Hope, Not Fear: A Path to Jewish Renaissance - Softcover

Bronfman, Edgar

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312598890 ISBN 13: 9780312598891

Verlag: St. Martin's Griffin, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

A distinguished Jewish leader and philanthropist argues for openness and joy to reinvigorate Judaism in America.

After a lifetime of fighting the persecution of Jews, Edgar M. Bronfman has concluded that what North American Jews need now is hope, not fear. Bronfman urges North American Jewry "to build, not fight. We need to celebrate the joy in Judaism, even as we recognize our responsibility to alleviate suffering and to help heal a broken world. We need to understand Judaism as a multifaceted culture as well as a religion, and explore Jewish literature, music, and art. We need to understand our tradition of debate and questioning, and invite all to enter a conversation about our central texts, rituals, and laws. We need to open our book anew, and re-create a vital Judaism for our time."

Through a reexamination of important texts and via interviews with some of the leading figures in Judaism today, Bronfman outlines a new agenda for the Jewish community in North America, one that will ensure that Judaism grows and thrives in an open society. He calls for welcome without conditions for intermarried families and disengaged Jews, for a celebration of Jewish diversity, and for openness to innovation and young leadership. Hope, Not Fear is an impassioned plea for all who care about the future of Judaism to cultivate a Jewish practice that is open to the new as it delves into the old, that welcomes many voices, and that reaches out to make the world a better place.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

EDGAR BRONFMAN is the chairman of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. He is also president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization where he succeeded in winning restitution for Holocaust victims whose assets had been held in Swiss banks. He has been recognized for his leadership by organizations, universities and governments around the world.

BETH ZASLOFF has been published in JANE magazine and in the anthology Third Mind: Creative Writing Through Visual Art (Teachers and Writers). She has taught writing at New York University, Johns Hopkins University, and in New York City public schools.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Advance Praise for "Hope, Not Fear
""Edgar M. Bronfman's new, provocative volume is a Jewish leader's personal quest for new answers to timeless questions; it will certainly challenge many readers concerned with Judaism's future."
--Elie Wiesel
"Bronfman and Zasloff forcefully show the precariousness of grounding Jewish identity in fear of anti-Semitism and intermarriage; they offer instead an invaluable road map to energizing the range and resonance of Judaism in all of our lives."
--Abigail Pogrebin, author of "Stars of David"
"Serves as an uplifting introduction to the people, institutions, issues, and ideas that promise to reshape the North American Jewish community of the twenty-first century."
--Jonathan D. Sarna, Ph.D., Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University, and author of "American Judaism"
"This is a brave, honest, painful, and joyous book. Both those who are well versed in Jewish tradition and those who know not an aleph from a bet will find themselves provoked and challenged."
--Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt, Ph.D., Director of the Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, Emory University, and author of "History on Trial"
"A wise book by a Jewish leader who loves Jews and Judaism alike....This thoughtful, insightful meditation...fills one with a sense of hope about the Jewish future."
--Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author of "A Code of Jewish Ethics and Jewish Literacy"

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Hope, Not Fear

A Path to Jewish RenaissanceBy Edgar M. Bronfman

St. Martin's Griffin

Copyright © 2010 Edgar M. Bronfman
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780312598891

HOPE, NOT FEAR.

 

Chapter 1

A GOLDEN AGE FOR NORTH AMERICAN JEWRY?

When the great mass of Jews immigrated to the United States and Canada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, they didn't come in order to be better Jews. They came in search of a better life, eager to leave behind the poverty and anti-Semitism in those areas of Eastern Europe where Jews were permitted to settle. It was most important to speak English, support their families, and give their children a good education. The rallying cry was not "Be Jewish," but "Be somebody!"

Jewish identity, for these immigrants, was not something that had to be learned or strengthened. It was a condition of life, defined by their experience of anti-Semitism and separation from the larger society. They didn't worry about whether their children would remain Jewish. They assumed that like them, the next generation would simply have no choice in the matter; North American society would not accept them other than as Jews. So while they taught their children to fight for the rights of the Jewish people--and of all humanity--to live in freedom, they taught them little of the texts, history, and traditions of Judaism.

