| Continuity Quandary |
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| Written by Joanna Drusin | |||||
| Monday, 09 May 2005 | |||||
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American Jews on Our Worst-Case Scenarios In a time and place when Jews face few obstacles to safety and success, the American Jewish community remains intensely focused on self-presevation. Jewish leaders fear-monger about the dangers of assimilation and intermarriage, while philanthropists pour billions of dollars into programming for young Jews and efforts to ensure Jewish survival. New Voices’ roving reporters ask: What are we so afraid of? Read on–then visit New Voices' Apocalypse Survey and tell us what you think. Michael Steinhardt Chairman, Steinhardt Foundation/Jewish Life Network Judaism will never disappear, but in the past several decades the Jewish community has experienced declining birthrates, increasing intermarriage, and drop-offs in the various barometers of Jewish identification: synagogue affiliation and commitment to Israel, among others. My concern is that as we become less connected, we will become less able to sustain and perpetuate the culture that has nurtured us for millennia. The result will be a decline, not only in our numbers and our vitality, but in our unique contributions to society. This would be a loss not only to the Jewish people but also to the world. Mordechai Levy Director, Jewish Defense Organization Anti-Semitism is not going down, it’s going up, and in numerous cities. People are spreading their message of hating the Jews all over the country. We follow Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky told the Jews in Germany to get guns. German Jews told him he was an idiot; the Nazis will never win! Eventually the Nazis were voted to power. Things that the Jews never thought would happen happened. We believe in armed self-defense. All Jewish meetings should have volunteers to protect from any possible attack. Ideally Jews should leave America and go to Israel. There is no future for Jews outside the land of Israel. Meanwhile, we preach self-defense pending Aliyah. I tell people that they should really just leave as soon as they can. Violence is not a good thing. But it’s necessary at times. Let’s hope Moshiach comes and we go back to Israel. We want real peace. Benjamin Eidelson First-year, Yale University Throughout my life, my sense of Jewish identity has helped me ascribe meaning to my experiences. Because I want my children and grandchildren to lead similarly meaningful lives, I naturally hope to transmit to them the cultural toolset that has proved so useful to me. Apocalyptic demography does not alarm me, however, simply because numbers do not speak to my ability to pass on that dynamic toolset for self-creation. Demographers quantify the state of Judaism by counting “Jews.” But Judaism, for me, does not manifest itself in “Jews”—people born under certain circumstances, or who hold some essential belief. Judaism is a complex set of cultural artifacts—traditions, discourses, and ideas—available to us as we construct the meanings of our lives. So long as the full diversity of those tools remains accessible and continues to grow, the Judaism I value is thriving. I am optimistic that my children will choose to be Jewish because while the number of racially or doctrinally pure “Jews” has declined, the wealth and diversity of Jewish ideas has exploded. My children will be able to choose from a Jewish toolset that my grandparents could not have imagined: among many others, Modern Orthodoxy, Reconstructionism, and humanism; Zionism, anti-Zionism, and post-Zionism. If the Jewish community responds to assimilation by clinging rigidly to the past, isolating itself, and essentializing what makes one a “Jew,” then the invaluable offerings of Judaism may indeed be lost—just as they would have been lost after the destruction of the temple, if Jews had been unwilling to radically recreate themselves and invent the Rabbinic tradition. But so long as Jewish innovation continues to flourish—that is, so long as we do not define for others what it is to be a “Jew”—then regardless of population models, I am confident that my children will have the real option of creating themselves as something Jewish. That opportunity to choose freely is all I could reasonably ask for them—or of them. Steven Bayme Director, American Jewish Committee’s Contemporary Jewish Life Department and the Koppelman Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations Look, the news about mixed marriage is not terribly good. Mixed marrieds identify minimally with the Jewish world. Their children less so. Their grandchildren basically not at all. Mixed marriage left unchecked is going to be a very strong danger to the future health of the Jewish world. What do you do? Number one is that you can try to minimize the damage by encouraging mixed marrieds to raise their children exclusively as Jews. One thing that should be understood by those who already married out is that if they’re interested in leading a Jewish life, the Jewish community is prepared to welcome them. So that’s the first statement, which is basically one of welcome inclusivity–but it’s a welcome inclusivity that makes demands on the mixed marrieds as well. The best outcome–which is the second statement–is that once mixed marriage has occurred, how about the conversion of the non-Jewish spouse? And then there’s the message to those who are not yet married–and there, as politically incorrect as it is–the message of endogamy must be the primary message. Let’s say we don’t do that. Let’s say the only messages are that mixed marriage is wonderful. The only reason it’s as low as 50 percent is that Jews continue to have their constraints about mixed marriage. Abandon