America, center of the Jewish world?

In today’s Jerusalem Post, Conservative Rabbi David Starr makes the unusual claim that the Diaspora is becoming the “Jewish people’s cultural center,” rather than Israel. He cites a revival of learning amongst “certain precincts” of American Jewry:

“More American Jews are working harder than ever at being Jewish, in meaningful ways: camping, traveling, studying, building community, wrestling with the mystery of our culture and civilization.
“Ahad Ha'am opined that modern Jewish nationalism would create a cultural critical mass, a center radiating centripetal energy outward to the Diaspora periphery, enabling it to survive, maybe. Yet today the situation seems different, if not exactly a reversal of fortunes. Israeli kids come to American Jewish schools, where they see all sorts of Jews, not just Orthodox children, engaging Judaism. Those same Israeli sojourners in the Diaspora learn how to shake a lulav and etrog, even if they can read the Mishna Sukka in the original.”

Starr is correct that there are many secular/Reform/Conservative Jews in the States who might know more about Jewish culture than their Israeli secular peers; Jewish learning in the States is less polarized, because Judaism in the States is less polarized. I certainly wish Israel were more like the States in this regard.
But – and this is a big but – Starr never once acknowledges that these people are a tiny percentage of American Jewry; the great majority of American Jews have little, if no Jewish content in their lives at all. And what’s more, there are few American institutions (and people) where you can find the depth of Jewish knowledge routinely found in Israeli yeshivot, universities and other centers of learning. Which is why each year, hundreds of Americans seeking more Jewish knowledge must come to Israel to find it.