I am old enough to remember when Americans spoke of “the American destiny.” I have hardly heard the expression for the last 50 years, not since Vietnam. How many of you believe that America has a destiny, with no further definition? I have not done this since 1986. At that time, about a fourth of the hands went up. My guess is that today, not more than one or two aged hands would go up, but that’s just my guess.

Now, how many of you believe the Jewish people has a destiny? As late as 1986, nearly all the hands went up. How many would go up today? How many of those would be Jews. I would guess that a larger percentage of non-Jews than Jews would raise their hands.

Jews are afraid of the implications. Non-Jews are not. A black cabbie at Newark AP once saw the kippa on my head and asked if I’m a rabbi. I said, “no, just an ordinary Jew.” He said, “there’s no such thing as an ordinary Jew.” What Jews do you hear that sort of thing from? Chabadnikim, Kachnikim, Breslavers; yeshiva folks and other religious folks of a sort that are on fire with it. Other Jews know it too, but deny it, suppress it, run from it as fast and hard as they can. But they know it. When I was one of them, I knew it. I knew in my bones that it is important, so important that I couldn’t marry her, even though I could think of absolutely no reason why it should be so important. I had to accept that it is just an existential fact that membership in the Jewish people is the most important fact of my life. Ordinary people all over Spain, Portugal, Latin America and the US Southwest are coming out of 500 years of deep secrecy and reclaiming membership in the Jewish people and recounting what they have gone through for 500 years to preserve that connection.

When our cup of joy in our peoplehood gets emptied by assimilation, the world has many ways of filling it again. One story came to me just yesterday. See the attachment. The prophets promise that in the end, the non-Jews will grab onto Jews’ clothing and beg us to teach them about our God. What will young Jews in America tell them? And what will be their reaction? They will know it’s not true. And then what? The empty Jews will have to see that their lives have been entirely false and empty and they will go and learn all about what it means to be a member of the Jewish people.

But regrettably I hear more of this sort of thing. It may resonate with those religious Jews who unconsciously are bitter at the sense of deprivation they feel, regarding the pleasures of secular life, and envious of those Jews who partake of them, while still claiming the name “Jew.” What is called “ressentiment.”

But this attitude is so carefully constructed that it doesn’t seem to have happened by chance. And it appears so often, somewhat like a viral-marketing campaign, that it seems actively driven.

Lately, for example, I’ve heard not merely Rav Kook, Rav Soloveitchick, and Rav Teichtal disparaged, but even Rav Gustman, z”l.

A sufficient response to Mr. Farber is on aish.com and elsewhere.

Of course Jewish “peoplehood” thrived for hundreds of years when no alternative was realistic. My children live in a totally assimilated world and my grandchildren have little association with Judism even though the oldest five have all been Bar/Bat Mitzvahed. Two of them, plus a nephew, have been to Israel on Birthright. The idea that this 10 day adventure will affect their choice of a life partner is preposturous.

I would suggest that you make an effort to attend next year’s J Street annual conference. There you’ll find old civil rightsniks like me, but also the future of American Jewry’s views and attitudes toward Israel. The slogan “my country right or wrong” has never been popular with American Jews, and the same goes for our second country, Israel. How does the issue of “dual loyalty” affect your notions of Peoplehood by the way? And you misinterpret our concerns about the Palestinians. Yes, we’re concerned for their “suffering”, but we’re more concerned about the outrageous policies of the Israeli government. Israel may well be a country of Jews, but there’s nothing Jewish about the way its government governs.

And one more thing. Stop focusing on intermarraige. So far, in my family, everyone has married Jews and there have been 4 divorces. Our Synagogues and JCCs could do a much better job focusing on Jewish couples who show little interest rather than spending so much energy trying to influence who falls in love with whom, a hopeless task.

Israelis and American Jews couldn’t be more different. In America Pres. Obama got the votes of 78% of our vote. In Israel he’d be lucky to get 22%. Best wishes!

The concept of a “people” goes back millennia. Its utility is questioned by universalists, nowadays Marxists and many therapists. Jung of course was a universalist, and Freud ultimately arrived at that viewpoint, rejecting Jewish peoplehood and advocating assimilation and universalism as the solution for the “Jewish problem.” They and their disciples are influential among most therapists today, and universalism informs most therapy. Not a surprise that many who write generally are vehemently opposed to Zionism and the state of Israel. Joel Kovel, Derek Summerfield, Benyamin Beit-Hallahmi and Carlo Strenger are well known. But undoubtedly such attitudes also permeate any therapy.

Yet nowadays most progressives also assert that truth is never absolute. If so, how can we know which culture, or “people,” is best for humanity? Clearly dozens or hundreds of “peoples” is best for the globe. We maintain “heirloom” tomatoes and grains; monoculture is bad for wheat. Monoculture, that is, universalism, must also be bad for humanity.

