The Vanishing American Jew; In Search of Jewish Identity for the Next Century by Alan Dershowitz
BY Elliott Abrams, Weekly Standard
The Harvard law professor and defense attorney Alan Dershowitz argues that Jews will vanish unless they stay Jewish, a proposition with which it is difficult to disagree. Indeed, it is reminiscent of President Coolidge’s remark that when people are thrown out of work, unemployment results. Of course, it is quite obvious why people want to stay employed; less obvious is why they should want to stay Jewish.
The Vanishing American Jew is Dershowitz’s effort to define how the American Jewish community should confront a terrible demographic problem: its steady diminution in size, due to low birth rates, high intermarriage rates, and secularization. Strangely, the book is also a spirited defense of secular Judaism, for Dershowitz acknowledges that he is a Jew by emotion, ethnicity, education, upbringing — but not by belief. He loves being Jewish — from the Orthodox prayers and practices with which he was raised and educated, to the ethnic cuisine, to the stories and jokes (the very worst collection of which ever assembled is contained here). He is not, however, a religious man, and does not see God as central to Judaism.
But why should people not similarly raised and educated stay Jewish, unless they are Jews in the religious sense? Dershowitz has a razor-sharp mind and is a wonderful teacher; it is a mystery that he has written a book that cannot answer that question.
The basic problem with the book is clear from a story Dershowitz, with admirable candor, tells on himself. He notes that he would not himself wish to marry a non-Jewish woman, yet cannot fully explain to his own children why they should not. (In fact, Dershowitz relates, one of his sons married a Gentile.) His difficulties in thinking through the issue came to a head in a debate with the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, which Dershowitz — a brilliant debater — admits having lost:
He asked me whether I wanted my children to marry Jews. Without hesitation, I said yes. Then he asked whether my desire was based on Halakah [Jewish law]. I said no. “Then,” he insisted, pointing a finger at me, “you are nothing but a racist.” I was taken aback by this strident accusation, but Kahane explained: “There are plenty of wonderful non-Jewish people who would make marvelous spouses for your children. Why are you excluding them all, unless you are obligated to exclude them by religious law? If you are merely expressing an ethnic preference for one of your own kind, that is the essence of racism.”
If Kahane was unkind in using the term “racist,” his basic point was right. What possible reason is there to remain Jewish if one lacks deep cultural and ethnic roots — now very rare among American Jews — unless one actually believes in Judaism as a religion?
Dershowitz simply has no convincing answer, although he does have some suggestions. “God is an important part of Judaism,” he graciously admits, but “God is not central to my particular brand of Jewishness.” And anyway, ” secular Judaism is an authentic form of Judaism.” Dershowitz wants an “open Judaism” that welcomes everyone who wants to call himself a Jew, and respects every form of Jewish practice.
Accordingly, though education is critical for Jewish survival, “we need educators who believe in Jewish education for education’s sake — as an end, not only as a means toward returning Jews to God.” That is, Jewish kids should not study Torah because God so commanded, they should study Torah because they should study Torah. And it is hard to see how even that would be fruitful, for “there is no singular Jewish position on abortion, euthanasia, or homosexuality, because these issues are different today than in Biblical, Talmudic, and medieval times.” Nor are the barriers between Judaism and other religions very well fixed: Dershowitz wants rabbis to perform intermarriages, and asks “that a prayer should be written specifically for the non-Jewish family members of Jews who attend High Holiday services.” His synagogue already has a prayer for agnostics; why not one for Christians?
The conclusion of Dershowitz’s book, and its capstone, is a call for a new international conference much like the Zionist conference of 1897. This ” worldwide Jewish conference to consider the Jewish future” would also be ” telecast live by satellite so that Jews throughout the world could participate via the Internet and e-mail.” As the Zionist conference called for a new Jewish state, this conference would help create “a new Jewish state of mind.”
Once again, one must wonder why someone as smart as Dershowitz comes up with something so lame. A new conference? E-mail?
Much of what Dershowitz has to say about American Jews along the way is persuasive. He flatly states that the popular view equating Jewish ethics with liberal politics is plain wrong. He writes at length about the desirability of education in Jewish law and ritual, and views it as imperative for Jewish survival. He is correctly dismissive of the “threat” of Christian efforts to convert Jews, noting that these result in few actual losses for the Jewish community.
He does, on the other hand, ride some hobby horses. His comments about the ultimate goals of the Christian Right verge on the loony. The Christian Right “wants to bring religious warfare to our shores,” and to destroy federalism so as to increase “the divisive influences of local power.” Prayer in schools and creches on city hall lawns “are simply the tactical stalking horses for a much larger war plan to turn the United States into a Christian theocracy in which Jews are actively proselytized and, if they do not convert, are deemed officially and legally to be — at best — second class citizens.” Jews who defend the Christian Right are “among our most extreme political conservatives,” a description that includes such dangerous radicals as Irving Kristol, the West Coast author and radio host Dennis Prager, and the Harvard literary scholar Ruth Wisse.
