MASA-Fishing in Lost Jews?

MASA (Hebrew for journey) states on its site that:

MASA enables thousands of Jewish youth to spend a semester or a year in Israel in any of over 160 programs, helping them build a life-long relationship with Israel and a firm commitment to Jewish life.

Benjamin L. Hartman of Haaretz writes a critical article of the MASA initiative for Jews in the diaspora to “inform” on Jews who are “in the process” of intermarriage! Checking around the internet newsstand I find the most vocal voice of the Diaspora-right-to exist, Richard “Dungeon Master” Silverstein:

The 50% statistic consists of a specious supposition that every Jew who marries “out” is totally lost to Judaism. We know that this is completely wrong since some who intermarry either remain Jewish, persuade a spouse to convert, or raise their children Jewish.

Now listening to Rich whimper and squirm around this issue, we know that MASA has hit on a nerve. The Haaretz article itself describes a YouTube video of the campaign:

In the video’s base appraisal of Jewish life outside Israel, the Diaspora is seen as a seductive garden of goyish delights that breeds absolute dissonance from Judaism, leaving once-proud, self-identified Jews little more than the hopelessly lost children smiling back from the iconic milk cartons of America.

Yep-the truth hurts, eh? It’s not necessary to read MASA’s *hasbara-the critics have stated the MASA case better than the organization itself! The author continues:

…the brains behind the video have never been to Hebrew school or a Jewish youth organization meeting in the United States.

I began studying Hebrew at a Conservative congregation that met in a public library, before their building was built. None of them really knew Hebrew or Judaism-with many being over 50 at that time. I went to Hillel where the leader-a Reform “Rabbi” didn’t keep Shabbat-and needless to say that almost all of the students there didn’t either. The author, like Silverstein try to defend the secular Jewish idea, and moreover-they truly believe that secularism is a real competitor to Torah Judaism.
Hartman, however makes a strange contradiction when he states:

As a child of a mixed-marriage myself,…

and then

Keep in mind, my mother converted.

If his mother converted, then how is that a mixed-marriage? It appears that the ignorance is at Hartman’s doorstep, not MASA’s. I was happy to find that Hartman made the following assertion, however:

In this perspective, Israel is the possessor and only true adjudicator of the religion, the owner and true realization of a Jewish life lived.

I have run into several Jews, even immigrants from the Diaspora (one from South African in particular) who deeply resent Israel as coming to impugn the legitimacy of their Diaspora Jewish identities. The young South African I met, a violinist, refused to acknowledge Israel’s position as the center for the world’s Torah study. It bothered him on a fundamental level to hear that Israel’s Torah community and learning are simply stronger, as a whole, than that of the Diaspora.
As the world approaches a new year, it is only fitting that we take a real accounting of the soul (חשבון נפש) and see ourselves for what we really are…and what we aspire to be.

שנה טובה
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*Hasbara הסברה comes from the verb to explain-l-hasbir. It means “one-sided propaganda” in favor of the subject-like a defense attorney. Specifically it refers to the Israel government and its agencies’ attempt to defend their positions to the world.