J o u r n a l of Religion and Health, Vol. 24, No. 4, Winter 1985
The Escape-to-Israel Syndrome: Variations on the Geographic Cure E R I C MOSS A B S T R A C T : The author conceptualizes a p a t t e r n of t h o u g h t and behavior t h a t can be called the escape-to-Israel syndrome. This p a t t e r n is a contemporary variety, appearing primarily in the Jewish population, of the "geographic cure": t h a t is, one can solve one's personal dilemmas by moving from one place to another. The syndrome is characterized by a tendency to idealize life in Israel. This idealization, and the viewers' fantasy of their own future in Israel, deflect solid confrontation with genuine personal problems. If, in fact, they do move to Israel, they may experience shock a n d t r a u m a at the gap between expected reality and the discovered one. This may only compound their emotional difficulties.
Mental health professionals serving a Jewish population often encounter Jewish patients or clients who see going to Israel as the solution to their problems. The author has encountered this phenomenon often enough to wonder about the existence of an escape-to-Israel syndrome. His impression that there is such a syndrome has been strengthened through systematic talks with patients, mental health workers, immigration officials, and Zionist leaders. 1 The syndrome presents problems for a number of groups of people: 1.
2.
The p a t i e n t s or clients: They develop an unrealistic notion of the life waiting in Israel. Out of personal frustration, they imagine Israel a land of milk and honey. In their eagerness to get there, they avoid concentrating on present personal problems. If they do get to Israel, confrontation with day-to-day reality may overwhelm them. Their sense of frustration is heightened when they find themselves facing the same personal problems they thought they had left behind. The m e n t a l health workers: Mental health workers in the Diaspora (nonIsraeli) setting find that such patients present them with a Jewish version of a universal dilemma. Will a change of scene (the geographic cure) help a person solve his or her personal difficulties, or will it merely give a false sense of improvement that quickly dissipates? The worker not familiar with Israel may get caught up in the client's unrealistic enthusiasm and stereotyped view of Israel and actually endorse a geographic cure. In doing so, the worker colludes with the client to
Eric Moss, Ph.D., is the Rehabilitation Psychologist a t Shalvata Mental Health Center of Kupat Holim in Hod HaSharon, Israel, which is affiliated with the Sackler School of Medicine at the Haifa University, Israel. The author wishes to express his gratitude to Professor Shamai Davidson, Clinical Director of the Shalvata Mental Health Center, Hod HaSharon, Israel, for his critical comments during the preparation of this article. 294
9 1985Institutes of Religionand Health
Eric M o s s
295
achieve a short-range solution to the latter's problem (and the worker's own, if treatment has not been going well}. But this may contribute to severe difficulties later on. . Z i o n i s t m o v e m e n t a n d I s r a e l i g o v e r n m e n t officials: Zionist movement and Israeli government officials are eager to attract Jews to Israel. Their eagerness is expressed in ideology which is both politically and culturally nationalistic. They are seeking Jews who enthusiastically endorse life in Israel. How do these officials, who do not usually have a professional psychiatric background, distinguish between a healthy interest in coming to Israel and an unhealthy one? 2 In the habit of supporting nearly anyone wanting to come to Israel, how do they deal with someone they think is emotionally not suitable for the move? . P a r e n t s : Jewish parents m a y find their adolescent youngster expressing an interest in going to Israel, either alone or with one of the many programs that exist for such youngsters. If their youngster has had more than the normal amount of emotional difficulties for his or her age, they find themselves in a dilemma. Will Israel, with its promise of cultural enrichment and national purpose, stimulate their child in a positive way that fosters healthy development? Or will their youngster, away from home in a strange and difficult environment, sink into deeper emotional trauma? To understand the dynamics of the escape-to-Israel syndrome, it is helpful to look at the way it operated in two troubled people.