Dershowitz reveals the probable future for the “open” Judaism he favors in a remarkable analogy. He worries that Orthodox Jews are becoming more like the Amish: tribal, defensive, few in number, “a quaint sect whom tourists come to gape at and who have no influence on the outside world.” Whom, then, should Jews emulate? “If we open our minds and our schools,” Dershowitz says, “we will become more like the Quakers, whose schools are among the best in the world and whose message has enormous influence beyond their small numbers. ”
Now, it is a fact that every religious community in the United States has grown in size in the 20th century except the Unitarians and the Quakers. And it is a fact that Quakers now constitute less than one tenth of one percent of the 150 million American church members and less than one twentieth of one percent of the U.S. population. This extraordinary model — whose “enormous influence” is not immediately evident these days and whose great schools are, in any event, now filled with secularized Jewish students — well displays the ultimate bankruptcy of Dershowitz’s approach. “Jewishness” without Judaism does indeed mimic the Quaker model, and holds the prospect of someday making today’s demographic problems seem like a distant utopia.
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The words and the music don’t match.
Dershowitz supported an anti-Semite for president, someone who is irrationally hostile towards Israel.
I argue Jews will vanish for the same reason that Jews have always vanished.
Because anti-Semites kill them.
Embracing Judaism is highly recommended, but it must be accompanied by coherent behavior…which excludes voting for Jew haters.
Comment by ayn reagan — April 1, 2010 @ 12:22 am
I have read Mr Dershowitz’s writings. And I submit to you, despite his intellectual,educational,and Jewish credentials. He represents a muddled post modern manner of thinking.
(”The Quakers are a force to reakoned with”, Oh really?) Which at the end of the day will lead the Jewish people to the ultimate holocaust. He and his ilk in the White House are one hell of a lot more dangerous to Jews, than the Christian Right could ever be. Even if,you combined the Crusades, the Medival Catholic Church, and Hitler.
Without their God,the Jewish peole cannot survive demographically.
Neither can the Christians come to think of it. But we are much more numerous, it’ll take a while longer to deal with us.
Comment by highlander — April 1, 2010 @ 12:32 am
Israel’s Rebirth ‘A Boring Story’ To U.S. Jews
http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/720/israel-rebirth-a-boring-story-to-us-jews
Excerpt:
Why the disinterest?
Rahm Emanuel reportedly said, “I’ve had it with Israel.” I think a lot of Jews now feel that way. They’re tired of worrying about Israel, unendingly, from crisis to crisis . The Palestinians are the heroes of our victim-adoring age; accordingly, many liberal Jews have come to believe the Palestinian “Nakba” revision, the lies that turned a miracle into another Jewish blood libel.
But whatever their politics, modern Jews have little sense of history. I speak about the ‘48 war, and the lies about it that are now believed by too many Jews. For most U.S. Jews, the ‘48 war is an old and perhaps boring story. They saw “Exodus”; they don’t want to see it again. They don’t realize that history is the present, and that [post-Zionist] revisionist history is central to the attack on contemporary Israel. It is one of the manifold attempts to bring it down, first morally and then physically.
Comment by Laura — April 1, 2010 @ 1:30 am
I had an argument with a very liberal so-called Jewess yesterday who made the statement that Israel was no longer of interest to American Jews. I have never come so close to slapping a woman. Then I considered her ignorance and made the decision that she sreally was not a Jew and, if she got lost in the goyem crowd with no meaning to her life, good ridance. We Jews can do without people such as she. Jews, regardless of the persecutions, the killings, the anti-semitism, will be around long after all the other religions are dead and gone.
Comment by Ed D — April 1, 2010 @ 2:08 am
After she made that asinine comment, how did James Brolin respond?
Israel is an embarrassment to liberal American Jews.
They become uncomfortable when the subject arises around their anti-Semitic left wing allies.
They are hoping that Ahmadinejad keeps his promise and makes their embarrassment disappear.
Then liberal American Jews could reclaim their precious mantle of victimhood…without actually having been victimized.
Just like the Holocaust.
Comment by ayn reagan — April 1, 2010 @ 2:19 am
What do you suppose is the proportion of Jews who are actually Tanakh-believing - rather than simply cultural Jews?
Comment by Calvary — April 1, 2010 @ 3:22 am
This is why I believe that Israel ought to forgo the American Jewish community with the exception of the Orthodox and the small number of secular politically conservative Jews and reach out to the evangelical Christian community.
Comment by Laura — April 1, 2010 @ 7:08 am
Laura I agree with you mostly on the first part but; No need to forgo exactly, just not depend on them for anything
relevant or important to our wellbeing as Jews and as Israelis. Give them no say whatsoever.
Re: the second part:
“the small number of secular politically conservative Jews and reach out to the evangelical Christian community”.
Why do you think it necessary, vital even, that we reach out to Christians or anybody else for that matter? If Jews- or gentiles wish to support or favor Israel fine let them in their own way. We should never be placed in the position of reaching out or pleading for favors. We survived through the Yom Kippur war without their help, support and Even America as a government helped not at all but sided with our enemies and still does.
