American Jewry in the 21st Century
Sermon, September 3, 2004
Rabbi Bruce Kadden
More than one Jewish leader, in discussing the future of the American Jewish
community, has paraphrased the famous phrase which opens Charles Dickens’ A
Tale of Two Cities: “It is the best of times; it is the worst of times.”
What is it about Judaism at the beginning of the 21st century that
evokes this schizophrenic appraisal? Why are some leaders optimistic, some
pessimistic and some both optimistic and pessimistic at the same time? These
are the questions I want to explore this evening as I conclude my series of
sermons celebrating 350 years of American Judaism.
Let me begin by examining some of the significant concerns that leaders
express when they look at the Jewish community today. Jonathan Sarna, in his
book American Judaism, explains the “long-standing fear that Jews in
America are doomed to assimilate.”
“In America, where religion is totally voluntary, where religious diversity
is the norm, where everyone is free to choose his or her own rabbi and his or
her own brand of Judaism—or indeed, no Judaism at all—many, and not just
rabbinical school scholars, have assumed that Judaism is fated sooner or later
to disappear. Freedom, the same quality that made American so alluring for
persecuted faiths, also brought with it the freedom to make religious choices:
to modernize Judaism, to assimilate, to intermarry, to convert.”
The first thing to realize is that these concerns are not new. They have
been reiterated in virtually every generation of American Judaism and often in
previous generations of Jewish history. One historian, in fact, has commented
on this phenomenon, saying that we are an ever dying people. There does indeed
seem to be a built-in pessimism to the Jewish people, perhaps nurtured due to
centuries of persecution.
That is not to say, of course, that the concerns are not real and should not
be taken seriously. Rather, it means that we must put them in perspective and
examine them in the context of Jewish history, knowing that our people has faced
trials and adversity often, and has endured.
Indeed, rather than seeing these issues as problems or threats, I prefer to
consider them as challenges and opportunities. Sometimes, the way we approach
an issue from the start in large measure dictates how successful we are at
responding to the issue. If we have an alarmist of defeatist attitude we are
likely, in the end, to be defeated. But if we are hopeful and optimistic,
without being naďve, we often will prevail.
Take intermarriage, for example. For much of Jewish history, intermarriage
was viewed as a threat, eroding Judaism and the Jewish community. Jews married
non-Jews as a ticket out of the Jewish community. There are plenty of
historical examples to confirm this evaluation. So, when the intermarriage rate
significantly increased in the second half of the 20th century,
Jewish leaders sounded the alarm and pulled out all stops to discourage it.
This alarmist attitude prevented Jewish leaders from realizing that there was
something quite different about this wave of intermarriage. It was no longer,
automatically a ticket out of Judaism. Many men who married non-Jewish women
–it was mostly men who intermarried at that time—still wanted to be part of the
Jewish community.
It took quite some time for Jewish leaders to wake up to this new reality.
But in the 1970’s a few courageous and creative leaders, such as Alexander
Schindler of the UAHC, who virtually invented Outreach, recognized that
intermarriage was as much an opportunity as it was a calamity.
These leaders recognized that the increased intermarriage rate was a direct
consequence of the open, accepting society that emerged in the 1960s and
continued through the rest of the century. Barriers, which once had prevented
Jews from interacting with non-Jews, had fallen by the wayside. If Jews live
among non-Jews, go to school with non-Jews and work with non-Jews, then Jews and
non-Jews are bound to fall in love. And leaders finally realized that when two
people are in love, there is virtually nothing that parents, rabbis or the
Jewish community can do to prevent them from marrying.
And since virtually no one is advocating a return to the days of Jewish
ghettos and Jewish isolation from the non-Jewish community, Jews falling in love
with and marrying non-Jews is something we have to live with. But that does not
mean that there is nothing that we can and should be doing in response to this
reality.
As Rabbi Schindler and others recognized, intermarriage was a significant
opportunity. Many non-Jewish partners were open to exploring Judaism and either
becoming Jewish or supporting their Jewish partners in raising their children as
Jews. By establishing programs to encourage and nurture these couples,
including recognizing children of Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers as Jews
if they are raised Jewish, the Reform movement has revolutionized the way we
respond to intermarriage. It is no longer a threat, but an opportunity; it is
no longer a reason to say Kaddish, but a time for hope and creative response.
