Tevya, Torah, and Jewish Identity:Part IV: Post-racial Judaism

"It's not enough to survive. One has to be worthy of surviving."
-Commander William Adama, Battlestar Galactica (2008)

Last week, in the comments, drj made an interesting prediction:

The questions raised here go to the heart of the debate of whether Judaism is a religion or a nation (or both)... Personally I believe that Jews are primarily a nation, and Judaism is the remnant of their ancient faith. I think that Israelism/Zionism (for all its problems) is destined to replace what we know as Diaspora Judaism, which will most likely disappear in the future.

drj is looking ahead to the post absolute-truth world. Judaism and the Jewish race will merge with the greater human race. The only thing left of Judaism is Israel, defined not by religion but by nationhood. This concept of nationhood is something that comes up again and again. It is how my father, and many other Jews, see Judaism. They fear that intermarriage threatens the future of Jews as a distinct nation.

But what does nationhood really mean?

I worry that, for Jews, nationhood has become a euphemism for race. Sure, we Jews accept converts. On the other hand, most Jews don't proselytize, so ~98% of Jews are born into this "nation." And what does Jewish nationhood entail? Jewish rituals, Jewish foods, and of course fraternizing with and marrying other Jews. We don't want to call ourselves a race, so we call ourselves a nation. But if Jews are a nation, then it is not a nation like America. It's a nation like Iran, dominated by a common culture, race, religious tradition, language, and history.

Is that the Israel we want? Nationhood on its own is no more a purpose than race. And just like race, nationhood for its own sake can be counterproductive.

Modern Judaism encourages its young people to marry Jewish. Sure, you can make friends with non-Jews. You can even date them if you like. Just don't marry them. Shiksas, the old joke goes, are for practice.

This joke is no longer funny. In fact, it never was. The only reason the joke was ever acceptable is that it was made between Jewish buddies. The joke displays a lack of empathy - a failure by Jews to identify with other races and other peoples. It illustrates the dangers of a double standard that lets non-Jews into our living rooms, but not into our bedrooms.

This is not to say that all Jews are racists. My Modern Orthodox family is not racist. A little ethnocentrist, yes. But not racist. Ultimately, though, Judaism is more than just a nation. It's also a religious tradition. To me, the latter is actually more significant than the former (a radical statement, I know!). It means that we put forth a particular moral point of view to the world. And we are responsible for that point of view. Not being racist just isn't enough. Discrimination of any kind weakens our street cred.

I understand a point of view that, on halakhic grounds, opposes intermarriage. However, if you're going to adopt that point of view, you should consult with a rabbi and take a halakhic approach, as we discussed last time. And I think you have a responsibility to compensate, in one way or another, for the racial wedge you drive between Jews and everybody else. If you're sending your kids to an all-Jewish day school, you should encourage them to make friends with non-Jewish kids, as well (e.g. by having them join a childrens' orchestra).

Personally, I'm in the camp that considers interracial/religious dating and marriage a positive force, both for Judaism and for the world. The great unification that is going on, the reversal of the mythological dispersal from Babylon, is something we all should be celebrating. As races and peoples mix, the old divisions fall away. If you want to mow down anti-Semitism, this is the way to do it. I recently discussed my interracial dating with a friend in his fifties. "I think it's great," he told me. "I really think you kids are our best hope for peace."

I would like to see Judaism survive - I think we have something to offer the world. But on the other hand, if it can only survive by discrimination then maybe it's not worth saving.


The fictional Tevya's mantra is "TRADITION!" Tevya was always following tradition but never asking why. Today, the same kind of groupthink surrounds the topic of Jewish survival. "SURVIVAL!"

I can understand that Jewish survival has become a big deal. The Holocaust put it at the forefront of everybody's mind. In America, the threat to survival has been cast in terms of assimilation. Survival has become such a big deal to American Jewry that almost nobody asks what we're all surviving for.

