Jewishness had a low profile in my southern town. The few Jews among us were very assimilated and tended to be high-achieving and respected members of the community, including the mayor. I am not aware that there was any particular Jewish presence in the school system, excepting the odd Jewish student here and there, several of whom were my friends.
Israel caught my young imagination -- and I am betting the imaginaitons of others -- when we learned about kibbutz life in Israel. It sounded like a permanent summer camp where children had escaped bourgeois parenting and were thriving in a socialist (didn't know then what that was exactly) utopia. I have now, to say the least, a radically different feeling about that message and some hostility over the fact that I received it in a way that made it sound so attractive. It was profoundly socialistic, but also, anti-family, anti-bourgeois, anti-American life.
A warm feeling toward Israel was then planted in my soul that I have not yet overcome. But, sometimes, I think that maybe old sentiment is overpowering reason. Israel was a socialist enterprise MUCH friendlier to the USSR than to the U.S., until political expediancy and the interests of dual-loyalty citizens bound it to the U.S.
Now, I feel bound to Israel by my abhorrence of their lunatic Arab enemies with their cult of death.
But, more broadly speaking, I wouldn't mind seeing the interest of Israel versus the interests of the U.S. being disintangled a bit.
The USSR turned on Israel by 1950.