Further, if the idea of a “people” is retrograde and tribalistic, why defend Palestinian “peoplehood”? It is among the most tenuous and recent.

The progressive “party line” contains both these inherent contradictions, among others.

The further removed in time a non Orthodox Jew in America is from their family’s immigrant experience, the less meaningful ethnic/peoplehood definitions of Judaism will be in her/his daily life. And the waning importance of the State of Israel to most of those Jews is but one spoke in the wheel of ethnic/cultural/peoplehood Jewishness/Judaism. All that’s left of “Judaism” for most who identify as Jews in America is the trivial to nearly meaningless “Jewishness,” that manifests as lifecycle “fixes” (b’not/b’nei mitzva births weddings and funerals), the occasional perceived need for a worship service e.g., high holidays (yet another “guilt fix” for ever fewer Jews), the Holocaust/anti semitism, and let’s not forget an occasional trip to the Jewish deli/restaurant.

This residual Jewishness will go the way of borscht belt humor and the Catskills. As the older generations pass, nostalgia will have less and less of a pull. It (nostalgia) already holds little or no sway with my two sons, one a Gen X’er and one a Gen Y’er, And the same can be said of their peers.

People do things for two reasons: because they want to or because they have to. For the vast majority who identify as Jews (probably close to 2 out of 3) who are unaffiliated as well as the majority of the non Orthodox affiliated, Judaism, the synagogue and supporting the State of Israel are not in the “have to” (read obligatory) category and no amount of handwringing or ostrich-like desire to turn the clock back to the “good old days” (read the 1950’s and 60’s) will change that fact. What’s left is the great opportunity to persuade those Jews to “convert” to the “want to” group. In today’s consumerist world, Judaism/the synagogue/Israel must compete in the arena of ideas and leisure time/discretionary income choices. People will give of their time, talents and tithes to that which is perceived to have value. Synagogues, Judaism and Israel are perceived by the masses of Jews as having at best marginal value and thus the result is at best marginal commitment. Most non Orthodox Jews see no meaningful value in Judaism or Jewishness; thus it’s no surprise to see that the idea of a Jewish state for these folks is of little or no real value.

The problem is relevance, specifically the lack thereof. Most Jews have voted with their feet that the synagogue and/or Judaism is/are irrelevant. Judaism and synagogues have to re-earn their place in the life of most who identify as Jews. To do this, synagogues need to deliver a Judaism which is relevant, practical, challenging and life application oriented, showing that Judaism actually speaks to life as it is lived and experienced in the 21rst century, ie., teach and talk about what Judaism has to say about our physical, financial, emotional, relational, and spiritual well-being. The folks want to know that the synagogue and and Jewish teaching, have “walked a mile in their moccasins.” People ought to leave the synagogue saying, “yes they really get it,” and not “so what,” or heaven forbid, “whatever.” The only hope for Judaism’s life transforming prescription of a life of holiness as well as the re prioritizing of Israel, is through the doorway of relevance.

As Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church as well as the author of “A Purpose Driven Life,” has said: “clergy need to ’say something on Sunday that people can use on Monday.’ ” Rabbi Lawrence Hoffman who wrote “Rethinking Synagogues” calls this: sermons that emphasize where “Torah meets life.” So “on one foot”ť rabbi’s (and I’ve heard many from the pews over the years) need to become/be made more aware that the content of their bimah teaching always be about answering the question, “why think/do Jewish?”

In the High Holiday liturgy we find “B’rosh hashana yikateivun, u’v’yom tsom kippur, yeikhateimun, mi yixyeh umi yamut…” On Rosh haShanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed; who shall live and who shall die…..So the question is “will the synagogue and non orthodox Judaism be inscribed and sealed in the Book of Life for the coming year?” God only knows and it doesn’ t seem like we’re doing much to help Her/Him out with the decision. What is the necessary redefinition of “t’ shuvah, t’fillah, u’ts’daqah” needed to “avert the severe decree” i.e., to change the fate of the synagogue and non-orthodox Judaism?
We must restore the relevance of non Orthodox Judaism before we can begin to expect wider support for Israel.

There is hope and it is in learning the lessons of successful megachurches, a segment of organized religious life that continues to grow in contradistinction to the remainder of protestant denominations as well as non orthodox Judaism, that are in decline. Kudos to the Reform movement who had Pastor Rick Warren at their Biennial convention in Dec., 2007, for recognizing this important Truth. One of those lessons is found above in the paragraph that begins “The problem is relevance…

Biv’racha,
Jordan Goodman

As Gordis notes, here and now in the USA – as always everywhere in the past – being Jewish cannot mean the same sort of thing as being Christian.  Jews are a people.  One can be born Jewish.  No one is ever, or can be,  ‘born Christian’.  There may be a Christendom, but there is no ‘Christian people’.