In last week's comments, the Hedyot had an inspired response to JP along these lines:

JP: Any Jewish community where people feel free to marry gentiles will simply cease to exist.

Hedyot: This says more about the sorry state of OJ than anything else. You're acknowledging here that OJ does not have any staying power on its own and can only survive by forcing people to conform.

Hedyot is suggesting something radical: that Judaism could be so vibrant, so compelling, that it shouldn't need to force itself on anybody. It could attract people on its own.

Or as drj eloquently puts it:

There is now a free marketplace of ideas--competing faiths, science, philosophies, etc, in which people choose what they believe. You can't force a person into believing (other than total brainwashing in childhood) by any of your "techniques"... Orthodox Judaism simply fails to compete in the marketplace of ideas.

While drj singles out Orthodox Judaism, we might just as easily demand a compelling value proposition from any of the major Jewish denominations. I think this is a wonderful way to reframe the debate over Jewish survival.

Why be Jewish? That's the question we should all be asking. Young Jews are hungry for a reason to stay Jewish. This is a new age. Young people have a lot of options, spiritually, politically, and in their careers. They also have a lot of friends, with very different upbringings, cultures, and faiths. This is a good thing, this is progress. But the age of absolute truth is over, there are new questions and the Jewish establishment has failed to answer them. The world is shrinking, and if Judaism is to survive, it will need to convince the generations to come that it is worthy of survival.

How do we do that?

You'd think that a lot of Jewish rabbis and authors would be addressing this question. But very few do. Either people don't feel comfortable asking Why Be Jewish, or people don't feel like it's an important question.

One person who did ask why was R. Meir Kahane. Twenty-five years ago, he wrote a book entitled "Why Be Jewish: Intermarriage, Assimilation, and Alienation (1983)." His basic premise is correct: denominational Judaism has failed to provide a compelling reason to be Jewish. But Kahane's alternative - right wing nationalist, Orthodox Judaism - has its own problems. Kahane fails to address the underlying reasons for Jewish Reform. In a post-enlightenment, globalized world, absolute truth and ethnocentrism are no longer compelling value propositions.

When I first noticed Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry (2006) by Scott Shay, I was excited. The title and reviews made it sound like this guy was really rethinking Judaism. But when I actually got the book in the mail, I was sorely disappointed. Far from rethinking Judaism, Scott Shay fails to even ask the question Why Be Jewish. Instead, he starts his first chapter by asserting once again that intermarriage is the major problem in American Jewish life. Shay advocates a harder line against intermarriage, more Jewish day schools, and an enhanced observance of halakha. Basically, his book is a polemic in favor of making Conservative Judaism more like Modern Orthodoxy.

The problem with this, again, is that ikaro chasar min hasefer - he's not addressing the main issue. The main issue is, Why Be Jewish? Shay's book assumes that Judaism is a positive force in the world. But he does not prove that this is true. And I don't see how endorsing racial/religious marital discrimination and segregated, religious-minded day schools possibly meets this criterion.

The best of the new books is R. Arthur Blecher's The New American Judaism: The Way Forward on Challenging Issues from Intermarriage to Jewish Identity (2007). Blecher takes aim at the very foundations of what he calls Denominational Judaism – the divisions of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform which have been so contentious over the years. In a truly original work, Blecher argues that much of what we are taught as American Jews is simply not true. Contrary to popular belief, the Jewish population in America is steadily increasing. American celebration of Jewish culture is greater and higher-profile than ever before. The shtetl culture romanticized in Fiddler on the Roof is a fictional construct that does not accurately depict old-world Judaism. And intermarried couples, based on hundreds of interviews that Blecher has conducted personally, still raise their kids at least in part as Jews.

Blecher's book is required reading. But while he does a good job of debunking the myths, his book falls short of answering Why Be Jewish. In terms of Jewish survival, his approach is to stop blaming everything on intermarried couples and start proselytizing instead. But I think proselytizing without a compelling value proposition is a waste of time. Furthermore, the idea of trying to convince somebody to join your religion seems a little outdated. Beyond this, Blecher specifically avoids trying to "predict the future." I'm sure he's got ideas, though, and I look forward to hearing them in his next book.



Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all value proposition for Judaism. Why Be Jewish is a personal question. The correct answer, if there is one, is that Judaism is inside of you. If you were not born Jewish, perhaps something you were born with draws you to the religion or nation. If you have some Jewish heritage, perhaps something you were exposed to stuck.

It helps to know yourself. For me, it's not God, or Israel, or even Shabbat dinner that draws me to Judaism. It's the texts. Looking back, that's the only thing I've ever really connected to, the learning and the teaching. I like reading the thoughts of scholars 2,000 years old, putting myself in that world. I like discovering their secrets, and sharing them. Especially when they coincide, as they often do, with the values I cherish most: empathy, kindness, tolerance, open-mindedness, and reason.

Others will find their own Why Bes. The key to Jewish survival lies in our confidence in these Why Bes, and in our ability to create new ones, as we have for many years. This is our compelling value proposition. It's the only one we've got left, and the only one we've ever really had.

Is this picking and choosing? Absolutely YES! But the world is different today. People are not one thing or the other. And no one has time to be everything all at once.

If Judaism's going to survive, it has to look less like a trail of ancestors and more like a channel on Youtube. You go, you sample, you find what you like, maybe you become a subscriber. Maybe you just watch certain videos, maybe you leave a comment, maybe you post some videos of your own. The channel is open to the entire world, anyone who cares to tune in. Sure, there will be those who choose to tune out entirely. But there will also be those, like those Koreans studying Tanach at Hebrew U, who feel inexplicably drawn to some piece of Judaism.

There is hope for post-racial Judaism within this model. Not by proselytizing, as Blecher suggests, but rather by encouraging everyone to explore Judaism and find the parts within it that appeal to him or her. Hillel, the Jewish college organization, stresses Jewish "ownership" - helping students feel connected, committed, and in control of their Jewishness. The beauty of post-racial Judaism is that it broadens the ownership of Judaism exponentially in the larger population of the world. This does more than simply mow down the weeds of anti-Semitism. It raises the question of "Why Be Jewish" to the entire world.

Mixed-race kids are a good example. Blecher reports that a clear trend has emerged among intermarried couples (who, by the way, tend to be Jewish-Catholic): they raise their children with dual identities. This would seem on the surface to be a contradiction: how can a family light a Hannuka Menorah with a Christmas tree in the background? And yet, all Americans already have dual identities. We have our ethnic identities, and our common identity as Americans. Most of us do not feel a conflict between our two identities. We feel inspired lighting a Menorah, and we well up with pride at the national anthem. The children of mixed parentage might feel the same kind of pride when lighting a Menorah or lighting a Christmas tree. There is no contradiction in them, because they carry both traditions within them, in one body.

This is what the Torah means when it says, This is why a man leaves his father and mother, and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.(Gen. 2:24) A child is the flesh-and-blood embodiment of the marital ideal: a perfect union, two individuals within one body, indivisible, without contradiction.

Racial purists complain about ethnic and cultural "dilution." But in the context of mixed race, dilution is the wrong word. It's more like expansion. We all have dual identities, American and Jewish. We do not sit around and question whether these two identities can live together in the same body, or the same mind. We feel no contradiction. Is it really such a stretch to imagine that a child of two different traditions can feel both of her identities just as strongly as we feel ours?

It is to American Judaism’s great shame that we have, as a nation, ostracized and cast out our brothers in faith, the Jews for Jesus. They are the greatest oppressed minority in the Jewish community. They consider themselves Jews, but every major Jewish denomination rejects their Jewishness. Jewish communities and organizations try to pretend they don’t exist. They are denigrated in public opinion columns in Jewish newspapers without a chance to respond. We are quick to label them deceptive, ingenuine, even creepy - unwittingly taking the age-old weapons of anti-Semites into our own hands. And for what? For making the unimaginable leap of faith that maybe, just maybe, the most influential Jew in history was the moshiach. The larger Jewish community, so complacent in its own Jewishness, has forgotten itself. Messianic Jews are caught in a web, no different from the rest of us. In an age when so many Jews have dual identities as Christians, it is embarrassingly backwards to punish the one group which bridges the gap.


