Abstract
This paper presents qualitative research in the form of interviews with American immigrants to Israel who identify as Religious Zionists. The paper will attempt to elucidate their opinions about how they connect to both Israel and the United States. Broadly, this study will help to explain the ideas of “Jewishness in contemporary America and Americaness in contemporary Israel.” Through an examination of the interviewees’ religious, cultural, social, and psychological views towards America and American Jewry— the latter being a subject within the study of American immigrants to Israel that has been given scarce attention— it will be argued that their views are mixed, and interestingly, at times contradictory, a conclusion similar in manner to Charles Liebman’s renowned The Ambivalent American Jew, in which he argued that American Jewry did not develop in a linear fashion of merely attaching Judaism to their American environment, but rather that American Jewry developed in a complicated—and often contradictory— manner. The substantive findings in this paper argue that the interviewees view American society and culture favorably, while viewing American Jewry more negatively; however, this seemingly simplistic argument will be further scrutinized to show its complicated nature and nuance. Furthermore, the paper will analyze the ambivalences found within the opinions of the interviewees, which help shed light on major issues within American Modern Orthodoxy, the American community that most closely aligns itself with Religious Zionism, and issues within Religious Zionism.