Misgav mayor visits Pittsburgh, envisions stronger partnership
'It can be done in all kinds of ways, but it can't be done quickly...It has to be tended and developed. It has to be watered'
Danny Ivri wants to understand Pittsburgh and its Jewish residents. That quest led the New York-born Israeli, who serves as mayor of Misgav Regional Council, on a self-described “discovery tour.”
“This is a scouting trip to see who, how and when to connect to who, how and when, on either side,” he told the Chronicle on Thursday.
For years, the Galileen-based politician has been linked to western Pennsylvania.
As part of Parthership2Gether, a Jewish Agency for Israel program designed to foster connections among global Jewish communities, Misgav is Pittsburgh’s sister region (the partnership also includes Karmiel, a city in northern Israel, and Warsaw, Poland).
Despite the decades-long connection, Ivri had never before been to Pittsburgh. The elected official said he’d heard much about the city and the experiences of its Jewish residents from Israelis who traveled here and from Pittsburghers who visited Karmiel and Misgav.
But edification requires deeper engagement, he said, including learning what the Jews in Israel and the Jews in the Diaspora can do for each other.
Ivri, 68, spent the first 14 years of his life in Manhattan before moving to Israel with his parents.
While only in Pittsburgh for two days at the time he spoke with the Chronicle, he already had observed some changes in Jewish perspectives.
When people made aliyah in the early 1970s, the “existential threat was palpable,” and Israel, for so many people, was “some sort of dream,” Ivri said. “That’s what people thought. Maybe it was a non-realistic dream, but that’s what it was, a dream. And the process of becoming a state like everybody else, a state that has power, a perceived threat, a question of whether Israel is worthy of support because of things that it does — not things that are done to it — that’s a whole different reality.”
Ivri spoke of his children and grandchildren, and said he understands evolving attitudes toward U.S.-Israel relations.
“In my generation, the issue of involvement with Israel and the issue of involvement with Judaism and the Jewish community was identical,” he said. “Engagement with Israel was part of engagement with Jewishness.”
Over the years, however, the character of association changed.
“Identification with the state of Israel has become a question of identification with the narrative of the state of Israel — the narrative of whether we are oppressed or oppressors, whether we are indigenous or colonialists, whether we are anything, whether the Arabs and the Jews are the same race,” Ivri said.
For generations, the latter “wasn’t the question,” he continued. “The Arabs and the Jews are the same race. They always were. There were always Jews in Arab lands. They weren’t considered non-Arabs because they were Jews. The whole issue of it becoming framed in terms of the American question — of privileged and underprivileged, of racial hatred and whatever — is new.”
Both for his own descendants and the future of the Jewish people, Ivri wants to improve Israel-Diaspora Jewish relations.
It’s a task, he explained, that necessitates countering surging opinions.
On March 6, Gallup reported 46% of U.S. adults, 18 and above, express support for Israel — the lowest percentage of support in 25 years.
Similarly, 23% of those 30-49 years old told Pew Research Center last year their sympathies lie more with the Israeli people than with the Palestinian people; 17% said they had greater sympathy for Palestinians than with Israelis.
Pew also reported that 14% of those 18-29 years old said they were more sympathetic to the Israeli people; 33% said they were more sympathetic to Palestinians.
“I see that the needle has moved,” Ivri said.
That isn’t to say hope is lost, though.
“The common ground has remained, and it is important to strengthen the common ground,” he said, before referencing Partnership2Gether. “That has to be the value. What is the partnership for if not to strengthen the common ground?”
Whether through sports, culture or discussion, Ivri believes shared experiences between American and Israeli Jews will reap a better future for both.
“It can be done in all kinds of ways, but it can’t be done quickly,” he said. “It has to be tended and developed. It has to be watered.”
Ivri is spending his time in Pittsburgh listening, learning and seeking allies.
After arriving on March 25, he toured Rodef Shalom Congregation, visited the Rauh Jewish Archives & History Program at the Heinz History Center, met with leadership from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh, spoke with college students at Hillel JUC and heard from the shinshinim.
He also was slated to meet with mayoral candidate and Allegheny County Controller Corey O’Connor and visit Community Day School, the Sally and Howard Levin Clubhouse, JFCS Squirrel Hill Food Pantry and Shaare Torah Congregation, then return to Rodef Shalom for services with Tree of Life Congregation.
Conversations with Pittsburghers won’t just reveal “what the challenges are,” he said, but will allow Ivri to return to Israel with an ability to speak to colleagues in the Galilee and “somehow think of who to connect to who.”
Misgav’s population is less than 10% of Pittsburgh’s. The former’s 22,000 residents live in 35 “small communities, including six Bedouin villages,” according to the Jewish Federation.
“Most people in the Pittsburgh Jewish community have no idea how lives are lived in our diverse communities or in most of our diverse communities,” Ivri said. “Maybe they know one, but they still don’t really know what’s going on.” The reverse is also true, he continued: “Certainly in Israel, knowledge of what’s going on in Pittsburgh, the challenges of Pittsburgh and being an American Jew, very few people are familiar with.”
Ivri is eager to change the narrative and said he wants to revisit Pittsburgh in six months with representatives from Karmiel and Misgav.
“I want to choose people that I come back with that will be relevant, that have something to do with what we can give value to,” he said.
Ivri envisions coming to Pittsburgh with experts in social services and bereavement, as well as professionals who specialize in caring for older adults and outreach to the young.
His first visit to Pittsburgh was about deepening the relationship and “facing the challenges,” he said. Next time it will be about “enlarging the circles of knowledge of how people live their lives.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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