Hagai Segal, a veteran journalist and former editor of Makor Rishon, recently ignited a firestorm with a sharply worded critique of American Jewry. In an article published in that very newspaper, he addressed them in stark terms:\n<\/p>\n
\u201cDear brothers, you are traitors. You are betraying us, and you are betraying yourselves. When you pray three times a day, \u2018Sound the great shofar for our freedom and raise a banner to gather our exiles,\u2019 you do not truly mean it\u2014for the shofar has already sounded, and there is no longer any technical or political obstacle to the ingathering of our exiles\u2014only a selfish obstacle on your part.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Segal\u2019s argument is clear: American Jews have been praying daily for the ingathering of the exiles, and with the establishment of the State of Israel their prayers have been answered, the shofar has sounded, and God is now waiting for them to come home. If, nevertheless, they remain in America it can only be a function of selfishness. Were American Jews to make Aliyah en masse, they could help address Israel\u2019s demographic challenges and contribute to its security. Their failure to do so, he contends, constitutes an act of betrayal\u2014of Israel, and of themselves.\n<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, this critique provoked a wide range of responses\u2014many of them forceful and indignant. I would like to offer a more measured rejoinder.\n<\/p>\n
Before evaluating the charge, we must first clarify its target. Segal addresses \u201cAmerican Jewry\u201d as a whole, yet his argument rests on a specific premise: that American Jews pray regularly for the ingathering of the exiles, and do so insincerely.\n<\/p>\n
But this premise is deeply flawed. According to a 2025 Pew Research Center study, only about 22% of American Jews report praying on a daily basis. Of those, not all adhere to the traditional liturgy that includes petitions for the ingathering of the exiles. In effect, Segal\u2019s accusation applies\u2014at most\u2014to a small minority.\n<\/p>\n
Even within that minority, the picture is more complex. Many of those who do recite these prayers belong to the ultra-Orthodox community. Yet for them, the ingathering of the exiles is not understood as a human-driven return to a modern, secular state, but as a miraculous, divinely orchestrated event in the messianic future. To include them in the charge of betrayal is therefore to fundamentally misunderstand their theology.\n<\/p>\n
Thus, if there is any group to whom Segal\u2019s critique might plausibly apply, it is exceedingly narrow: those who (1) pray regularly, (2) recite the prayers found in the traditional liturgy, (3) view the State of Israel as a fulfillment\u2014at least in part\u2014of those prayers, and yet (4) choose not to make Aliyah.\n<\/p>\n
But even within this limited group, the question remains: is \u201cbetrayal\u201d the right word?\n<\/p>\n
On one level, there is a serious dissonance that is difficult to ignore. If one sincerely believes that the establishment of the State of Israel represents a divine response to centuries of prayer and longing, that the State is \u201cthe first flowering of the redemption\u201d, and that God is \u201cknocking on the door\u201d and waiting for the return of His people, then a refusal to make Aliyah sounds hypocritical.\n<\/p>\n
But \u201cbetrayal\u201d is a far more serious accusation. It implies not only inconsistency, but awareness and willful defiance\u2014a conscious turning away from one\u2019s obligations despite full understanding of their meaning.\n<\/p>\n
And this, I believe, is precisely where Segal\u2019s argument falters.\n<\/p>\n
The issue, in my view, is not deliberate rejection, but widespread misunderstanding\u2014specifically, a failure to grasp the centrality of the Land of Israel within the Torah and Jewish tradition itself.\n<\/p>\n
Consider, for example, a mitzvah from this week\u2019s parashah, Emor: Sefirat HaOmer, the counting of the Omer.\n<\/p>\n
From the second night of Passover, we count each day for a period of seven weeks \u201cuntil the day after the seventh week\u2014fifty days\u201d (Leviticus 23:16). The commonly taught explanation is that this counting links Passover\u2014the festival of freedom\u2014to Shavuot\u2014the festival of the giving of the Torah, thus symbolizing the journey from physical to spiritual redemption.\n<\/p>\n
It is a beautiful idea but it is not the biblical one.\n<\/p>\n
