Israeli immigrants ‘vital to US Jewry’
THE FLOW of Israeli immigrants to the United States is “saving American Jewry from committing identity suicide,” says UCLA Professor Judea Pearl.
Expanding on his statement, Prof Pearl, recognized as a leading innovator in computer science and artificial intelligence, added that without such inflow, American Jewry would lose its Jewish identity within two generations.
He estimated the total of such immigrants as between 400,000 to 500,00, although most demographic studies skew toward a much lower number.
To buttress his prediction, Prof Pearl cited the cultural impact of America’s Israeli community as organic carriers of biblical stories, Jewish history and he saga of Israel’s modern rebirth.
He also noted that in American Jewish households, the names of Jewish heroes tend to be those of former Israeli prime insisters David Ben-Gurion, Gold Meir and Yitzhak Rabin, and that without the Israeli communities in New York, Los Angeles and other major cities, the process of assimilation by American Jews would be greatly accelerated.
Pearl, a native of Israel himself, volunteered his evaluations in a wideranging interview, following his selection by the Carnegie Corporation of New York as one of America’s “Great Immigrants.”
The Carnegie announcement cited Pearl’s “transformative contribution to artificial intelligence, human reasoning and the philosophy of science.”
Among other honors, Pearl received the A.M. Turing Award in 2011, dubbed the Nobel Prize in computing,
The list of noted immigrants and their contributions to American life and democracy has been compiled since 2006, drawing its inspiration from Scottish immigrant Andrew Carnegie, who established the charitable foundation bearing his name in 1911 to do “real and permanent good in this world.”
This year’s list highlights the work of millions of immigrants in the global health crisis as COVID-19 responders, noted Celeste Ford, director of external relations at the Carnegie Corp. “A third of the honorees are helping the recovery by serving as nurses and doctors, as well as scientists who are striving to find effective treatments and vaccines,” she said.
Another Jewish immigrant known for his off-beat innovations also made the list. Art Spiegelman, author of the graphic novel “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale.” He was born Avraham Ben Zeev in Stockholm, the son of Polish Jewish Holocaust survivors, whose experiences Spiegelman interpreted by casting the
Jews as mice and the Germans as cats.
When Pearl is not deep into his research, or explaining it — most recently in The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect, he is working with his wife Ruth and their two daughters at the Daniel Pearl Foundation, named after the couple’s son who was kidnapped and executed in Pakistan by Islamist terrorists in 2002, while reporting for the Wall Street Journal. Rather than sinking into lifelong embitterment or swearing revenge, the Pearls decided to channel the legacy of their son into a global organization to perpetuate Daniel’s ideals of free journalism, love of music and dialogue between East and West.
As his added chosen assignment, Prof Pearl is a vocal defender of Israel and Zionism at UCLA and among academicians in general.
He frequently admonishes the UCLA administration for what he considers its failure to define and defend Israeli students as a distinct ethnic group when attacked by slurs or racist labels — as would be the case if the targets were African-Americans or Mexican-Americans.In one struggle, Pearl failed to persuade UCLA to condemn a guest lecturer from another university who labeled Zionists as “white supremacists.”
Pearl summarized his credo last year at a special graduation ceremony for Jewish students at UCLA. “We should not beg for safe space (on campus) but create one, through self-assertiveness and self-awareness of our just cause,” he said. “He who does not defend his identity from slander cannot expect to be respected. Remember that, to an outside observer, silence is interpreted as an admission of guilt.
“The term ‘antisemitism’ connotes submissive begging for protection and should be replaced by a fighting word ‘Zionophobia’ — the irrational fear of a homeland for the Jewish people.
It rhymes with Islamophobia, on purpose of course. When you call someone a ‘Zionophobe,’ it means: If you deny my people’s right to a homeland, something is wrong with YOU, not ME.”