Intermarriage remains a significant issue in the 21st century.
The percentage of Jews marrying non-Jews remains high, more than 50 percent in
some parts of the country. A minority of these couples chooses to affiliate
with a synagogue, and an even smaller percentage chooses to give their children
a Jewish education. So we still have our work cut out for us. But considering
intermarriage to be an opportunity rather than a calamity, and welcoming these
couples into our community are important steps toward effectively dealing with
this challenge.
Assimilation is a more serious challenge and in many ways a more difficult
one to respond to. Like intermarriage, it is the result of living in a free and
open society in which one may choose to opt out of the Jewish community. Many
Jews choose to do just that.
Of course, it is not only Jews who do so. The Pacific Northwest has the
highest rate of people not affiliated with any religious community, according to
Professor Patricia Killen of Pacific Lutheran University. Many people who move
here want to be free of religion and those who make that choice find it
validated by many others.
In my early years as a rabbi I thought that we could reach unaffiliated Jews
if we just had the right programs and the right approach. I soon learned that
it is a much more complicated issues and that many people are unaffiliated by
choice and want nothing whatsoever to do with the Jewish community. Others are
quite satisfied to be on the periphery, a member of Hadassah or B’nai B’rith,
perhaps supporting Israel or the Anti-Defamation League, but have no interest in
being part of a local Jewish community.
Nevertheless, there are still many Jews who might become members. The best
way to attract these Jews is to offer a wide variety of services and programs,
publicize these programs throughout the community, and create a welcoming and
nurturing community that embraces all who enter its doors.
Furthermore, we must put greater resources into our educational programs for
children, because providing children with solid Jewish education is the best
antidote to assimilation that we can offer.
Finally, let me briefly mention another significant concern that will affect
the future of the Jewish community: the low birth rate. Simply put, we are not
reproducing ourselves. In the past, we could always rely upon immigration to
increase our numbers, but that is not the case anymore.
We are an aging community; we are a shrinking community. Recent national
Jewish population studies have confirmed this fact. In the past, Jewish
communal leaders –always men—have responded to this concern by chastising women
to go home and have more babies.
As more women have moved into leadership roles, and men have become more
sensitive to this issue, the response has evolved to focus on the creation of
day care and early childhood opportunities which make it easier for women who
want to remain in the work force to feel supported when they choose to have
children.
Now that we have looked at some of the reasons for pessimism, let’s examine
some of the reasons for optimism. Those who are excited about the Jewish future
point to the incredible increase in educational opportunities beginning with the
explosion of Jewish studies on college campuses. In addition, there have been
significant increases in recent years in the number of Jewish Day Schools, adult
education programs, programs for Jewish college students, and more Jewish summer
camps and other informal educational opportunities.
Education at all levels is at the center of the Jewish national agenda.
There is renewed interest in such topics as healing, spirituality and
mysticism. There is a Jewish renaissance occurring providing more opportunities
for serious Jewish study and enrichment than ever before.
These are just a few of the reasons to be quite optimistic about the Jewish
future in America. Challenges which the community faced early in the 20th
century such as severe anti-Semitism and discrimination are virtually gone.
These challenges have been replaced by others, most notably intermarriage and
assimilation, but as we have seen if we consider them to be opportunities, we
can respond effectively to them to enrich our community.
Indeed, as Dr. Sarna concludes, “Over and over again for 350 years one finds
that Jews in America rose to meet the challenges both internal and external that
threatened Jewish continuity.” The story of Jews in America, he argues is “a
story of a people who lose their faith and a story of people who regain their
faith, a story of assimilation, to be sure, but also a story of revitalization.”
Early in the 21st century, Judaism still faces assimilation and
other significant challenges. At the same time, the Jewish community has
responded to these challenges with services and programs that indicate a
significant revitalization or Jewish life. We therefore should be cautiously
optimistic about the future of Judaism. Embracing the lessons that we have
learned from the first 350 years, we face the future with hope and excitement
and an enduring commitment to our faith and people.
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