Joan
Joan was a 25-year-old, single Jewish female. The author met her in a ward of a private psychiatric hospital in New York City, where he was employed as a rehabilitation counselor. She had been hospitalized after a severe anxiety attack, which had been precipitated by a weekend of heavy marijuana smoking. In the course of therapy, he and Joan began to formulate post-hospital plans. One day, to the therapist's surprise, Joan expressed a strong, rigid desire to go to Israel and live on a kibbutz. Joan was from a secular Jewish family, in which J u d a i s m had not played an important part. She had always been a bright girl. Her parents had imparted to her a belief in the importance of academic performance. A loner, she put all her energies into school work. She had few friends while growing up and rarely dated in high school. Her parents did little to foster her sense of autonomy and independence. Their parenting style was one of overprotectiveness, and emphasis was on the dangers of the world outside the family circle. The first signs of trouble showed in college. Unable to establish social relationships and without customary parental support, Joan became depressed and anxious. She dropped out of school and returned to her parents' home. There she went into private therapy and, with her therapist's support,
296
Journal of Religion and Health
enrolled in a local college. However, here, too, she made no friends and did not date. Her studies began to lose meaning for her. In an impulsive move toward independence, she suddenly took some savings and went to California, where she had some acquaintances from her first college experience. She again enrolled in a local college. This time, in an effort to make social relationships, she entered a student fringe group. She spent little time in classes and much time smoking marijuana. After a weekend of heavy marijuana smoking, she had a severe anxiety attack. A friend flew her back to her parents' home in New York, where she was hospitalized. During her hospitalization, she began talking of going to Israel and living on a kibbutz. A fellow patient who had been to Israel had suggested it. Never much interested in her Jewishness, Joan suddenly grasped at the idea like a drowning person at a straw. In the communal society of an Israeli kibbutz, she reasoned, she would find the social relationships she had always lacked. In a rural, agrarian atmosphere, where anti-urban values are encouraged, she would be appreciated for reasons other than the academic ability she by now knew she had used as a defense. For several weeks, she clung rigidly to her new dream and responded angrily to her therapist when he tried to talk her out of her plan. However, the members of her therapy group were also clearly skeptical. The very same patient who made the original suggestion about going to Israel insistently pointed out her idealization of kibbutz life. They eventually wore down her resistance and helped her to see that she was only trying to run away from herself. She was choosing the geographic cure! While painful, her realization permitted her and her therapist to begin making more realistic rehabilitation plans. Joan eventually entered a six-month legal aide training program, which she successfully completed. She is currently working in a law firm in the same city as her parents. However, she is living with a roommate in their own apartment, and she only sees her parents once a week. Still in psychiatric treatment, she has, through her own steady plodding to develop a vocational skill, achieved a sense of genuine satisfaction and ability to live independently.
Lisa
Lisa is a 32-year-old single woman from a lower middle-class Jewish family. Both parents immigrated to New York City from Poland when they were teenagers. Over the years they built up a family business which today provides a satisfactory income. Both parents completed only elementary school. While Lisa was growing up, her parents' interest, it seemed to her, centered more in the business than on her. If they showed any warmth and love, she felt, it was toward her younger sister. For Lisa there was only criticism and ridicule. Her parents led her to believe that the only decent future for a woman was to marry and become a mother. Yet they communicated to Lisa a basic lack of confidence in her ability to do so. Lisa incorporated this into a harsh negative
Eric M o s s
297
self-image, and hesitated to enter relationships with men for fear of having to face herself. In college, Lisa had her first psychotic break. She felt that members of the college faculty were spreading false rumors that she was promiscuous. She had other psychotic fantasies of a sexual nature. At this time she began what would become nine years of psychiatric treatment. A woman with many strengths, Lisa managed to complete college and graduate school, despite occasional bouts of florid psychosis. Her M.A. was in social work; and on graduation, she attempted working in the field. However, because of her emotional problems, she wasn't able to handle the stressful jobs she had secured. She left one of them and was dismissed from another. A t the same time her social-sexual life was very unsatisfactory to her. She eventually returned to live with her parents and work in the family business. Lisa had always been emotionally involved with Israel and Judaism. The language spoken at home was Yiddish. In high school, she participated in a Zionist youth movement. She visited Israel several times with her parents. She attended a Jewish women's college, and spent one of her college years studying at an Israeli university. Unlike Joan, she had a thorough background in Israeli and Jewish thought. After two years of living with her parents and working in the family business, Lisa felt ready to try a step toward independence. When her parents planned a short trip to Israel together with Lisa, she decided that she would stay on and try her luck. Perhaps in Israel she could find some personal and vocational happiness. Once in Israel, she located a therapist whom she began seeing twice a week. With his support, she tried putting together the pieces of a satisfactory life. After a half-hearted attempt at locating a job in social work, she chose to take a secretarial job. She realized she just couldn't handle the stresses of a clinical social work position, in Israel or anywhere else. She went out with many men, most of whom she met through paid matchmakers. However, she went out with most of them only once or twice for reasons that were clearly related to her inner personal conflicts. The problems that disturbed her at home--lack of self-confidence, sexual fears, social loneliness, and occasional paranoia--continued to plague her in Israel. After six months, she decided to return to New York and her parents' home. There, despite all the difficulties, she had a form of love from people "who cared whether I live or die." And it was with these people, her only family, that she had to work through many of her personal problems. When she had accomplished this, if she wanted, she could return to Israel a happier, healthier, and more self-satisfied person. The above two examples of people who saw in Israel an opportunity to solve deep personal problems suggest a number of elements that make up the escape-to-Israel syndrome. .
