Assembling, Generally

This week, I attended the UJC General Assembly. (See program here: http://www.ujc.org/page.aspx?id=175943)
We began the week with the "NextGen" day, sponsored by the Samuel Bronfman Foundation. Festivities opened at Yad Vashem, the national Holocaust memorial museum. If this sounds weird to you, believe me, it felt weird. Speakers emphasized that this "new" generation gains knowledge and responsibility from our roots. Over 800 young people ranging from university students in Israel to teenagers on gap-years gathered to inspire an older generation. Throughout the week, young people mingled with the generation that came before us. The message seemed to be: you are the inspiration, they are the money. A day-long bus tour of Social Justice opportunties in Israel turned out to be a 10 hour Masa promotion, complete with Masa participants, and Masa funders. (Not all was lost that day; we visited an ecological farm where the farmers live in domes and work the fields, living on what they grow. I will definitely be going back to visit.)
The highlight of the week (by far) was a lecture/conversation led my Gidi Grinstein and Gadi Taub. In this session (titled "Israel Today"), we discussed zionism in the 21st century. Gidi eloquently described Zionism as a balancing act: strength comes from felixibility. He divided the Zionist agenda into three parts: national security, Jewishness of the state of Israel, and social and and economic development. Israel is, in fact, a state for all its citizens, and every day it works toward peace. (Interestingly, after this bold statement, he then drew lines. Israel, inside the '67 borders, is a Jewish democratic state. Venturing beyond those borders, one arrives in a militarily ruled area populated by disenfranchised people). Gadi discussed the wellbeing of the Jewish people, arguing that Israel is necessary to combat negativity toward nations-without-a-homeland. He stated firmly that Israel can be (and is) a democratic, Jewish state. Both discussed the role of world Jewry in the Zionist agenda, saying that our primary goal was to dismantle the double standard that torments Israel. "A vibrant diaspora is a Jewish imperitive," they said. It was refreshing to hear these words coming from Israelis. So many meetings begin with "who are you where do you live when are you making aliyah?" that a sense of guilt has begun to permeate my being. At this point in my life, I don't want to make aliyah, I value the diaspora, and I have found such love and support in American Jewish communities that I feel that moving to Israel would be a vote of no confidence.
Every day, I interact with a wide range of people. I go from volunteering at a school for Jews and Arabs, to a yeshiva full of Americans, to an afterschool program for 11 year old Israelis. Every transition between worlds catches me off guard. I am constantly reminded of my comfort zones, my age, my gender, my nationality, my native language, my religion, and my desire to find a purpose and unified goal.