Two Degrees of Separation

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Despite a strong connection between Diaspora Jewry and Israel, only 35% of American Jews have actually ever visited Israel.

That statistic intrigues Jewish Federation of Greater Houston President Lee Wunsch and Beth Yeshurun Senior Rabbi David Rosen. Between the two, they have made more than 80 trips to Israel. Rabbi Rosen first visited in 1970 when he was a sophomore at UT Austin. Wunsch first came as the leader of a youth group in 1974 right after college graduation.

So it was no surprise to run into these two Houstonians in Jerusalem when I visited Israel last week.

The best of friends since college, Wunsch often comes to Israel on Federation-related trips. And Rabbi Rosen usually visits leading synagogue missions. The two came together with their spouses for a real vacation in July 2006. On the second night of their vacation, the Lebanese War broke out.

“Overnight the city emptied of all tourists,” recalled Rabbi Rosen. “There was Lee and me and our families. The hotel was empty. Then the hotel started filling up with Israelis from the north who were escaping from the war.”

A trip to Israel is more than a visit to a vacation resort. Israel is the stuff of powerful stories and images: stories about our past and about how we define ourselves within—and sometimes against—the rest of the world.

“I get excited about every trip to Israel,” said Wunsch. “It’s a place where I feel like I’m home. Over the years I have made many friends who I see here because they don’t come to the states.

“I remember when we took my son Eric for the first time. He was nine or ten at the time. Each day, we kept running into people I knew. For him, in this foreign country on his first visit, Eric was astonished that his father kept running into mutual acquaintances. This made an impression on him because, a few years later in his bar mitzvah speech, Eric told his audience, ‘My father knows every Jew in the world’.”

“Jewish geography” is one factor that makes a visit to Israel different than, for example, a trip to Italy. Jewish geography is the social custom whereby Jewish “strangers” will ask where the other Jew comes from and then instantly establish a connection by dint of knowing a mutual acquaintance in that location. If the idea that all of humankind is linked by six degrees of separation, then surely Jewish geography illustrates the Jewish community is linked by two degrees of separation.

And visiting Israel--unlike being a tourist in any other foreign country—means you are always running into someone you know or who is two degrees removed from someone you know. As if on cue, Wunsch and I are talking in the lobby of Jerusalem’s Inbal Hotel, waiting for Rabbi David Rosen. Wunsch runs into two people he knows passing through the hotel lobby. Each acquaintance stops for a brief conversation.

Then why is it 65% of American Jews have never visited Israel once?

“There’s always been an underlying fear in people’s minds,” Rabbi Rosen answered when the question was put to him. “I’ve lost track of the people who have told me: I’ll go when things settle down. Sixty-two years later, they are still waiting.

“I tell them that in Israel, there is a different kind of normal. There are moments of heightened tension. But for the most part, the great surprise is how safe it actually is once you arrive and see for yourself. It’s safer than walking in the streets of some parts of Houston.”

If one of the goals of terrorism is to create a fortress mentality in a society, then a casual visit to any Jerusalem neighborhood as the sun sets will dispel that notion. The streets are packed with groups of children, mothers pushing baby carriages, knots of teenagers sitting in outdoor cafes sharing a soda, and black-hatted men engaged in animated conversation.

“The security dynamic is exactly the opposite in the U.S. and Israel,” said Rabbi Rosen. “In the U.S., we never wake up truly worrying about our long-term survival or being threatened externally. We go about our daily business with a sense of serenity and security.

“We do worry about our personal safety. We are scared to death to leave our books unlocked, to walk the streets after dark. And no woman in her right mind would push a stroller down a Houston street at night.

“In Israel, it’s just the opposite. Every day they worry about external threats but feel intensely secure within Israel itself. So when people tell me they are afraid to come to Israel, I tell them they will feel safer than they do at home.”

Perhaps one reason why the majority of American Jews have never visited Israel is that Americans tend to travel for vacation, not culture. Travel abroad requires effort. And it requires a passport. Statistically, only 25% of Americans even have valid passports.