those constraints and the mixed marriage rate will exceed 90 percent. Once it reaches that point, then you’ve got your apocalypse. I think a lot depends–to throw it back to your readers–on what culture you create. If you create a culture of neutrality towards mixed marriage, then by the time your children are eligible for marriage, they will not choose Jewish partners unless they’ve been ideologically constrained to do so. Nothing’s inevitable. People make choices. I made a choice to send my children to Jewish day school. It cost me a fortune. I never once regretted a penny of it, on the grounds that I said, there’s a world of free choices–I want to stack the deck in favor of Jewish choices. I want to do whatever I can to make the case for leading the Jewish life. The apocalypse is if I fail to make the case. Catherine Wallach Recent graduate, Barnard College Even if the stigma placed on intermarriage were to go away completely, those who think that every young Jewish person would race to marry a gentile are completely off the mark. There is a lot to be said for marrying someone who shares your culture and upbringing. The paranoia that all Jews would prefer to marry gentiles if the choice was unencumbered by their parents’ and communities’ disapproval is frankly insulting to all Jews–why are we so unmarriageable? I’d much rather marry someone who thought a perfect Sunday consisted of reading the New York Times and feasting on bagels and lox and who thought the natural thing to do on Christmas was to go to the movies and eat Chinese food. Besides, most guys who won’t marry their gentile girlfriends are just using their mothers’ grief as an excuse anyway. David Deutsch Humor editor, Heeb Magazine I see all the Jews assembled in a parking lot of a large building. I see four Hummer II’s enter the lot. Then will a rain of white bread and mayonnaise fall, and those who don’t believe shall be smitten. And it is no mere building, but the Wal-Mart of the Father, and 144,000 of those with faith shall be admitted into the store. Naked shall they enter, and shall be clad in the Gap, thirsty shall they enter, and shall be given of Starbucks to drink. And purified of their stain of difference, they shall walk through the aisles for all eternity with everyone else. Amen. Kate Ulansky Third-year, University of Virginia I come from Berkeley, the Land of Liberal, where we were taught songs about “the rainbow of faces” and sang the Gentile equivalent of “Hinei Mah Tov.” But after 18 years of slowly melting into the Berkeley mold, I realized that my sense of self had eroded. I didn’t have a sense of cultural Jewish identity, I hadn’t been to services in six years, my Hebrew was rusty, and I sure didn’t know any of the niggunim the kids at the UVA Hillel were grooving to. Someone had forgotten to teach me what it meant to be a Jew, and I had forgotten the little I had tried to learn. They say that everyone in California is from somewhere else. Most of my friends’ parents come from places where being Jewish was not easy, segregation dictated their reality, and assimilation seemed like a dream. Far worse, however, than the painful reality of assimilation is the sin of forgetfulness—losing our identity to the politically correct notion of human sameness. Every nation has a unique history that doesn’t deserve to be cast aside just because it was once a stumbling block on the road to “equality.” It may feel invasive when Hillel emails you twice a week, when Israel activist groups call you just because you’re Jewish, but these things remind us who we are. As cultural Jews, religious Jews, and apostates, we have to bear witness to Jewish history–even if Mom’s Christmas tree is in the next room. Jewish Women Watching Anonymous Jewish Women’s Activist Group For Jewish Women Watching, “continuity” itself is the problem. We would like to see a Jewish communal infrastructure that is flexible enough to transform and change along with the needs of the community. Instead, we see Jewish leaders who continue to ignore the concerns of Jewish women, progressives, poor people, queers, and Jews of color–and then panic when they realize that their constituency is shrinking. For us, the “worst-case-scenario” would be if the current Jewish communal leadership–exactly those people who are most alarmed about “continuity” and “survival”–succeeded in retaining the tired priorities that alienate large segments of the Jewish community. If Jewish Continuity is about reproducing Jewish babies and Jewish politics in a narrowly defined (straight/white/wealthy/conservative) Jewish context–then screw it. Megan Brown First-year, Northwestern University At lazy times well past midnight, my friends and I sit in my dorm room and discuss the things college students deem “deep”: politics, love, identity. My roommate, half Colombian, explains how different Latino communities interact. My suite-mate, an Indian from California, describes fitting her family’s traditional expectations with her American upbringing. I talk about knowing I will marry a Jewish boy, and joke about how curly our kids’ hair will be. Then I say, “but I don’t think my hair is really that Jewish-curly. It’s not exactly a Jewfro or anything.” My bleached highlights support this argument. Staring into the mirror tacked onto my door, I remark, “I think I look Jewish but that you don’t really notice it unless you know I am.” “Yeah,” one of my friends will inevitably reply. “You don’t have a Jewish nose.” To this I respond: “Thanks.” My nightmare of assimilation is that there are more young Jews like me out there. Modern assimilation is not about keeping kosher or driving on Shabbat. It is about hating the very look of Judaism. I am still attracted to the “Jewish” look, but when people say I don’t look Jewish, I take it as a