The non-fatal weakness of the book ‘Saving Israel’ is that it is needlessly repetitious, being obviously stitched together from various separate essays.  This article’s non-fatal weakness is of another kind.     

Namely, given its focus on Jews and Judaism in the USA, it is difficult to understand the article’s skimping on a few extra words that could clarify the USA situation, thereby to shed light on possible further options (beyond Birthright Israel) for promoting the centrality of Jewish peoplehood among Jews in the USA.  The article speaks only of a ‘traditional’ as versus a ‘liberal’ synagog – a misleading dichotomy which anyhow does not suffice to describe relevant differences in peoplehood attitudes among USA synagogs or their members, let alone synagog-unaffiliated Jews. And then the article lurches away even from this dichotomy to another difference: between intermarried and non-intermarried Jews. 

Intermarriage is indeed important. The biggest challenge to Jewish peoplehood is posed by ‘hard’ intermarriages, where the non-Jewish spouse does not eventually convert before serious motherhood. After all, although conversion is a ‘faith’ ritual, its deep import is that, like Ruth, the convert is becoming part of Am Yisrael, a distinctive people. Ironically, in Israel now, the onus seems now to be on those who could – but don’t – administer and promote conversions that acknowledge and thereby legitimize and cement existing attitudes of shared peoplehood.

Actions like Birthright Israel can materially help change the future outlook, so that peoplehood becomes unquestionably central to Judaism in the USA. In addition to expanding Birthright, other good options may exist too.

To enable us to grasp what these might be, serious readers would do well to augment this article with a more adequate look at the variety of challenges and opportunities within movements, activities and categories of Jews in the USA and Israel. Two comments follow along that line.

(1) In the USA as in Israel, a major challenge for Jewish persons and institutions (notably Orthodox and some Renewal) which stress intense observance is to act in accord with the fact that more- and less-intensely observant fellow Jews are equally members of our People. Equally entitled to recognition as Jews. And, in the state of Israel, therefore equally responsible to defend the nation.

For the Israel case, in Gordis book ‘Saving Israel’ a key recommendation is that Israel’s institutionalized Orthodox leadership finally take responsibility to reach out, in the spirit of HaRav Kook z”l, to promote halakhic dynamism that responds affirmatively and non-frivolously to challenges and opportunities for ordinary Jews in today’s Israel.

Jews everywhere have waited far too long for this necessary step to happen on its own.  Evidently it won’t. As a matter of survival of nation and people it is past time for responsible national political leadership to get serious and make it a priority.  As ‘Saving Israel’ and other sources have pointed out, our survival as a strong, numerous and united people is imperiled when those who are given political power to be arbiters of membership and heritage-based norms are allowed to indulge or impose gratuitously negative, exclusionary or unconcerned attitudes, or to focus on frivolities.  

(2) In the USA the Conservative, Reconstructionist and current Reform movements are explicitly or implicitly highly committed to centrality of peoplehood. Members – both more and less ‘liberal’ – view this commitment as supported in our time, not diminished, by the fact that their synagogs’ services usually are egalitarian or otherwise not totally traditional.

Many other Jews in the USA are synagog-unaffiliated. Some may be indifferent to the Jewish people, but – as will be appreciated by many so-called ‘secular’ Israelis – many really do regard themselves primarily as members of the living Jewish people and less as holders of a specific kind of Jewish ‘faith’. This tenacity of attitude, owing in part to existence of the state of Israel, is notable in a society where for decades Judaism has been publicly imaged as primarily ‘faith’, habit or mere nostalgia.

In both cases, for the unaffiliated and for the noted synagog movements and their members, the danger to centrality of peoplehood comes primarily from the source Gordis identifies: namely, from the fact of massive inter-marriage and the attempt to make the best of inter-marriage situations. Yes, today inter-marriage reinforces – and is reinforced by – the attitude that Judaism is just a faith and not peoplehood.

However this attitude in the USA was strongly promoted and established long before intermarriage numbers became significant.  When masses of Jews came to the USA – mainly in the few decades before WW1 – unlike almost all other immigrant ethnics they did not come from their recognized ethnic homeland. In terms of the times, they could not be appreciated as members of a Jewish nation. Moreover, in conformity with the then-predominant old-time (as versus today’s) Reform Jewish voices in the USA, Jews found it easiest to explain their position in the USA by describing themselves as being just like other Americans, only of a distinct ‘faith’. 

CONCLUSION. Gordis has raised a key issue which is in fact opportune for action in the USA.

In the last century American society has marched a long road in understanding and acceptance. Nowadays Americans accept that fellow American citizens may well be participating members of distinctive living and developing – not merely extinct or historical – peoples and nations. These include small American native tribes, and at the other extreme China and India. In today’s USA we Jews now have an opportunity to be affirmative, clear and open about our peoplehood and the centrality of Am Yisrael in Judaism.

Joseph Weinstein, Ph.D., Long Beach CA USA