Unrealistic idealization of Israel: One senses that, like Joan, such people have often idealized their conception of life in Israel. Their notions are based on a somewhat stereotyped image of Israel as a youthful,
298
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Journal of Religion and Health
pioneering, idealistic society. These popular images are attractive to some Jewish youngsters, whose lives are characterized by loneliness, lack of solidified identity, and personal alienation. For some, going to Israel is a more socially acceptable solution to their search for identity than, say, turning on to drugs or "dropping out." Unrealistic idealization of kibbutz life: The Israeli agricultural, communal form of living called the kibbutz is also idealized. Young American Jews, disturbed by the stress of urban life, see kibbutz living as a return to simpler, rural roots. Kibbutzniks are thought to be nonmaterialistic. The communal form of living is thought to offer a great deal of emotional support. Lack of identity and personal fulfillment: In the people described above as well as others displaying the escape-to-Israel syndrome, there has often been a failure of satisfactory identity formation in the sense described by Erikson. 3 Often the person has not found and developed a satifactory vocational direction. Or, socially, the person hasn't successfully individuated from parents or found a mate. Immersion in the Israeli experience, with its envisioned sense of purpose and rational identity, appears to provide a readymade identity for the person who hasn't yet worked out his or her own. Obvious personal problems: Some such people are experiencing obvious personal problems, easily visible to the observer--for example, money difficulties, marital stress, difficulties at work or school. Going to Israel, which is halfway round the world, offers a quick solution. History of psychiatric treatment: A history of psychiatric treatment suggests that a person has experienced impulse or adjustment difficulties in the past. While one shouldn't generalize or concede to popular negative prejudices about psychiatric problems, it is realistic to think that such a person may encounter difficulties moving to Israel. Life in Israel is objectively stressful, with economic, social, and military pressures. Moving from one place to another is always both exciting and somewhat jarring--how much more so when the move is to a place like Israel, with a different culture, language, life style, and value system. A person who has not handled stress well in the past may find him- or herself emotionally overwhelmed on packing it up in the United States and moving to Israel. No prior involvement in Israel." As we have seen, the unrealistic desire to solve personal problems by going to Israel can appear both in the person who has been highly involved with J u d a i s m and Israel (like Lisa) and the person who has had no prior involvement (like Joan). Certainly the latter type of person, because of no prior exposure, m a y be deluding him- or herself as to what awaits. And while the former type may present a superficial appreciation of the difficulties ("Oh, I'm not kidding myself. I know it's not going to be milk and honey! "), probing will quickly reveal that fantasized wishful thinking and denial play an active part in their thinking about Israel.
