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For all these reasons—emotional attachment to Israel, resentment of the more extreme denunciations of it, fear of encouraging anti-Semitism—the tradition that American Jews must stifle their disagreements with Israeli leaders, although waning, is still strong. Jewish criticism of Israel, says Chicago Rabbi Robert Marx, "touches on the deepest Jewish fear, the fear that the world still does not recognize the legitimacy of Israel." Marx experienced the depth of that fear in June, at the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in New York City, after he introduced a resolution criticizing the Israeli bombing of West Beirut. When he returned to his temple, he reports, "I was assailed. I was stunned. They said, 'You have no right to put this debate in the public eye. This is something that must remain in the household.'"
Nonetheless, the debate has been heard and noted outside the household, and it seems likely to grow. Now that some Jewish leaders have brought themselves to question Israeli policy in public, says former Secretary of Commerce Philip Klutznick, "they may get into the habit of continuing." Jews in the U.S., as everywhere else, have long and rightly prided themselves on their tradition of spirited discussion on almost any imaginable topic; it never made much sense to stifle debate on the one subject closest to many of their hearts.
— By George J. Church. Reported by Ken Banta/ Chicago and Peter Stoler/New York with other bureaus