Canceled Israel Trips Provoke Backlash Against 'Fair-Weather Friends'

JERUSALEM, June 12 (RNS)--The widespread cancellation of Jewish summer tours to Israel has triggered an unprecedented wave of protest among Israelis about the "fair weather friend" behavior of the diaspora Jewish community, particularly in the United States.

	Safety vs. Ideology "With the situation as it is now, I wouldn't go if it was all expenses paid." --pbojsen "I would go because I would like to show that I do not want terrorism to win out over diplomacy." --CryingChild- JewishAndProud What would you do? Discuss. To stay put or leave for America? Israelis grapple with the violence. Youth groups avoid trouble spots.

The American Reform movement became the primary target of Israeli outrage after leaders last week decided to call off the movement's entire summer youth program in Israel, the oldest and largest teenage youth program operating here for high school students. The decision to cancel the high school program was made just after the bloody June 1 suicide bombing of a Tel Aviv discotheque in which 22 Israeli teenagers were killed.

"Our religious and Zionist commitments run deep and are known to all. But this movement never uses other people's children to make a political or ideological point," said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, in announcing the cancellation of the North American Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY) summer program that last year brought 1,500 students to Israel.

Yoffie's statement prompted an immediate backlash in Israel, where politicians ranging from Yossi Sarid, leader of the left-wing secular Meretz Party, to Transportation Minister Ephraim Sneh, of the centrist Labor Party, condemned the Reform decision.

In particular, critics said Yoffie's statement would harm the Reform movement's search for religious equality in the Jewish state.

"Jews in the diaspora have become complacent. They have forgotten the meaning of the expression, 'Every Jew is responsible for one another,'" said Bambi Sheleg, a liberal Orthodox Jewish publisher and commentator.

Meanwhile, Jerusalem's hardline Mayor Ehud Olmert announced he was "suspending all contacts with the American Reform movement" in the wake of Yoffie's announcement.

"For years the Reform movement has been demanding full equality in the country even though the movement hardly exists in Israel," said Olmert in a statement. "Yet now, in a moment of need, when the State of Israel needs more than ever a show of Jewish solidarity, this movement rises up and decides to cancel its trips to Israel."

The American Reform movement decision also left Israel's tiny, homegrown Progressive (Reform) Movement in a corner, as local officials sought to distance themselves from the moves of their American affiliate.

"We are very angry at the decision. We denounce it completely," said Rabbi David Ariel-Joel, director general of the Progressive Movement in Israel. "It has created a lot of image problems for us and lowered the morale of the communities here."

But Reform movement leaders here said their group unfairly caught the flak for what was in fact a broader trend of cancellations.

This summer's scheduled Maccabiah Games, an international gathering of Jewish sportsmen and women, also is likely to be postponed for a year following widespread cancellations by young athletes.

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