Middle of the Road

The first thing that struck me about the Conservative movement's website was that it wasn't as bright, welcoming, and user-friendly as the Reform movement's. Maybe that just means they need a new webmaster, but the layout didn't make me want to explore it more. Although their site took political stances as well, they were not nearly as uniformly left-wing as the Reform website. Republicans or Democrats could call themselves Conservative without much conflict of interest. Instead, the site focused on more humanitarian issues that everyone (or just about) can get behind, like ending the genocide in Sudan. When the movement talked about itself, it seemed to take on a defensive posture. It constantly asserted that it DID have a clear mission statement and tried to make itself out as the best of all worlds. Maybe this posture comes from the general feeling that the Conservative movement is just an undefined "middle ground" that the article talks about.

Personally, I used to consider myself a Conservative Jew and was active in Koach here on campus. Even though I still like the services (I find them the most approachable of the three movements), the more I learned about the movement, the less I identified with it. Part of the problem is that even scholars and rabbis officially representing the movement couldn't seem to take a stand on religious issues. As the article states, main contributors to the Conservative movement differed in their conceptions of G-d. This disagreement is the main source for my confusion; when the concept of G-d is so hazy, why are the halakha binding? (Or is there no difference between laws that are in the Torah versus laws that were developed by rabbis?) A former rabbinic intern from JTS described the Torah as a product of "Divine inspiration." I'm still not sure exactly what this means. The Conservative website constantly emphasizes "history" and "historical continuity" pointing to an academic/critical approach to the Torah. But again, if the Torah was written by man, then why feel obligated to follow it today? I think this uncertainty adds to the development of the Conservative movement adapting its beliefs to the "trends" of the day. One of the biggest examples I've seen of this firsthand is my friend's Conservative rabbi who told him that premarital sex is okay. It seems like the rabbi is just telling his young congregants what they want to hear (or what they're going to do anyways) because he ignored a whole set of laws concerning the issue (like the mikvah, etc.).

Cheng's Version of Jews

One last thing about Cheng. Part of what bothered me about his article was the way in which he discussed the idea of victimhood being integral to Jewish identity. Throughout his article, he criticized various definitions of Jewish identity as adopting anti-Semitic standards either in theory or in practice. But then his own description of Today's Jew relied on stereotypes. Although he would casually reference the "midwestern Jew," his general definition of a Jew seemed to mirror his wife and her colleagues. In his world, Jews have to identify with the Holocaust and Israel because they are no longer victims in their countries. He constantly paints this portrait of an upper-middle class Jew with a cushy job who has never experienced anti-Semitism. Assumably that means said Jew must have grown up around a bunch of other Jews. I think this idea that Jews in Western countries today have completely assimilated into society and are totally accepted is nice, but false and uninformed. It's part of a new trend that wants to think of anti-Semitism as a "thing of the past." Maybe Jews in France aren't facing pogroms, but they also aren't allowed to wear yarmulkes and 25% of French people think that there are too many Jews in France, according to a survey. According to an FBI report, in the US in 2004, there were 954 hate crimes against Jews, 738 against male homosexuals, and 2,731 against African-Americans. And a friend of mine felt she had to let people call her "Jew Jew Bean" throughout high school in order to have friends.

I'm not saying all this to prove that Jews are victims; I just think that Cheng's frame of reference is skewed. There's a large spectrum of types of Jews as we are discovering and I think he glosses over the actual circumstances many of them are in in order to make his point that Jews today are adopting an unexperienced victimhood. I think every group uses examples of hardships it has overcome in order to help form a cohesive identity, but any group that defines itself soley on those hardships could not have survived for thousands of years.

Hipster Jews

Something Cheng mentioned reminded me of this article posted in the NYTimes, "A Happy Hipster Hanukkah." Stephanie Rosenbloom reviewed a Chanukah party held here in NYC called "A Jewcy Chanukah," featuring a bunch of Jewish comics and the Leevees. (I really wanted to go, but sadly, it was smack in the middle of finals.) I linked to the full article below. I think this event personifies the idea of a "cultural Jew" that Cheng touches on. He mentions young Jews who read Hebe magazine and talk about Jewish gansters. It's weird, but I think the latest identity fad is that of the Jew. Maybe it started with the "Everyone Loves a Jewish Girl" Tshirts, but it seems like a lot more Jews (including ones who wouldn't consider themselves "practicing" Jews) are proudly touting their heritage with T-shirts that say "Shayna Punim" or Vote-for-Kerry buttons in Hewbrew. What's so interesting about this to me is that for a long time, the concept of someone considering themselves culturally Jewish, but completely divorcing themselves from the religion, really confused me. Perhaps this is because I did not grow up in NY or LA where there was a large Jewish community. There was a huge lack of Jewish pride among the young people at my high school; I seriously doubt anyone would wear a Jewish Girl tee. Most of the Jews would try to downplay their Jewish background in order to be accepted. (I was considered practically militant because I wouldn't laugh at anti-Semitic jokes.) Anyways, on one hand, I think this kitschy Jewish trend is a good thing because it allows young Jews to proclaim their heritage and feel accepted even if they aren't a traditional Jew. On the other hand, a fad, by definition, eventually goes out of style. In another five years, will it no longer be cool to be a Jew? Will there be a backlash against Jews like you could say there has been against homosexuals after the popularity of "Will and Grace" and "Queer Eye"? Furthermore, when the trend goes out of style, what will be left? Is Jewish identity predicated on a T-shirt and jelly doughnuts? I think this is why the idea of solely basing Jewish identity on cultural factors worries me. It's like some of the people cited in Cheng said--when culture is gone, all that is left is religion itself. A talking canine puppet, of all things, echoes this statement in the article:

"Triumph the Insult Comic Dog riffed on that topic on Sunday night. 'Jewcy is the bold new movement of cool Jews,' Triumph said, his gravelly voice dripping with sarcasm. 'Yeah, we want to be cool. We're Jews, like the Beasties! We don't want to be nerdy, like Einstein.' Then he admonished: 'Crack open a Torah. Learn something. That's right! I'm lecturing you bitches!'

The lecture came lovingly gift wrapped in humor, but like many jokes it contained an element of truth. 'It's not just a kitschy subject matter,' Mr. Smigel said later. 'It can be reduced to that, and that's a fear of the older generation. I feel very lucky that I got to get a real education in the religion.''

FULL ARTICLE

Reform Jews = Hippies?

One interesting thing about the Reform Judaism website (www.urj.org) was that although it seemed to want to make Judaism really accessible to everyone, it was extremely hard to find the page that explained what exactly reform Judaism is. You actually had to click on "Conversions," and if I were casually glancing at the site, I wouldn't have clicked on that. The site said that Reform Judaism was about bringing Judaism into the modern era, and many of the images and services on the site backed that up. There was an icon of an ipod that you can receive torah portions on and they offered daily E-mails with "10 minute lessons in Judaism." They really were bringing Judaism into the technological age and showing people that they can incorporate it into their daily lives. A lot of the people who were in charge of this education were not rabbis, but education experts.

Another thing that stood out about the site was that it took a lot of stands on current political issues. Its stances sounded like they came from a Democratic or progressive website. It asked people to take a stand against Alito and stand up for gay and lesbian rights. That really emphasized the idea of Reform Judaism being about the relationship between the religious and the secular world instead of isolating itself from the secular world.

One thing that surprised me was how open the movement is to conversions. They actually seek them out and encourage them, unlike what I know from the other movements (like an Orthodox rabbi sending a potential convert away three times before letting him begin learning). While I think it's important to be welcoming to potential new members of a community, the idea of Reform Jews seeking out and encouraging converts made me uneasy because one of the things about Judaism that I had always been proud of was the fact that it doesn't try to evangelicize people.

Inauthentic

Cheng's article reminds me of a conversation I had with a non-Jewish friend Jennifer about Birthright Israel. I told her about a friend of mine who was contemplating going on it. His father was a Jew-turned-Quaker, his mother a Christian-turned-Quaker, and he was a practicing Quaker. I thought that it wasn't right that he was twisting the system, calling himself Jewish when he wasn't, at least not in my eyes. Then Jennifer told me that the Birthright program allows anyone to go who has at least Jewish grandparents, much to my surprise. This conversation led Jennifer to ask me how exactly do you define a Jew, and I found it really hard to explain (much to her confusion). I think many times you end up deeming someone "Jewish" on a case-by-case basis. There are so many categories and caveats, as Cheng points out, that in the end I think it ends up being a "feeling" you have after learning about the person's situation.

Cheng discusses one version of Jewish identity; that of the perpetual victim. I think that this is an identity less and less assumed by Jewish people today. Perhaps Cheng is not getting the full picture. On one hand, there is a deep connection to or a common reference to a history of oppression or discrimination, but I think today it is many times employed wryly. Instead of embracing victimhood, Jews are using humor to manipulate the subject, making them victims no longer. Furthermore, I've found that more Jews who are searching for a sense of Jewish identity that is void of actually religion concentrate more on the positive accomplishments of other Jews. I have seen more non-Jews define Jewishness as victimhood. Particularly, a surprisingly large number of non-Jews in the Czech Republic have recently converted to Judaism because they feel a connection to the religion based on their experiences living under the Nazi and then Communist regimes. (A situation similar to the one in Poland that Cheng discusses).

Part of me thinks that perhaps the view of Jews as "an expiring people" as Wieseltier dubbed it actually works in favor on their promulgation. A constant pressure that the group is dying out forces people to define that group, feel more attached to and protective of it, and thus makes them care more about the religion of that child.

I thought some of the discussion of the Holocaust was offensive. There is a difference between not wanting a city to always "be in mourning" and building a night club on top of a major former-concentration camp. It is not as if hundreds of years have passed; people whose families were killed there are still alive. To put something like a dance club there is inappropriate. Many cities recognize the historical importance of former factories or buildings and do not let people destruct them. I think Auschwitz qualifies. Furthermore, every year, Jews remember the 400 years they spent as slaves in Egypt. This rememberance does not constitute an identity of victimhood. It is one important story in the context of a larger, vibrant history. I think the rememberance of the Holocaust is similar. Every year, Jews are supposed to say that G-d rescued "us" from slavery; that "we," not just our anscenstors were slaves in Egypt. Taking on part of the memory of the Holocaust experience may be a continuation of this tradition. One can also view it as an example of the strength of Jews to overcome some even as horrifying as the Holocaust.

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Just seeing if this thing works. More posts on Jewish Identity Today to follow.