By David Hazony, The Forward
This is a difficult moment for American Jews.
To wake up and discover, as did the Forward’s Gal Beckerman, that the Israeli Ministry of Absorption is actively trying to convince Israeli expatriates living in the U.S. that they should come back to Israel by dramatizing the risk of assimilation of their kids and grandkids — this is a cause for outrage.
Gal is not alone. Writing in The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg is appalled. “I don’t think I have ever seen a demonstration of Israeli contempt for American Jews as obvious as these ads,” he writes. Over at the Daily Beast, Allison Yarrow calls the ads “pandering” and “ham-handed,” drawing the conclusion that “many Israeli writers, thought-leaders, politicians, and rabbis believe assimilated American Jews are not Jews at all.”
Don’t get me wrong. These critics are probably right about the infelicity of the ads. I doubt the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption had any inkling of what it was getting itself into — or why they neglected to realize that these ads would drive American Jews bananas.
Yet in the hysteria of the response, the insecurity of American Jewish life is laid bare. This, rather than the campaign itself, is the real story.
Say what you will about the political wisdom, the fear-mongering, and so forth, on the part of the Israelis. The fact is, at the heart of the campaign lies a truth too painful for many American Jews to handle: That the chances of one’s grandkids ending up identifying as Jewish are indeed significantly higher in Israel than they are in the U.S. — and that this is important in thinking about our future. I really do believe that if American Jews were to step outside their own emotions for just a moment, to stop changing the subject and actually focus on the issue being raised, they’d admit that, seen from an Israeli perspective, the fear expressed in these ads is, to a large extent, quite justified.
But most of them can’t, because it’s the Israeli perspective itself that they find so threatening — that same Israeli challenge that for generations has been suggesting that having our own country is better for us spiritually, culturally, and physically, than not having one. Suddenly, people who usually champion Jewish self-criticism circle their wagons. Remember the outrage when the author A.B. Yehoshua likened Jewish identity in the diaspora to a jacket that can be taken off at will? Sorry, Jeffrey Goldberg, this has nothing to do with Netanyahu (as he implies in his headline), for assimilation of American Jewry troubles Israelis on the left just as much as those on the right.
The hyper-sensitivity to criticism is unfortunate, because these ads inadvertently offer a real opportunity for discussion among American Jews, who should be desperate for new perspectives on their future, wherever they may come from. And so, as a public service, I toss out the following smoke bombs — a list of potentially offensive statements that could legitimately be seen as deducible from the American Jewish outrage, but whose central aim is to stoke a more fruitful debate:
Many American Jews, who justify saying the most outrageous things about Israel on the grounds that “self-criticism” among Jews is good, cannot handle criticism of them coming from Israel — even if that criticism is implicit and made in Hebrew. Instead of asking whether there’s truth to the criticism, they reflexively guffaw at Israeli “ham-handedness” (love it!) and blame Netanyahu.
Many American Jews, suddenly realizing that there exists another Jewish perspective that is judging them, cannot stand having their assimilation statistics revealed or discussed by others “in public,” as it were.
Many American Jews have so little historical self-awareness, or cultural coherence, that they must express their outrage in places like the Atlantic and the Daily Beast, for fear that otherwise most Jews will not read them. What does that say about Jewish identity in America?
Many American Jews cannot imagine that there’s something really special in Israeli identity, and that Israelis are right to try and protect it by discouraging this new form of intermarriage. The very idea sends a shiver down the American Jewish spine — but isn’t it based on the very same cultural protectiveness that causes American Jewish leaders to discourage the old kind of intermarriage, with non-Jews?
Many American Jews cannot countenance the possibility that the time of their leadership of world Jewry is reaching its end, or that the main language of Jewish culture, of music and literature and poetry and film, has shifted from English to Hebrew, or that the richest experiences of Jewish life today are happening overseas. Faced with actual criticism from any non-American Jews, they blow a fuse at the thought of losing the leading role.
These ads are ill-thought out. But a secure, self-assured, thriving Jewish culture would have just shrugged them off. Instead, we get responses that are totally out of whack — suggesting that the Israelis really stepped on a live wire in the American Jewish psyche.
So hey, American Jews, consider this a wake-up call. It’s too easy to change the subject, to blame Netanyahu or the “clinical-sounding” Ministry of Immigrant Absorption for that uncomfortable feeling you get when Jews in other countries look at your numbers and worry about our collective future. But it’s just a mirror to your own “willingness to criticize Israel.” It reflects that same level of mutual Jewish concern, the same parochial yet profound wish for a vibrant, unified Jewish civilization — the same dream that grows more distant every day.