Eric Moss
299
Summary and conclusion T h e p u r p o s e of t h i s p a p e r h a s b e e n to s u g g e s t t h a t t h e r e e x i s t s a c e r t a i n patt e r n of t h o u g h t a n d b e h a v i o r t h a t could be called t h e e s c a p e - t o - I s r a e l syndrome. T h i s p a t t e r n is a c o n t e m p o r a r y v a r i e t y a p p e a r i n g p r i m a r i l y in the J e w i s h p o p u l a t i o n , of the " g e o g r a p h i c cure": t h a t is, one c a n solve o n e ' s personal d i l e m m a b y m o v i n g f r o m one s e t t i n g to a n o t h e r . W h i l e t h e g e o g r a p h i c cure h a s f r o m t i m e i m m e m o r i a l b e e n a n a v a i l a b l e o p t i o n to t r o u b l e d people, t h e e s c a p e - t o - I s r a e l cure h a s b e e n a v a i l a b l e o n l y since 1948, w h e n I s r a e l b e c a m e a state. T h e s y n d r o m e is c h a r a c t e r i z e d b y t h e t e n d e n c y to idealize life in I s r a e l rigidly. T h i s idealization, a n d t h e v i e w e r s ' f a n t a s y of their o w n f u t u r e e x p e r i e n c e in Israel, serve to deflect solid c o n f r o n t a t i o n w i t h g e n u i n e p e r s o n a l p r o b l e m s . If, in fact, t h e y do go to Israel, t h e y m a y e x p e r i e n c e s h o c k a n d t r a u m a a t t h e g a p b e t w e e n the e x p e c t e d r e a l i t y a n d t h e d i s c o v e r e d one. W i t h o u t familiar e n v i r o n m e n t a l s u p p o r t s , t h e y m a y find t h a t their m o v e h a s only c o m p o u n d e d their e m o t i o n a l difficulties. People who are u n c e r t a i n h o w to counsel p e r s o n s d i s p l a y i n g t h e escape-toI s r a e l s y n d r o m e m a y do well to r e m e m b e r t h e old adage: Y o u can c h a n g e y o u r position," i t ' s h a r d e r to c h a n g e y o u r disposition!
References 1. The author has worked in mental health clinics and psychiatric hospitals in New York and in Israel. 2. We can imagine that from the officials' point of view--that is, wanting as many Jews as possible to come to I srael--they might legitimately support what could be called "normal or nondestructive escapism" as a motivation for coming to Israel. An "unhealthy" escapism would be a more extreme form of this in a person who is more severely unstable. It is the person who displays this kind of motivation whom the official might consider discouraging from moving to Israel. 3. Erikson, E., Childhood and Society. New York, Norton, 1963.
The Escape-to-Israel Syndrome: Variations on the Geographic Cure E R I C MOSS A B S T R A C T : The author conceptualizes a p a t t e r n of t h o u g h t and behavior t h a t can be called the escape-to-Israel syndrome. This p a t t e r n is a contemporary variety, appearing primarily in the Jewish population, of the "geographic cure": t h a t is, one can solve one's personal dilemmas by moving from one place to another. The syndrome is characterized by a tendency to idealize life in Israel. This idealization, and the viewers' fantasy of their own future in Israel, deflect solid confrontation with genuine personal problems. If, in fact, they do move to Israel, they may experience shock a n d t r a u m a at the gap between expected reality and the discovered one. This may only compound their emotional difficulties.
Mental health professionals serving a Jewish population often encounter Jewish patients or clients who see going to Israel as the solution to their problems. The author has encountered this phenomenon often enough to wonder about the existence of an escape-to-Israel syndrome. His impression that there is such a syndrome has been strengthened through systematic talks with patients, mental health workers, immigration officials, and Zionist leaders. 1 The syndrome presents problems for a number of groups of people: 1.
2.
