According to the New York Times article, “Challenging tradition, young Jews worship on their own terms,” as well as anecdotal evidence, religion appears to play a stronger role in connecting American Jews in their 20’s and 30’s to Judaism than in previous generations.
American Jews like me whose commitment to the Jewish people stems from a cultural/nationalistic/ethical affiliation are a dying breed. I am concerned that this trend will adversely affect secular Jewish organizations. Can any strategic action be taken to postpone, much less prevent, this inevitable shift, thereby preserving the tradition of Jewish political advocacy as an attractive affiliation option?
Looking at the larger picture, demographic studies have shown that American Jews from all denominations whose primary connection to Judaism is religious or spiritual assimilate at much lower rates than those who describe their connection as cultural or nationalistic.
The Jewish community as a whole faces a parallel challenge: how to tie together the personal quest for Jewish meaning, as exemplified by the worshipping trend described in the New York Times article, into the collective Jewish experience and the common narrative of the Jewish people.
In his recent book The Jew Within: Self, Family, and Community in America, co-authored with Arnold Eisen, Professor Steven M. Cohen of Hebrew University writes of the growing popularity of “private Judaism.” Unlike public Judaism, private Judaism emphasizes spirituality and family, and, Cohen and Eisen argue, is linked to the trend of “increased alienation” regarding Israel and other political affiliations.
Decades before terms like public and private Judaism came into use, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan realized that the uniqueness of American society encouraged Jewish religious expression. In a 1939 article criticizing the legendary Zionist Ahad Ha’am for not comprehending the special conditions of democracy, Kaplan wrote: “Secular culture in itself is not capable of sustaining our people in a democratic environment, much as abstract religion could not do so. Only religious culture, which unites the positive qualities of both, can do so.”
Kaplan then illustrated how American society, from its social practices to its very Constitution, perfectly accommodates just such a religious culture. American Jews, wrote Kaplan, should strive to emulate American Catholics as a religious denomination that is also internationally-linked, especially in the then-hypothetical scenario of the establishment of a Jewish State.
These sentiments also recall Arthur Hertzberg’s landmark 1986 book, The Jews of America, which describes the uneasiness of the Jewish encounter with America as a religious country, the Jewish community’s poor, uncultured, and anti-religious roots, and the development of “Jewishness” in place of traditional, more religious forms of Judaism. Because, as Hertzberg writes, American Jews “made their spiritual life out of solving their problems or other people’s problems, [making the community’s] inmost Jewish content activism (p. 333),” the “momentum of Jewish experience in America is essentially spent (p. 386).”
I wouldn’t herald the demise of the American Jewish community on account of its secularism, but Hertzberg’s claim that American Jewry can only survive by embracing its religion is noteworthy indeed.
It is also interesting to examine the role of Israel in the decline of non-religious forms of affiliation among American Jews. In the following prophetic paragraph from his 1978 masterpiece World of Our Fathers, Irving Howe predicted with astonishing accuracy the so-called “continuity crisis” which originated with the earth-shattering statistic of a near-50 percent rate of intermarriage as reported in the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey, and continues to the present day.
According to Howe, Israel’s peril might have postponed the crisis, but Jewish assimilation was rendered inevitable by the accepting (but religious) nature of American society and the decline of secular forms of Jewish affiliation:
For the majority of American Jews who regarded themselves as either secular or indifferent, the question of what it meant to remain a Jew grew increasingly difficult [with the emergence of the State of Israel]. Less and less could ‘Jewishness’ be described as a common culture, the substance of shared immigrant life. With a fair display of logic, some Jews concluded that, since they were not religious and had passed beyond the boundaries of Yiddishkeit, their ‘Jewishness’ was not central to their lives, it was a mere accident of birth, and while they did not propose to cringe in shame, neither did they have much taste for parochial assertions. They preferred to see themselves as good Americans, or good liberals, or good human beings. . . Almost all Jews agreed that Israel had to be helped, nurtured, and kept alive. Some felt this with a kindled passion, others with uncertainty, still others with embarrassment; but except for tiny sects of ideologues fringing the far right and far left, all believed that the survival of Israel was a necessity. Helping Israel thereby became a major communal activity among American Jews, undertaken with the usual range of styles from reflectiveness to busyness. But if one could establish oneself as a Jew by ‘working for Israel’, then one might put aside all these irksome spiritual and metaphysical problems life was now imposing on all nonreligious Jews. This was neither an unworthy nor a dishonorable evasion – first comes survival and then definition. But it left a growing mound of intellectual debts which sooner or later would have to be paid (p. 629-630).
Despite Howe’s Cassandran warning, when “these irksome spiritual and metaphysical problems” resurfaced in 1990, the American Jewish establishment was shocked to find that assimilation finally demanded its pound of flesh.
AJC, through its ACCESS Program, is one of the few Jewish advocacy organizations which has found new and creative ways to engage a new generation of potential Jewish leaders in their 20’s and 30’s and provides them with unique opportunities for organizational involvement. Although its very nature prevents AJC from tapping into religious affiliation, through ACCESS, AJC cultivates an intellectual interest in Judaism, which in many cases is linked to a spiritual interest and is present in the same individuals. ACCESS’s challenge, as I see it, is how to marry a social/political action agenda with a Jewish continuity agenda.
Is there any way that political advocacy organizations can tap into this religious fervor and use it in tandem with existing programming? How can these organizations retain their relevance in a changing landscape of affiliation both in the Jewish community and in American society as a whole? And how much of this new religious affiliation is merely a yearning for spiritual self-realization rather than a true expression of Jewish peoplehood?
