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Friday June 15, 2007

Give and take: Israelis study

by dan pine
staff writer

Israel in the Gardens was a happy event for thousands of Jews. But not for all.

Among those attending the June 3 celebration was Hadas Ragolsky, a Tel Aviv journalist and TV producer. When she joined the throng in Yerba Buena Gardens and noticed how many Israelis actually live in the Bay Area, her heart sank.

“You see thousands of Israelis, high quality people you would love to have in your business, love to see at your university, the best people Israel can provide — and they’re all becoming U.S. citizens,” she says. “They’re just quitting.”

Ragolsky says she’s no quitter.

She’s now back in Israel, along with 14 colleagues from Gvanim, an ongoing exchange program of the S.F.-based Jewish Community Federation. Named for the Hebrew term meaning “hues,” Gvanim promotes religious pluralism by bringing groups of Israeli professionals to America to witness it in action.

After stops in New York and New Jersey, Ragolsky and the Gvanim cohorts came to the Bay Area to wrap up a 10-day tour. They had a busy itinerary, visiting Brandeis Hillel and South Peninsula Jewish Day Schools, Congregation Beth Am in Los Altos Hills and the Delancey Street Foundation.

Ragolsky, along with Gvanim colleagues, media professionals Baruch Kra and Itay Ben Horin, also paid a visit to the offices of j. to learn more about the Jewish press in America. They met with j. staffers and, via speakerphone, Lee Green from CAMERA, a pro-Israel media watchdog organization.

Ragolsky said that as pro-Israel as the Jewish community here seems to be, American Jews don’t fully comprehend Israel as it really is.

“They think it’s either about war, or that they’re really poor,” she said in the meeting. “[The media] doesn’t show the exciting, vibrant life we have there. Someone comes to Tel Aviv for the first time and they’re shocked. It’s alive. People are going out.”

Kra asked Green whether “the world is fed up with Israelis being victims, fed up hearing about the problems” of the Israelis.

Green responded by excoriating the Western press which, she claims, is too quick to pick up on bogus stories “like the New York Times story that Israelis arrested a young [Palestinian] boy carrying a slice of watermelon because it represented the colors of the Palestinian flag.”

Ragolsky weighed in on the topic of victimhood, describing the devastation her family experienced when her brother’s girlfriend died in a 2003 Kassam rocket attack.

“I don’t want to go on a tour and tell my story,” she said. “Maybe we’re more decent about dignity and the way we preserve our lives. My family still believes in peace.”

Once her Gvanim experience ended, Ragolsky reflected on its impact.

“Having suffered in my personal life, I was looking for answers, so I launched my own personal journey,” she said. “This was part of it. I was asking myself hard questions regarding my Judaism. I did find some answers.”

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