The p a t i e n t s or clients: They develop an unrealistic notion of the life waiting in Israel. Out of personal frustration, they imagine Israel a land of milk and honey. In their eagerness to get there, they avoid concentrating on present personal problems. If they do get to Israel, confrontation with day-to-day reality may overwhelm them. Their sense of frustration is heightened when they find themselves facing the same personal problems they thought they had left behind. The m e n t a l health workers: Mental health workers in the Diaspora (nonIsraeli) setting find that such patients present them with a Jewish version of a universal dilemma. Will a change of scene (the geographic cure) help a person solve his or her personal difficulties, or will it merely give a false sense of improvement that quickly dissipates? The worker not familiar with Israel may get caught up in the client's unrealistic enthusiasm and stereotyped view of Israel and actually endorse a geographic cure. In doing so, the worker colludes with the client to
Eric Moss, Ph.D., is the Rehabilitation Psychologist a t Shalvata Mental Health Center of Kupat Holim in Hod HaSharon, Israel, which is affiliated with the Sackler School of Medicine at the Haifa University, Israel. The author wishes to express his gratitude to Professor Shamai Davidson, Clinical Director of the Shalvata Mental Health Center, Hod HaSharon, Israel, for his critical comments during the preparation of this article. 294
9 1985Institutes of Religionand Health
Eric M o s s
295
achieve a short-range solution to the latter's problem (and the worker's own, if treatment has not been going well}. But this may contribute to severe difficulties later on. . Z i o n i s t m o v e m e n t a n d I s r a e l i g o v e r n m e n t officials: Zionist movement and Israeli government officials are eager to attract Jews to Israel. Their eagerness is expressed in ideology which is both politically and culturally nationalistic. They are seeking Jews who enthusiastically endorse life in Israel. How do these officials, who do not usually have a professional psychiatric background, distinguish between a healthy interest in coming to Israel and an unhealthy one? 2 In the habit of supporting nearly anyone wanting to come to Israel, how do they deal with someone they think is emotionally not suitable for the move? . P a r e n t s : Jewish parents m a y find their adolescent youngster expressing an interest in going to Israel, either alone or with one of the many programs that exist for such youngsters. If their youngster has had more than the normal amount of emotional difficulties for his or her age, they find themselves in a dilemma. Will Israel, with its promise of cultural enrichment and national purpose, stimulate their child in a positive way that fosters healthy development? Or will their youngster, away from home in a strange and difficult environment, sink into deeper emotional trauma? To understand the dynamics of the escape-to-Israel syndrome, it is helpful to look at the way it operated in two troubled people.
Joan
Joan was a 25-year-old, single Jewish female. The author met her in a ward of a private psychiatric hospital in New York City, where he was employed as a rehabilitation counselor. She had been hospitalized after a severe anxiety attack, which had been precipitated by a weekend of heavy marijuana smoking. In the course of therapy, he and Joan began to formulate post-hospital plans. One day, to the therapist's surprise, Joan expressed a strong, rigid desire to go to Israel and live on a kibbutz. Joan was from a secular Jewish family, in which J u d a i s m had not played an important part. She had always been a bright girl. Her parents had imparted to her a belief in the importance of academic performance. A loner, she put all her energies into school work. She had few friends while growing up and rarely dated in high school. Her parents did little to foster her sense of autonomy and independence. Their parenting style was one of overprotectiveness, and emphasis was on the dangers of the world outside the family circle. The first signs of trouble showed in college. Unable to establish social relationships and without customary parental support, Joan became depressed and anxious. She dropped out of school and returned to her parents' home. There she went into private therapy and, with her therapist's support,
296
Journal of Religion and Health
enrolled in a local college. However, here, too, she made no friends and did not date. Her studies began to lose meaning for her. In an impulsive move toward independence, she suddenly took some savings and went to California, where she had some acquaintances from her first college experience. She again enrolled in a local college. This time, in an effort to make social relationships, she entered a student fringe group. She spent little time in classes and much time smoking marijuana. After a weekend of heavy marijuana smoking, she had a severe anxiety attack. A friend flew her back to her parents' home in New York, where she was hospitalized. During her hospitalization, she began talking of going to Israel and living on a kibbutz. A fellow patient who had been to Israel had suggested it. Never much interested in her Jewishness, Joan suddenly grasped at the idea like a drowning person at a straw. In the communal society of an Israeli kibbutz, she reasoned, she would find the social relationships she had always lacked. In a rural, agrarian atmosphere, where anti-urban values are encouraged, she would be appreciated for reasons other than the academic ability she by now knew she had used as a defense. For several weeks, she clung rigidly to her new dream and responded angrily to her therapist when he tried to talk her out of her plan. However, the members of her therapy group were also clearly skeptical. The very same patient who made the original suggestion about going to Israel insistently pointed out her idealization of kibbutz life. They eventually wore down her resistance and helped her to see that she was only trying to run away from herself. She was choosing the geographic cure! While painful, her realization permitted her and her therapist to begin making more realistic rehabilitation plans. Joan eventually entered a six-month legal aide training program, which she successfully completed. She is currently working in a law firm in the same city as her parents. However, she is living with a roommate in their own apartment, and she only sees her parents once a week. Still in psychiatric treatment, she has, through her own steady plodding to develop a vocational skill, achieved a sense of genuine satisfaction and ability to live independently.