Dylan Tatz is AJC’s executive assistant for strategic planning.
Really interesting post!! I’m an Argentinean Jew, and here most Jews relate to our Jewishness not through religion but through Jewish culture and Zionism. Maybe that’s because Argentinean society is extremly secular, while the US society is more religious (here nobody asks a candidate if he/she goes to church!!).
So maybe you can visit us and we’ll show you how we struggle to keep a vibrant non-observant Jewish community…
We secular, but identified Jews of a certain age applaud young adults like Mr. Tatz. However, institutions alone cannot instill meaning in young Jewish lives. Parents must talk to their children, keep the holidays, tell the stories - both the holiday stories and each family’s stories. Holidays for secular Jews can be filled with special foods, music, dancing, candle-lighting and, always, stories.
Every American family was once an immigrant family. Therefore, every family has stories of its origins. If parents leave acculturization to television and pop music, their children will identify with what is presented by the popular media. The responsibility as well as the fun begin at home.
There are no Jews without Judaism. Jewish identity was never separable from religious belief. This is the meaning of the history of the Maccabees. The attempt by the Hellenizers to create a “secular” Jewishness doomed the Jewish people to assimilation or disappearance.Only the military defeat of the secularists by those “zealous” for religious tradition enabled the Jewish people to survive. For better or for worse, Judaism is a religion, not a “culture,” not even a “civilization.” It is certainly not a political movement or “political activism.” A “secular” Jewishness and Jewish identity can only exist in a society that excludes and discriminates against Jews, which makes their “identity” externally imposed. This secular “identity” disappears automatically when Jews either are given a chance to assimilate into a prosperous society, or when on the contrary, Jews are exterminated (which is what happened in Europe).
John Landau’s comments are absolutely correct and especially appropriate during the time of Chanukah. Perhaps we can extrapolate further in what is happening in Israel today. The problems in Israel today stem from the fact that most Israelis and its leaders view Israel as a “secular” Jewish state. By disassociating ourselves from our religion, we are giving up our rightful claim to the land of Israel. The Arabs and Palestinians are only too aware of our weakness, and will not stop until they have claimed the entire land of Israel. The only way that Israel can survive is to recognize that Israel is a Jewish “Democratic” State, not a state for Jews. We should be proud of our religion and heritage, and be proud to be a Jew. If we are, no one will be able to stop us.
Did you know that most Jews in Israel cannot complete the following phrase - Avraham, Yizhak and ??? Over 60% of IDF soldiers have never visited the Wailing/Western Wall. How can Israel continue to exist if the new generation doesn’t even know what it is fighting for? Is it enough to just have a feeling of being Jewish? How long can this feeling last without a Jewish education? Zionism has to be nurtured not just through our culture and traditions, but through our religion as well, or else what we end up with is just a dilution of values.
Landau, you’ve totally missed Hannukah’s message. Secularism is not equal to Assimilation. I’m the fourth generation of Secular Jews (three generations living in a free country) and I have a Jewish girlfriend and we plan to, someday, marry and have Jewish kids..
Am I such a mistake?? How about most Israeli Jews, who are not observant??
Mr. Tatz wrote:
“And how much of this new religious affiliation is merely a yearning for spiritual self-realization rather than a true expression of Jewish peoplehood?”
Serious Jewish religious affiliation inevitabily leads one to a greater sense of Jewish peoplehood. In the case of males, the halacha requires it. You (ideally) must meet with at least nine other Jews three times a day to say prayers which review some of the basic ideas of Judaism, ideas that are often in great contrast to the outlook of modern, non-Jewish culture.
You (ideally) must study the historical Jewish perspective as recorded in the Talmud and related sources. This connects you not only with our history, but with Jews all over the world who are studying the same things and strenghthening our common culture that has survived and will survive, and has kept us alive and conscious of our existance as a people apart, apart although involved.
There is a double meaning to the term “secularist,” whose divergent senses lie at the crux of the difficulty in engaging Jews both politically and religiously: There are secular Jews who defected from their observant upbringings and there are secular Jews who never had religious upbringings to begin with.
As the New York Times article claims (and as my own experience supports), the trend of independent minyanim is spurred by Jews in the former category. These Jews seek a new form of Jewish community which caters to their already existing religious interests and concerns for social justice. As the article states, they are seeking “an experience they are not finding in traditional Jewish institutions.”
Though there are exceptions, independent minyanim most often appeal to Jews who already have a sense of Jewish tradition and peoplehood, and not as often to Jews who have never had a framework for practicing - or learning - about their Judaism. As formal Jewish institutions often bemoan, it is Jews in this latter category who are more difficult to bring into the fold.
Political advocacy organizations should not have to try hard to tap into these communities, since these communities have formed with political concerns already in mind. Practical community outreach is reason enough for advocacy organizations to send people to visit these minyanim (if their representatives are not already members), and there they’ll find that there already exists room for engagement.
As for reigning in Jews of the latter category, it’s a matter of constantly reminding one’s self of the necessity to bring new people into the fold. There is a tendency for communities - whether religious or political - to become so settled within themselves that they fail to maintain a constant air of introduction. It is challenging to simultaneously make people feel like they are coming back to a familiar place while giving fresh welcome to the newcomers. Perhaps the very fact that Jewish advocacy organizations are not religiously affiliated can help them integrate Jews who do not have a history of religious practice.