compliment. Clearly, there is a problem. Around the time of Brown v. Board of Education, studies were released showing that African-American girls preferred playing with white dolls because they were “good.” Certainly, no comparison can be drawn between African-Americans in the 1950’s and Jewish girls yearning for a straight nose today. Yet would Jewish girls, too, choose a fair-haired, straight-nosed doll over one that is distinctly Jewish? If the answer is yes, and I think it is, then the future is one of Jews being ashamed of their Jewishness because it is ugly. If Jewishness is ugly, those who can marry away from the ugliness will. Douglas Rushkoff Author of Nothing Sacred The worst-case scenario is that they [continuity-focused Jewish leaders] succeed in their pursuit. The “continuity” they envision actually marks the end of Judaism as a living, changing system of thought and action. The organized Jewish community still sees American institutional Judaism as Judaism. Study, prayer, action, and challenging thought are basically replaced by real estate, temple rolls, and support for Israel. Don’t get me wrong–I’m not saying I’m against Israel. I am against equating Judaism with the support of a nation state, and spending Judaism’s resources on PR campaigns designed to bend Jewish opinion. It’s not the opinion that’s so wrong to have, it’s the techniques being used to enforce it. Judaism is not a religion, really, and it’s certainly not a system of propaganda. It seems inevitable for the mainstream institutions to go down. But there are plenty of seeds growing that will keep Judaism alive. They may not even call themselves Judaism, in the final analysis. But Moses didn’t call himself a “Jew” either. Roz Plotzker Senior, University of Pennsylvania Last night I heard David Von Drehle speak on his book Triangle, which is about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. According to Von Drehle, the fire was the deadliest workplace disaster prior to September 11. The tale of the 30-minute inferno was underscored by the history of years of class struggles. In those difficult times, the common heritage of Eastern European Jews held the garment workers’ community together. The security of this unity allowed the Jewish women in the garment industry to stage one of the greatest strikes in labor history in 1909, where Triangle begins. In high school, I was assigned to write an essay based on the following prompt: “What is the greatest threat to Judaism in America?” Being the smart-ass tenth grader that I was, I wrote that not having an enemy would destroy the Jewish people. Who would we unite against? Who would we defend ourselves from? God forbid that we exist as a people rejoicing in our own identity, rather than define our own character by differentiating Judaism from other ethnic groups. Mrs. Cohen did not appreciate my sarcasm, but it was well written, so I got a B+. It’s tough to say that the American Jews were better off living in overcrowded tenement apartments where they clung to their dignity by way of Judaism. Today, the great-granddaughters of those garment workers can be Jewish and American, and maybe even Princesses. Yet, Mrs. Cohen explained, assimilation would numb our drive to maintain our traditions. Now we are taught that our greatest enemy is our human desire to be like everyone else. It seems to me that any group that survives through several eras does so by adapting to their environment. The evolution of Judaism–within an equally evolving American context–is mistaken for assimilation. I hope that the future Mrs. Cohens of the world can teach future students that being both American and Jewish need not be so difficult, and that we can apply Judaism to our lives in this country—just as the garment workers did. Samuel Freedman Columnist, New York Times; faculty member, Columbia School of Journalism I think that there’s this self-indulgent, really ridiculous attitude, on two points. One is what I call the fetishizing of anti-Semitism, which is that precisely because there is very little meaningful anti-Semitism in this country, there are certain Jews who try to imagine that there’s still a pernicious life-threatening amount of it–because they don’t have anything else to prop up their Jewish identity with other than the hatred of others. And I think you saw that mentality in a lot of the eager readership for the Philip Roth novel [The Plot Against America]. Beyond the book’s obvious incredible literary merits, for a lot of Jewish readers it was this irresistible victim fantasy. And so that’s one version of the self-indulgent American apocalypse. The other version of it, which you get from certain religious quarters, is the so-called “silent holocaust”–the idea that intermarriage is going to be the death of American Jewry. I mean, I think it will be the death of part of it. For one version of it–not the death, the dilution of it –but to characterize it as a holocaust is historically wildly inaccurate and unbelievably offensive. There’s going to be a part of the Jewish community that’ll continue to inmarry and there’ll be continuity through that portion. So I don’t think it’s destruction. I think it’s a change in the nature of the community. And, in some ways, if it’s making Jews less Jewish, it’s making America more Jewish, because what it’s doing is really–in an amazing way–cross-pollinating Jewish stuff into America at large through interfaith marriage. It’s Your Call Does assimilation really pose a threat to Jewish survival? Is there reason to worry that we won’t pass our traditions down another few generations? And how bad would that really be? Stand up and be counted: take New Voices' Apocalypse Survey. Tell us about your worst-case scenario–and your best-case one.
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