Lisa
Lisa is a 32-year-old single woman from a lower middle-class Jewish family. Both parents immigrated to New York City from Poland when they were teenagers. Over the years they built up a family business which today provides a satisfactory income. Both parents completed only elementary school. While Lisa was growing up, her parents' interest, it seemed to her, centered more in the business than on her. If they showed any warmth and love, she felt, it was toward her younger sister. For Lisa there was only criticism and ridicule. Her parents led her to believe that the only decent future for a woman was to marry and become a mother. Yet they communicated to Lisa a basic lack of confidence in her ability to do so. Lisa incorporated this into a harsh negative
Eric M o s s
297
self-image, and hesitated to enter relationships with men for fear of having to face herself. In college, Lisa had her first psychotic break. She felt that members of the college faculty were spreading false rumors that she was promiscuous. She had other psychotic fantasies of a sexual nature. At this time she began what would become nine years of psychiatric treatment. A woman with many strengths, Lisa managed to complete college and graduate school, despite occasional bouts of florid psychosis. Her M.A. was in social work; and on graduation, she attempted working in the field. However, because of her emotional problems, she wasn't able to handle the stressful jobs she had secured. She left one of them and was dismissed from another. A t the same time her social-sexual life was very unsatisfactory to her. She eventually returned to live with her parents and work in the family business. Lisa had always been emotionally involved with Israel and Judaism. The language spoken at home was Yiddish. In high school, she participated in a Zionist youth movement. She visited Israel several times with her parents. She attended a Jewish women's college, and spent one of her college years studying at an Israeli university. Unlike Joan, she had a thorough background in Israeli and Jewish thought. After two years of living with her parents and working in the family business, Lisa felt ready to try a step toward independence. When her parents planned a short trip to Israel together with Lisa, she decided that she would stay on and try her luck. Perhaps in Israel she could find some personal and vocational happiness. Once in Israel, she located a therapist whom she began seeing twice a week. With his support, she tried putting together the pieces of a satisfactory life. After a half-hearted attempt at locating a job in social work, she chose to take a secretarial job. She realized she just couldn't handle the stresses of a clinical social work position, in Israel or anywhere else. She went out with many men, most of whom she met through paid matchmakers. However, she went out with most of them only once or twice for reasons that were clearly related to her inner personal conflicts. The problems that disturbed her at home--lack of self-confidence, sexual fears, social loneliness, and occasional paranoia--continued to plague her in Israel. After six months, she decided to return to New York and her parents' home. There, despite all the difficulties, she had a form of love from people "who cared whether I live or die." And it was with these people, her only family, that she had to work through many of her personal problems. When she had accomplished this, if she wanted, she could return to Israel a happier, healthier, and more self-satisfied person. The above two examples of people who saw in Israel an opportunity to solve deep personal problems suggest a number of elements that make up the escape-to-Israel syndrome. .