David Hazony is a contributing editor at The Forward. His first book, The Ten Commandments: How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life (Scribner, 2010), was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award.
I agree that antisemitism is on the rise in the US and will get much worse if we so not get a big change in the White House and his followers. I am getting more fearful, but my husband is in poor health and does not want to move to Israel-I understand. I do not agree with what so many of us are saying about Israel and are doing.
Birthright has to do with tribal association and legal inheritance of property. Joining the Jewish nation by non Jews is another matter. Whether you accept the Jewish understanding and tradition of who is a Jew is not for any non Jew to determine. They have already done so (Christianity and Islam to name the most obvious).
Bland study these verses and their deeper meaning.
“in ALL that Sarah saith unto thee, hearken unto her voice” Hmmmm
“And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed.‘” Don’t see no Christians here do you?
When you want to understand our book go to a Jew after-all it’s our book! 🙂 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGrlWOhtj3g
BlandOatmeal writes: “The only hope of survival for American Judaism, is for it to become conversion-oriented and doctrine-oriented, and to abandon reliance on maternal birth criteria. Reform and Reconstructionist Jews are already moving in this direction, and I expect the Conservatives to follow suit.”
Note that you don’t mention Orthodox Jewry anywhere. You will also note that Reform and Reconstructionist Jews who inter-marry end up having non-Jewish grandchildren – even by their own standards. The statistics are staggering. Orthodox Jews, by and large, have Jewish grandchildren – by everyone’s standards. Why would Conservatives follow the path of generational suicide rather than the one of preservation?
Bland, you are correct that “American Jews” – at least the Reform and Reconstructionist varieties, have little hope for generational survival as Jews. But that is not due to matrilineal or patrilineal descent. It is due to a lack of Jewish content in their lives. Orthodox Jews have far less of a problem in this area.
As to your comments about the Torah’s definition of Jewish descent, Yamit82 provided Chapter and Verse about that definition. But that too, it seems, is part of the Jewish content that is lacking in most American Jewish lives.
Nope.
I’m pretty dry-eyed, Shy. You’re the one who’s unsure about who he is.
Wrong again but keep on whining.
Pre-Sinai.
Post-Sinai.
Your wristwatch is dead.
Yours is called Wannabeeism.
That’s your definition, not Torah’s. You and fellow Jews like you are welcome to your opinions.
I worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not the God of Judah’s wife Tamar, or of Miriam’s maternal grandmother, whoever she was. She certainly was not a descendant of Jacob. You may have some fantasy female connections in your traditions, but they are not in Torah. The birthright was given to the men; the covenants were with the men; Torah came through the men. My religion derives from the men. You have your religion, and I have mine. Call yours whatever your want.
I suppose you feel the Stepin Fetchit in the WH today is not putting on a minstrel show? Neither needs the benefit of black paint makeup. Whatever Cains credentials to be President he has held real jobs unlike the black Guy now in the WH.
A Jew is any person whose mother was a Jew or any person who has gone through the formal process of conversion to Judaism.
It is important to note that being a Jew has nothing to do with what you believe or what you do. A person born to non-Jewish parents who has not undergone the formal process of conversion but who believes everything that Orthodox Jews believe and observes every law and custom of Judaism is still a non-Jew, even in the eyes of the most liberal movements of Judaism, and a person born to a Jewish mother who is an atheist and never practices the Jewish religion is still a Jew, even in the eyes of the ultra-Orthodox. In this sense, Judaism is more like a nationality than like other religions, and being Jewish is like a citizenship.
In Deuteronomy 7:1-5, in expressing the prohibition against intermarriage, G-d says “he [i.e., the non-Jewish male spouse] will cause your child to turn away from Me and they will worship the gods of others.” No such concern is expressed about the child of a non-Jewish female spouse. From this, we infer that the child of a non-Jewish male spouse is Jewish (and can therefore be turned away from Judaism), but the child of a non-Jewish female spouse is not Jewish (and therefore turning away is not an issue).
Leviticus 24:10 speaks of the son of an Israelite woman and an Egyptian man as being “among the community of Israel” (i.e., a Jew).
On the other hand, in Ezra 10:2-3, the Jews returning to Israel vowed to put aside their non-Jewish wives and the children born to those wives. They could not have put aside those children if those children were Jews.
That’s the way it is Bland and there is no reason to change a 2500 yr. tradition just because some Jews are lost to us. Judaism won’t disapear just most American Jews but we have gone through other demographically negative periods before and we always seem to bounce back.
Of course American Jews still have the option of vacating the exile and coming home. That would insure most and their children will remain Jews. But then intermarried couples might have problems either getting in or being recognized here as kosher Jews. You reap what you have sown. Right?
