Every time I sit down with my friend ‘Megan’ (not her real name), we have the same conversation, which consists of comparing our respective “ethnicities” and discussing how we view our particular cultural grouping in America and its effect on our respective world-views. She’s a leader of a campus Asian-American group and takes very seriously all the talk about diversity, ethnic identity, affirmative action, the relativity of gender etc. Somehow all this stuff about “ethnicity” and being a “model minority” (as she calls the status of Jews and East Asians in 21st century America) is tied up into some Michel Foucalt-derived commentary on the relativity and social construction of race, gender, ethnicity, morality, ice-cream preference, shoe size and, you know, just about everything. As I sat opposite Megan at lunch earlier this week, I once again had trouble putting into words my own carefully-thought-out (or is it?) reasoning for my strong secular Jewish identity, Zionism, and general interest in Jewish culture, thought, and history. I began by telling her all about the age-old search for roots that young people are apt to engage in. This was acceptable to both of us—we’re both history majors, and what curious soul doesn’t want to learn more about the foundations of cultural identity?
Then we moved on to various Jewish takes on ethnic/religious/national identity, and this is where things got a little hairy. Explaining the precarious situation of the modern Jewish people as a “people apart,” a people who continue to attempt to live in “two civilizations,” in the words of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, is really tough when you have nothing to compare it to. Last spring, I turned my modern European history class, Hebrew, and comparative theology classes into meditations on the sources and products of the “Jewish nation” and Jewish identity. Seriously, just about every paper I wrote was related to the central question of “what exactly is it to be Jewish in the world today?” It seemed like every day my perspective on Jewish identity shifted—from strong nationalistic Zionism, to the original ‘High’ Reformed view that Judaism is a religion that one either proscribes to or doesn’t, to “Nefesh Yehudi” mysticism, to ethnic/racial unity, to more of a cultural affinity for Yiddishkeit, to some kind of vague, universal spirituality centered around the “we’re not Chosen, we chose ourselves” concept. Confused? I certainly am.
And try to presenting all of these (often exclusive) views to a person with no background in the history of Jewish identity, who doesn’t even think of ‘group identity’ in the same way as you—not an easy task. I certainly succeeded in confusing my companion and in upsetting myself beyond my initial disappointment with the red lentil stew that sat untouched on my plate. As the metaphors became more elaborate and I started contradicting myself in every other sentence, a glance at my watch alerted me to the fact that I had class in 2 minutes in a building a brisk 5 minutes walking-distance away. So I never did get to explain the source of modern “Jewish identity”. Despite the considerable amount of thought I’ve put into the issue of “Jewish identity”, I still don’t have an answer. Somehow, I don’t think “Ahavat Yisrael” is going to cut it right now. Thoughts?