Unrealistic idealization of Israel: One senses that, like Joan, such people have often idealized their conception of life in Israel. Their notions are based on a somewhat stereotyped image of Israel as a youthful,
298
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Journal of Religion and Health
pioneering, idealistic society. These popular images are attractive to some Jewish youngsters, whose lives are characterized by loneliness, lack of solidified identity, and personal alienation. For some, going to Israel is a more socially acceptable solution to their search for identity than, say, turning on to drugs or "dropping out." Unrealistic idealization of kibbutz life: The Israeli agricultural, communal form of living called the kibbutz is also idealized. Young American Jews, disturbed by the stress of urban life, see kibbutz living as a return to simpler, rural roots. Kibbutzniks are thought to be nonmaterialistic. The communal form of living is thought to offer a great deal of emotional support. Lack of identity and personal fulfillment: In the people described above as well as others displaying the escape-to-Israel syndrome, there has often been a failure of satisfactory identity formation in the sense described by Erikson. 3 Often the person has not found and developed a satifactory vocational direction. Or, socially, the person hasn't successfully individuated from parents or found a mate. Immersion in the Israeli experience, with its envisioned sense of purpose and rational identity, appears to provide a readymade identity for the person who hasn't yet worked out his or her own. Obvious personal problems: Some such people are experiencing obvious personal problems, easily visible to the observer--for example, money difficulties, marital stress, difficulties at work or school. Going to Israel, which is halfway round the world, offers a quick solution. History of psychiatric treatment: A history of psychiatric treatment suggests that a person has experienced impulse or adjustment difficulties in the past. While one shouldn't generalize or concede to popular negative prejudices about psychiatric problems, it is realistic to think that such a person may encounter difficulties moving to Israel. Life in Israel is objectively stressful, with economic, social, and military pressures. Moving from one place to another is always both exciting and somewhat jarring--how much more so when the move is to a place like Israel, with a different culture, language, life style, and value system. A person who has not handled stress well in the past may find him- or herself emotionally overwhelmed on packing it up in the United States and moving to Israel. No prior involvement in Israel." As we have seen, the unrealistic desire to solve personal problems by going to Israel can appear both in the person who has been highly involved with J u d a i s m and Israel (like Lisa) and the person who has had no prior involvement (like Joan). Certainly the latter type of person, because of no prior exposure, m a y be deluding him- or herself as to what awaits. And while the former type may present a superficial appreciation of the difficulties ("Oh, I'm not kidding myself. I know it's not going to be milk and honey! "), probing will quickly reveal that fantasized wishful thinking and denial play an active part in their thinking about Israel.
Eric Moss
299
Summary and conclusion T h e p u r p o s e of t h i s p a p e r h a s b e e n to s u g g e s t t h a t t h e r e e x i s t s a c e r t a i n patt e r n of t h o u g h t a n d b e h a v i o r t h a t could be called t h e e s c a p e - t o - I s r a e l syndrome. T h i s p a t t e r n is a c o n t e m p o r a r y v a r i e t y a p p e a r i n g p r i m a r i l y in the J e w i s h p o p u l a t i o n , of the " g e o g r a p h i c cure": t h a t is, one c a n solve o n e ' s personal d i l e m m a b y m o v i n g f r o m one s e t t i n g to a n o t h e r . W h i l e t h e g e o g r a p h i c cure h a s f r o m t i m e i m m e m o r i a l b e e n a n a v a i l a b l e o p t i o n to t r o u b l e d people, t h e e s c a p e - t o - I s r a e l cure h a s b e e n a v a i l a b l e o n l y since 1948, w h e n I s r a e l b e c a m e a state. T h e s y n d r o m e is c h a r a c t e r i z e d b y t h e t e n d e n c y to idealize life in I s r a e l rigidly. T h i s idealization, a n d t h e v i e w e r s ' f a n t a s y of their o w n f u t u r e e x p e r i e n c e in Israel, serve to deflect solid c o n f r o n t a t i o n w i t h g e n u i n e p e r s o n a l p r o b l e m s . If, in fact, t h e y do go to Israel, t h e y m a y e x p e r i e n c e s h o c k a n d t r a u m a a t t h e g a p b e t w e e n the e x p e c t e d r e a l i t y a n d t h e d i s c o v e r e d one. W i t h o u t familiar e n v i r o n m e n t a l s u p p o r t s , t h e y m a y find t h a t their m o v e h a s only c o m p o u n d e d their e m o t i o n a l difficulties. People who are u n c e r t a i n h o w to counsel p e r s o n s d i s p l a y i n g t h e escape-toI s r a e l s y n d r o m e m a y do well to r e m e m b e r t h e old adage: Y o u can c h a n g e y o u r position," i t ' s h a r d e r to c h a n g e y o u r disposition!
References 1. The author has worked in mental health clinics and psychiatric hospitals in New York and in Israel. 2. We can imagine that from the officials' point of view--that is, wanting as many Jews as possible to come to I srael--they might legitimately support what could be called "normal or nondestructive escapism" as a motivation for coming to Israel. An "unhealthy" escapism would be a more extreme form of this in a person who is more severely unstable. It is the person who displays this kind of motivation whom the official might consider discouraging from moving to Israel. 3. Erikson, E., Childhood and Society. New York, Norton, 1963.
