Popping New York’s Jewish Bubble

The choice is not obvious.
The choice is not obvious.
The choice is not obvious.

I grew up in the New York area: capital of the world, city of no rival, the Fourth Rome (defeating the Third, and there shall be no Fifth). True, I could note that this place – city and suburbs thereof – is overconfident, maddeningly arrogant, and rude to a horrifying degree. Yet it was a marvelous, diverse place to grow up, filled with the strange wonder and confident hum of a global center. Especially as a Jew – for this city and its surroundings comprise a Jerusalem of America.

To be a Jew in New York is to in many ways be completely normal: though our people only comprise one out of ten of the region’s population, the number of Jews in New York is overwhelming. One out of eight Jews in the world lives somewhere on a MTA or New Jersey Transit line leading to Midtown Manhattan; the city of New York has more Jews than any city other than Tel Aviv. Rosh Hashanah is a city-wide public school holiday. To be a Jew in New York is remarkably easy, especially compared to anywhere else in the Diaspora; some, myself included, argue that it is even easier than Israel. One never has to worry about kashrut or finding a synagogue for the observant, events and memory for the secular, and finding a Jewish match for us all. Who would want to live anywhere else?

…there are many reasons to leave this bubble of Jewish ease.

The fact of the matter is, one man’s Holy Land is another’s idol, and one man’s paradise is another’s stifling bubble. New York’s Jewish community can be stifling and difficult, overwhelming and maddening – and in this, the beauty of smaller communities and further outposts is often lost. I have spent the past two months, an interim in my life, back in New York – which has given me plenty of time to consider where this place falls short as a Jewish home.

What drives me mad in New York? There is a callousness in this Jewish community that I find unparalleled. Among the religious folk, there can almost be a constant war of “holier than thou” – who follows halakha best, who went to the best yeshiva, how “real” or “unreal” your practice is. Never mind that kashrut, prayer, and approach have never been consistent. Among the secular, there is the celebration of an over-hyped ideal: the “good liberal,” cultured and celebratory of [not the only, but treated as such] his Ashkenazi heritage. Questioning this ideal can sometimes bring wrath (never remind anyone that this ideal can be horrifically racist). In both cases, there is a haughtiness that is celebrated as part of being a “New Yorker”: rudeness is celebrated as “energy”; inward looking, as being part of the greatest community on earth.

In a large community such as New York’s, it can also be difficult to question dogma – especially in relation to Israel and intermarriage. The Jewish community of the area is by and large self-segregated to a great degree on these issues: though other factors exist, many communities are monochromatic in terms of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The nail that sticks out can then often be hammered in: a luxury that does not always exist in small communities, where the Jewish community that is there is the community that you have. Asking tough questions – in any direction – of a community’s Israel policy in New York is often then most unwelcome. As for intermarriage, there is not only the self-segregation by opinion: the ready availability of Jewish singles in New York leads many to consider anyone who dates outside the faith as some sort of traitor. In many smaller communities, it is far more difficult to adhere to policing of blood purity (a term I have no qualms using).

In this light, I have come to appreciate things about smaller Jewish communities, near and far from New York. I spent four years as part of the University of Chicago Jewish community, on the South Side of Chicago. This community, in Hyde Park, is somewhat separated from the far larger community in the city’s north and the suburbs, and it is somewhat self-contained. As far as campuses go, we are a fairly big community – especially by campus presence – but in terms of regular attendance, we are small. And Hyde Park’s Jewish population is not that big either.

One could easily mourn the relative lack of Jewish infrastructure and events compared to the centers in Lakeview and Skokie. But what is there instead? Firstly, there is a unity and acceptance often left behind in bigger communities: despite differing politics on Israel, different bloodlines, or different levels of practice, there definitely seems to be a greater sense of “we are all in this together.” Am Yisra’el is all Jews, and in the many smaller outposts of the diaspora I have had the fortune to visit – from Hyde Park to Pretoria – have felt far more welcoming than the great halls of the Upper West Side and Washington Heights. Secondly, there is also a refreshingly optimistic approach to Judaism: it is not perfect and it can be hard to be a Jew in a small community, but you do what you can, because…this is our heritage, and our heritage is not easy.

Fundamentally, living a righteous Jewish life – religious or secular – is about the community, and that is something hard to acknowledge in New York’s Jewish world. In the factional, dogmatic, and clannish world that New York Jewry can be, the outsider – especially the non-Jew, but just as harshly the Other Jew – can be treated rather harshly. Yet that is totally against all of the values of our forefathers: is not the point of Torah to treat your neighbor kindly? If anything, the catch-up culture of New York can be an impediment to a reflective and honest Jewish life. This city is not alone in this Jewish predicament – witness the constant snobbery, dogmatism, and factionalism in Israeli life today. No wonder so many Israelis emigrate – besides the obvious economic factors.

I am about to cross the Atlantic to live in Oxford, which probably has a Jewish environment most different from that in New York. At most, there are a few hundred Jews in Oxford – by no means insubstantial, but no more than a quarter of a “mega-shul” in Westchester County or North Jersey. Some may fear such a small community, but I am ready to embrace being part of it. After four years in a small but not insubstantial university community, I have come to appreciate that quantity is not quality, and sometimes the best things come in small packages. I hope these adages hold true for Oxford.

 

Jonathan P. Katz leaves for Oxford tomorrow.

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