering our shared past of being displaced from our communities, everywhere from Egypt, Spain, and of course, in Europe during the Holocaust. We come together in these moments of religious and cultural solidarity, preaching Aim Echad, we are one people. So why is that? What happened to the cohesive peoplehood that spanned beyond Jewish celebrations and mournings?

Within religiosity alone, there is a deep sense of division. From Ultra Orthodox communities, to the Reform and reconstructionist movements, there is an incredibly wide breadth of values and understandings. We can see this separation through service in the IDF – the Israeli Defense Force. The IDF is said to be the “People’s Army,” which is a school of thought concerning the role of their army, where the IDF plays a broader role than merely defending Israel’s national security by integrating all sectors of Israeli society into its units. This, in theory, should be something that brings Israeli Jews together. Yet Orthodox Jews are often exempt from army service, and not surprisingly, the vast majority of Israelis staunchly disagree with the exemption, seeing this as a national obligation to defend their people. The response from Orthodox rabbinical leaders, has largely been one of shifting into attack mode, defending their right to exemption. And we see this strong disagreement in Israel’s High Court of Justice ruling this exemption as unconstitutional, with the push back still occuring today.

Politics is yet another polarizing conversation amongst the Jewish people that came about specifically through the creation of a state for this united people. Having been in Israel this past month working and seeing first hand coexistence projects, it was strikingly clear how divided this community really is. We are all a Jewish people, all under a shared history, but with incredibly different views on what the future of our people and our land should look like.

So how do we unite these people who seem so inherently separate? It all comes down to re-evaluating priorities and the direction of each of these religious groups amongst the Jewish population. Rather then feeling that our individual Jewish identities are under attack, we need to make bilateral changes. Being more informed of the values on all sides, and going back to the original core of the religion, and remembering what truly binds us together. Remembering the transcendent commandment of loving others as ourselves, with equal force. It may often seem that fulfilling this command is beyond human capacity: how can we love others irrespective of their values or conduct that may be so inherently adverse to our own? Perhaps, it’s important to instead remember your neighbor is a human being, like yourself. If we remember this, maybe as Jews, we can then embrace that we are Am Echad, above all else. We all have the opportunity to learn the lessons of the past and build a better society as one people, let us not forsake it.