You go to Disneyland as a tourist. You come to Israel as a Jew.

“When you come here and go to the Kotel or Ir David (the City of David), that’s part of your identity as a Jew,” said Wunsch.

“That’s exactly right,” Rabbi Rosen chipped in. “When I travel to other countries, I enjoy earning about their history. But it’s not mine. When I come here, I’m caught up in my history and the history of my people. And that touches one much more deeply.”

Rabbi Rosen, who often leads congregational trips to Israel, has discovered something of a paradox as to why some members of his congregation are reticent to visit Israel: they fear a trip to Israel may be too intensely Jewish.

One iconic image of Israel is the supposed spiritual elevation one feels praying at the Kotel. What happens when one reaches the apex of spiritual intensity and there’s no personal spiritual transformation?

“It’s about expectations,” said Wunsch. “I’ve seen people leave the Kotel moved to tears. Others walk away unmoved. Those who were unmoved were angry with themselves for not having the same reactions as their friends.”

Said Rabbi Rosen: “Something I started doing years ago because of that is I give my congregants a prayer when they go to the Wall. That prayer begins: I don’t know what to say. I think that prayer allows one to feel whatever his emotions are the feelings are valid.

“Everything we do here has the potential to trigger a powerful emotion.”

For Wunsch, one of his most powerful Israel experiences was finding the graves of his great-grandparents.

“About seven years ago I was on a trip here,” said Wunsch. “ I met with some cousins who started pulling out family photographs. They told me about my great-grandparents who had come from Europe to America and then in the 1930’s, came to Palestine in the fifth decade of their lives. They are buried on the Mount of Olives. My cousin took me up to see their graves. He knew exactly where the graves were. You have to know because otherwise you could wander around the graves for months without finding the right spot. So my strong connection to Israel is in the DNA.

“Another story: I was flying here on another visit and was sitting next to this woman on the plane over here. We get into a conversation and it turns out her brother was killed in a terrorist attack two days prior. Her parents were also severely injured and so she’s flying to Israel to see them. We land at Ben Gurion Airport and she says to me: I’d love for you to come and visit my parents. They are at Hadassah Hospital.

“So I did. It’s one of those experiences you don’t forget. It’s one of those intensely personal experiences that you seem to have every time you visit Israel.”

For Rabbi Rosen, one of his most powerful Israeli experiences occurred in 1996 when he came to spend the summer in Israel.

“We rented a car and drove north,” said Rabbi Rosen. “”In all of our other tours, we always rushed through the rest of the country so we could get to Jerusalem. And for the first time, I discovered it’s not just Jerusalem that it holy. It’s the whole country.


“My son Dov, who was and remains very religious, insisted we use this book with a title like ‘Guide to Israel for the Religiously Observant’. We must have pulled off the road every hundred yards to see where some rabbi lived or died or where some Biblical scene unfolded, great or small. The journey filled me with an awareness: as powerful as Jerusalem is, the whole land is my people’s story—and my own.



“My son Dov, who was and remains very religious, insisted we use a book, this Guide To Israel For the Religiously Observant. We must have pulled off the road every hundred yards to see where some rabbi lived or died, or where some Biblical scene, great or small, unfolded. The experience filled me with an awareness: as powerful as Jerusalem is, the whole land is part of my people’s story—and my own.”

Travel--like many activities in our lives—has become a major industrial enterprise. This enterprise often requires the provision of attractions, which may be built for that purpose (Disneyland) or may be part of a nation’s cultural heritage (the Louvre in Paris).

In contrast, travel to Israel, as Wunsch and Rabbi Rosen point out, is often about the relationships one develops with Israelis. It is these relationships that change your understanding of what the Jewish state is—and what your relationship is to the entire endeavor.

“Here, you make a connection with people in a much different way than you do with a shop keeper or a waiter in Paris,” said Wunsch. “You find that you have a common destiny with the people here, whatever your politics are.”

Jewish Houston