Unlike drj, I do not think diaspora Judaism is going to disappear. It's changing, but it's not going away. And that's a good thing. Because we need Jews to be living with other peoples, sharing their culture, and embracing their dual identities.

Coexistence is the one arena left in which America truly leads the rest of the world. For is this not America's greatest strength? We are a nation of many different peoples, who live together in peace. All those other nations, the ones based on race and identity and geographic history, still have a huge hurdle ahead of them. They will have to deal with the racial incongruity that is inherent in their society. Now, this country isn't perfect, but for the most part we've already been there, done that. We have wrestled with the angels of ethnic strife, and we have emerged one nation. We are living, breathing proof that human society can transcend the identity barriers of common culture and common skin tone. And I'm proud to be an American. We still have a ways to go - the gears of democracy grind slowly, and many gay couples are being denied the right to a civil union, much less marriage. But we are on the right path.

As diaspora Jews, our role is different from Israelis. Our role is to be part of the great unification, to lend our unique voice and unique perspective to America and the world. And we are the ones who must ask, Why Be Jewish? We are the ones who choose to stay Jewish even though they don't have to. We are the litmus test for Jewish meaning. It's time we took some pride in that. I think if we lose diaspora Judaism, then we have lost the heart of the nation.

Will the Jewish face of tomorrow look different? Absolutely. But if Judaism can appeal, if it can compete, then it can survive and thrive anywhere on earth.

In closing, I'd like to outline a series of steps we can take to help Judaism stay meaningful, and survive, in a post-racial world.

1. Present a unified front. Denominational Judaism has become a liability. In a shrinking world, Jews cannot afford to so divided. The time has come for a post-denominational Judaism, in which all Jews are united under one banner and one council. This is not to say that our individual beliefs or practices should be cast aside. There isn’t one single way to be Jewish. There’s a spectrum within our religion, race, nation, or whatever you want to call it, and that's a good thing. Our job is to embrace this spectrum without letting it divide us. When our differences come up, as they inevitably will, we must work together to find solutions, in the spirit of Hillel and Shammai (Mishna Y'vamot 1:4).

For instance, there is a current stalemate between Reform, which recognizes patrilineal descent, and the other branches of Judaism, which do not. It may well be that this type of issue cannot be resolved halakhically one way or the other. But we can do more – much more – to prevent this difference of opinion from causing a split within our nation. Those movements which disagree with Reform might well acknowledge that, while they may consider half-Jews to be non-Jews for halakhic purposes, they are still affiliated with the Jewish community. As such, they must be considered krovay Yisrael - friends of Israel. (Conservative rabbis have recently pushed for a similar categorization of intermarried spouses who choose not to become Jews.) This is just one example.

2. Promote mobility, flexibility, and tolerance within the Jewish ranks. This goes hand-in-hand with unity. Children should be encouraged to experiment within the spectrum of Judaism, and beyond. Utimately, a child may find that Judaism is not for her. This is not a travesty. It is a person finding herself. But if we do it right, if we reaffirm her self-worth and make her feel comfortable being herself, then at least she will feel positively inclined towards the Jewish people. And who knows? She may decide, later on in life, to reexamine her tradition. Or she might have kids, krovay Yisrael, that do.

3. Stop competing, and start including. This is an age in which unqualified statements of absolute truth, such as Reform's principle of monotheism, are a turn-off. Many Jews are atheists and their ranks are growing. In the free marketplace of ideas, it behooves us not to force a choice on our practitioners between Judaism and every other philosophy in the world. This is especially true when many people are being born to intermarried couples. There's no reason, in an age of pluralism, why a couple or a child should have to be only Jewish and nothing else. If we are worried about survival, we need every half-Jew we can get.