Netanyahu pulled the ad campaign and apparently Jeff Goldberg had something to do with it. Perhaps, Goldberg’s influence merits him inclusion on the aforementioned “Most Influential Conservative Jews” list. I just can’t imagine Pam Geller chiding Bibi for something and have him follow suit. Off-topic, but, I beleve George Will should be applauded for labeling Herman Cain an “entrpenurial charlatan” who disrespected the selection process for President. Cain was never anything more than an ugly, lewd, stupid clown trying to upgrade his brand. He put on a disgraceful minstrel show, and if anyone deserves to be tarred and feathered and banned from TV forever, it’s him.
The only “birthright” mentioned in Torah was in the male line, which Jews do not recognize. The Jews are simply a people group, who have established their own rules about who is or isn’t part of their group.
As long as being “Jewish” is a matter of having a strictly maternal-line Jewish ancestor, Judaism is doomed to eventual extinction — just as most surnames in the US will eventually disappear and give way to “Smith” and “Johnson”. Living in Israel certainly enhances the chance of Jews finding Jewish mates; so Israeli Jews are far less in immediate danger of “assimilation” (by their own rules) than American Jews.
The only hope of survival for American Judaism, is for it to become conversion-oriented and doctrine-oriented, and to abandon reliance on maternal birth criteria. Reform and Reconstructionist Jews are already moving in this direction, and I expect the Conservatives to follow suit. Obviously, this will lead to two kinds of Jews (American and Israeli), each defining itself by its own rules. This is nothing to get self-righteous about; it’s just a matter of survival.
The ad campaign may not have been “nice” but seems to have punctured the self conceits of many American Jews. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t put being American first and Jewish/Israeli identity second. You can’t identify as Israeli but live in North America-unless, of course, you are on official business or have a timeline for returning to Israel. Just how do you explain to your children that they shouldn’t marry that nice, polite,intelligent,successful non Jew when they have grown up together, gone through school together, shared secular holidays, secular culture and secular interests and everything they have been taught and conditioned to in North America says that religion is just another personal choice. It is all about identity.
This reminds me a little of the arrest of Dov Lior who was defamed with the accusation of advocating the killing non-Jews in defense of Israel. What could be more natural than a Jewish state advocating that Jews marry other Jews? Notice there is no religious law preventing Jews from marrying non-Jews. And there is nothing loose in the Israeli law insisting that Jews marry other Jews.
Where else are you going to get more Jews from if Jews aren’t creating them themselves? Judaism is not on a quest to make everyone Jewish, unlike Christianity and Islam. Certainly these religions have no objections to marrying outside of their faiths, but only if the spouse subjects themselves to that religion. You can convert to these religions. When they have their way in a country or community, conversion is mandatory.
This should have been an opportunity to remind Jews that there is constant pressure on them — sometimes in Israel itself — to convert to some other religion and surrender a unique birthright that nobody else can claim.
Many years ago, a Jewish woman proposed a marriage to me on the impassioned condition that I, a non-Jew, raise the kids Jewish. I questioned her passion for Jewish children with the simple observation that if she were really worried about it, she would marry a Jew.
My stepfather’s single mother was Jewish and his father Irish Catholic. Yet, somehow, he got it in his head that I should be raised Jewish. He was barely Jewish himself and I never saw him express any evidence whatsoever besides his own identification that he was Jewish at all. The effort was a prolonged flop. He finally divorced my mother, married a Morman and became “born again”. This from a man who had me circumcised when I was two years old. I am convinced the whole act was to offend my natural father who was, rather dramatically, not Jewish.
And so it goes. The politics of who is Jewish or not continues. In Nazi Germany, all it took was one set of grand parents who were Jewish and who knows how they themselves qualified. But for those who really care about being Jewish, and we hope the Jews care the most, a Jewish family is the surest place to mint more Jews and no other place. I am relieved that somebody in authority in Israel really cares.
Goldberg is obviously projecting his own contempt for Israel. Liberal American Jews regularly express contempt for Israel and are the biggest inciters against it.
If an article like this appears in The Forward things must really be bad. Perhaps The Forward is afraid that their readership may dwindle. Many years ago Rabbi Meir Kahane sounded the same warning.
History has a way of catching up with Jews who assimilate just when they are ready to turn out the lights. Many American Jews feel very secure and cannot imagine serious anti-Semitism here. However, anti-Semitism is on the rise on the campus, inside Occupy Wall Street and in the far left generally. The FBI records that 70% of hate crime are against Jews here while anti Muslim crimes are 9%.
As it is said ‘those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.’