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________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________American Jews — numbered at 5,200,000 strong in 2000 — constitute the second largest and the most influential Jewish community in the World. Yet, that figure hardly provides the objective observer with any insight as to the community’s future viability. To glimpse such an insight, one must examine those twin scourges of Jewish life — Love and Hate, more formally known as Assimilation and Antisemitism.
The United Jewish Communities’ “National Jewish Population Survey 2000″ — a decennial demographic study — found that, due to a negative net birthrate (i.e., Jewish deaths exceeded Jewish births for that period), America’s Jewish population had declined by 300,000 souls from 1990 to 2000.
This translates to an average net loss of 82 Jews per day for that decade. This is hardly surprising in light of the study’s finding that 70% of Jewish women in the United States between the ages of 25 and 29 were childless.
However, Assimilation and a low birth rate are not the only problems facing the American Jewish community. In its June 2002 “Survey Of Antisemitism In America” the Anti-Defamation League found that one third of all Americans believe that Jews have “dual loyalties” (i.e., they are potentially treasonous) and that one fifth of all Americans believe that Jews have “too much power in the U.S. today” (i.e., they are potentially dangerous). Ironically, it was once perversely believed that the multiplicity of ethnic groups inhabiting America — constituting a plethora of inviting targets for the majority population’s hostility — would provide a bulwark against an obsessive hatred of American Jews. Instead, it seems that at least some of these immigrants simply brought their Jew-hatred with them, thereby finding at least some common ground with those Americans who had arrived before them.
The Message is clear. The American Exile will end, whether by Assimilation or Antisemitism — more likely, by a combination of both.
When the nation-state of Israel was resurrected in 1948, it was home to a mere 5% of World Jewry. Today, it constitutes the largest Jewish community in the World, and is home to 40% of World Jewry. And Israel’s Jewish community is the only one in the World with a positive net birthrate.
Due to ongoing terrorism and the enduring hostility of much of the World, Israel may not seem safe for the individual Jew. Yet, it is the only country in the World that is safe for the collective Jew.
Again, the Message is clear. If the Jewish people are to have a Future, it will only be found in Israel. American Jews can either be a part of that Future, or they can simply disappear.
At 5,200,000 strong, American Jewry will not vanish overnight. But its days are numbered; and so are its opportunities to fulfill its true destiny.
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[Note: According to Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, as summarized by the Jerusalem Post on February 26, 2008: “The survey found that Jews were aligned with the national averages in terms of marital status and divorce rates, but showed that the Jewish birth rate was the lowest among religious groups, with 72 percent of those polled replying that they had no children.”
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The devolution of the Jew: We are not what we once were. Once we were members of a religio-nation — Am Yisrael (the People of Israel) observing Torat Yisrael (the Torah of Israel) in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) — which accepted the yoke of the national as well as the personal mitzvot (commandments). But alas, after 2000 years of Exile, we look in the mirror and see, not a nation anymore, but only a religion.
All of the national mitzvot are forgotten and only the personal mitzvot remain. Unlike the national mitzvot, which are tethered to, and can only performed in, the Land of Israel under Jewish sovereignty, most of the personal mitzvot are portable. We have deceived ourselves into believing that, precisely because these are portable, their performance outside the Land of Israel pleases G-d. We have learned to accept this truncated form of Judaism, and we are content.
We are not what we once were. Once we possessed the Aron Brit HaShem (Ark of the Covenant), our holiest relic, which rested on Har HaBayit (Temple Mount), our holiest spot, in Jerusalem, our holiest city. Sometime during the First Temple period, the Aron Brit HaShem disappeared. When we returned to Jerusalem after the Babylonian Exile to rebuild the Temple, we accepted without anguish that the Aron was no longer among us. We have learned to live without it, and we are content.
We are not what we once were. Once we possessed Har HaBayit, our holiest spot. When the Romans destroyed the Second Temple they left a portion of its western retaining wall intact. In the millennia that followed, one empire after another took possession of Jerusalem and Har HaBayit.
Although we finally have the power to regain possession of Har HaBayit, we have long since transferred our allegiance and our prayers to that retaining wall — the Kotel HaMa’aravi (Western Wall). A gentile people, who hates us and denies the primacy of the G-d of Israel, now controls Har HaBayit, and we have accepted this without tearing our garments and without putting ash and sackcloth upon ourselves. We have learned to live without it, and we are content.
Those of us who stubbornly remain in the Diaspora have learned to live out our lives and to practice our “Judaism” without Eretz Yisrael, and we are content.
No Aron Brit HaShem, no Har HaBayit, and no Eretz Yisrael.
Sadly, we are not what we once were.
What are we becoming?
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Comment by yamit82 — April 1, 2010 @ 10:20 am
Dershowitz Kahane Debate in Boston:
All the questions and answers I think are brought up and answered in the debate:
Judaism vs. Liberalism
Comment by yamit82 — April 1, 2010 @ 11:31 am