Nor is it realistic to expect everyone to be all Jewish all the time. Different people will choose to carry different parts of the load. What we should think about is how to unify and organize these different brushstrokes into a beautiful painting the whole world can enjoy.

4. Grow Judaism. Jews have been adding to the tradition, and focusing on different parts of it, since our nation got going. In order to survive, Judaism has had to burn itself down and rise from the ashes. Sometimes, I think we're saddled with our tradition. But if it's no longer relevant, then we have to look elsewhere for inspiration. We have to grow Judaism.

Reform has done a good job in the last generation of bringing back the concept of tikkun olam/social justice. This has attracted many Jews to the cause and given their Judaism meaning. As Jews, everything we do is Jewish - everything we do has significance. You are no less a Jew than Moses himself, and your Torah is just as real. If you have a passion, follow it and make it a piece of Jewish culture.

5. Use the State of Israel as an organizing principle. Israel has tremendous potential to bring Jews together and give them a focal point. In an age of globalization, that is an important resource and organizing principle.

I am proposing a shift in Jewish perspective, from exclusive to inclusive, from looking in to looking out. From this point of view, Judaism is more than a race, religion, or nation. It’s what you might consider a global resource. And if Judaism is a global resource, then maybe Israel can be a global park – a place where people of all backgrounds and all races can come together to see the different sides of Judaism, and how Jews live together in peace with each other and the rest of the world.

Israel should be like Italy – a place where people can go and feel immersed in a different culture, a culture with many different sides but proud of all of them. I think this is missing in the Israel of today. The old, reigning culture of Zionism and kibbutzim is passe, and instead we've got an argumentative culture of contradiction. I see no reason why the artsy, hippy culture of Haifa cannot live in unison with the millenia-old ritual of lighting candles Friday night. Israel is the face of Judaism to Jews and non-Jews around the world. A trip to Israel should be a little taste of the Jewish nation, the very best we have to offer in a single, focused flight. To really pull this off will take an effort from both the Israeli people and the Israeli government.

Nothing would do more for Israel than an alliance with our Semitic cousins, the Arab peoples. I'm proud of Israel, but the country's inability to make peace is a turn-off. We share Abrahamic blood with the Arabs, and we share an Abrahamic religious heritage. It's time to start playing that up. Imagine the impact on the West if tourists could embark on a safe, united journey across Israel and Jordan, or Israel and Palestine, without it seeming like the countries didn’t know the other existed. Imagine if their guides for the trip, one Arab and one Israeli, showed friendship, cooperation, and camaraderie. People will leave that trip refreshed, hopeful for the prospect of world peace, and more favorably inclined towards all the Semitic peoples.


The media likes to tout Barack Obama as African American, but the Democratic Presidential Nominee also identifies as biracial. Obama, more than any other politician, stresses the importance of national unity and finding common ground. He said last week,

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country... don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination... This too is part of America's promise - the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

There is no doubt in my mind that Obama's mature perspective on American politics stems in part from his biracial identity. As a biracial child, Obama never felt the contradiction. And he doesn't feel it in our country, either. Sure, we disagree. But we agree more.

Obama's political philosophy in a nutshell? E Pluribus Unum. From many, one.

Obama has learned from Martin Luther King, but he is not trying to be him. He knows that this generation faces a different challenge. It's the challenge of how to learn from the past, without living in it. The challenge of how to embrace and celebrate our individuality, without sacrificing a single drop of our common humanity. The challenge of keeping one foot in the past, one foot in the present, and both eyes on the future. As Jews in a shrinking world, perhaps this is our challenge as well.

Jewish Americans for Obama
Yes We CandyMan Can

(I will wrap this series up next post, in which I'll explore the personal experiences, as a single man, which led to my warped perspective.)