In the Torah itself, the counting of the Omer has nothing to do with Passover and the Exodus, or Shavuot and the giving of the Torah. It is rooted instead in the agricultural cycle of the Land of Israel. Barley ripens at the beginning of the spring, wheat at its end. The Torah mandates the bringing of an omer\u2014a sheaf of barley\u2014as an offering, after which new grain may be consumed, followed fifty days later by a second offering of newly harvested wheat, presented as bikkurim, the first fruits.\n<\/p>\n
Why count the days between them? The text does not say explicitly. But given the volatility of the season\u2014the sudden heatwaves and harsh winds that can devastate a crop\u2014it is reasonable to see the counting as an expression of anxious anticipation: a ritual acknowledgment of human vulnerability and dependence on divine providence. (The Arabic term for a heatwave is hamsin, meaning \u201cfifty,\u201d and evokes precisely these seasonal winds.)\n<\/p>\n
So how did Sefirat HaOmer come to symbolize the journey from the Exodus to Sinai?\n<\/p>\n
The answer lies in the transformation of Judaism after the destruction of the Temple. Once the sacrificial system ceased, the original agricultural context of the mitzvah could no longer be enacted. Rather than abandon the practice, the rabbis reinterpreted it\u2014recasting the counting as a spiritual progression from liberation to covenant.\n<\/p>\n
This reinterpretation is part of a broader historical process. What had once been a land-based religion, or as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put it, \u201cJudaism is the constitution of a self-governing nation\u201d (Future Tense, p. 136), eventually became a faith-based religion that could be practiced anywhere in the diaspora.\n<\/p>\n
Although, throughout this time, the Jews never abandoned their hope for the eventual return to the Land and for the rebuilding of the Temple, these were largely expressed as messianic hopes and prayers but, for the most part, did not have a direct impact upon daily Jewish life. Thus, for close to two thousand years Judaism was largely a diaspora religion.\n<\/p>\n
The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, however, marked not merely a dramatic turning point in Jewish history, but a cataclysmic transformation in the nature and essence of Judaism itself.\n<\/p>\n
Instead of living as a faith community in the diaspora, for the first time in millennia the Jewish people became a sovereign nation in their ancestral homeland, precisely the framework envisioned by the Torah.\n<\/p>\n
This development invites\u2014indeed, demands\u2014a re-reading of the Torah and much of the Bible for what it really is, a rich and vivid description of the complex relationship between God, the people, and the Land.\n<\/p>\n
It also means reclaiming many of the laws that are part of the \u201cconstitution of a self-governing nation\u201d in the Land, such as the laws of government, warfare, social justice, international relations and the Land\u2019s produce and agricultural cycle. It also forces us to address the challenge of reconciling ancient ideals with modern realities.\n<\/p>\n
The core issue, then, is not that American Jews are consciously betraying Israel. It is that many have not yet fully internalized the magnitude of this transformation. They continue to live within a diasporic religious framework, even as Jewish history and Judaism have entered a fundamentally new phase.\n<\/p>\n
If that is the case, then the solution is not denunciation, but education. What is needed is a re-centering of Jewish education around:\n<\/p>\n
The centrality of the Land of Israel in Tanakh
\nThe understanding of Torah as the blueprint for the life of a sovereign nation
\nThe integration of Aliyah as a lived religious ideal<\/p>\n
This requires:\n<\/p>\n
Schools that place Israel and Aliyah at the heart of their educational vision
\nCurricula that present Zionism not merely as a modern movement, but as a central biblical value
\nTeachers and rabbis who teach the commitment to Israel and Aliyah and then embody these values in their own lives<\/p>\n
Finally, this requires the recognition that the daily prayers for the ingathering of the exiles are not poetic relics. They are not symbolic gestures.\n<\/p>\n
Rather, they are a call.\n<\/p>\n
A call to remember that Jewish history has entered a new chapter.
A call to recognize that what was once a dream is now a reality.
And perhaps, above all, a call to begin imagining\u2014not how Jews can continue living in the diaspora, but how they might one day soon return home.\n<\/p>\n
\u2013\n<\/p>\n
For an abridged video version of these parasha thoughts:\u00a0https:\/\/youtu.be\/tVtQ8zOlFkc<\/a>\n<\/p>\n