If we examine the matter more closely, we will find that the great majority of the immigrants were themselves mostly ignorant about Judaism. As the late Arthur Hertzberg describes in The Jews in America, the Eastern European Jews who came to North America were "penniless and largely uneducated even in Judaism."1 The shtetls from which they had come were organized so that the very few who knew Hebrew and could study Torah did so in the beit midrash, the study hall. Those students of Torah and Talmud were highly respected, and studying was what they did all day, while their wives struggled to feed the family. The others were taught to read Hebrew but not to understand it. They spoke Yiddish and went to synagogue and prayed, having no idea what they were saying when they chanted the service. Is it any wonder that learning Judaism took a backseat when they came to the United States and Canada?

While their new home offered the first generation of Jewish immigrants far greater freedom and opportunity than the "old country," they still faced discrimination and hate. In response, the Jewish communal agenda focused on fighting anti-Semitism and ensuring a secure, prosperous future for the Jews. Institutions such as the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith struggled to make the anti-Semitism in North American society, as depicted in the film Gentleman's Agreement, fade away. Organizations were built to support the needs of new immigrants, to advocate for Jews in North America and worldwide, and, later, to support the young State of Israel.

To what would have been the great surprise of our immigrant grandparents, we Jews have succeeded beyond their dearest hopes. Jews have reached positions of leadership and status in many fields. In government, an Orthodox Jew, Joseph Lieberman, has been a serious vice presidential candidate and contender for the presidential nomination. In business, Jews are in senior positions in manufacturing companies, in banks and investment banking firms, and in service companies. In education, countless Jews are professors at North America's universities, and a number of Ivy League colleges have Jewish presidents. When I went to Williams College, class of 1950, I said to myself that long before there would be a Jewish president of that noble educational institution there would be a Jewish president of the United States. Now Morton Owen Schapiro, the second Jewish president of Williams, welcomes students into his home to celebrate the Passover seder. Not only have Jews achieved economic and professional success in North American society, but being Jewish has also lost its stigma. Ethnic identity, once seen as something to be shed in the melting pot of North American life, is now celebrated. Love has replaced hate, as non-Jews use the Jewish Internet dating site, JDate, to find Jewish spouses. Jewish holidays are respected in schools and in the workplace. While anti-Semitism certainly has not disappeared entirely, it is no longer a significant force in North American life.

In the view of many, the North American Jewish community has reached a golden age that far eclipses any golden age in the long history of Jewry. But for those of us who care about the future of Judaism, the news isn't so good. Something was lost in the transition from the shtetl to the condominium. North America's warm welcome has led to a new kind of danger: the danger that without others forcing our identity upon us, we will forget who we are. In the past, "the others" made sure that Jews knew they were Jewish. Now that we are free to choose Judaism, our existence is threatened not by the others but by the ease with which we ourselves seem to cast off Jewish identity. "Who is a Jew?" has been the hotly debated question in past decades: Is a Jew a person with a Jewish mother? A Jewish father? A Jewish grandparent? Now the question "Who is a Jew?" is slowly being answered by "a person whose grandchildren are Jewish."

My mentor Nahum Goldmann had a wise expression: When things are good for Jews, it's bad for Jewry. Yes, it is a golden age for Jews in North America, with greater prosperity and recognition and fewer physical dangers than ever before. But we now must ask, do North America's rapidly assimilating Jews possess a Jewish identity that is durable enough for their children's children to inherit?

Richard Joel, former president and international director of Hillel, now president of Yeshiva University, would say that being Jewish used to be a condition and now it's an option. How very true. When I was young, I was Jewish because my parents were Jewish, as were theirs. For me, Judaism is what Rabbi David Ellenson, president of the Hebrew Union College--Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC--JIR), called a "habit of the heart," a deep, inseparable part of where I come from and who I am. "We grew up as either children or grandchildren of immigrants," Ellenson told me. In that context, he said, " 'Do I choose to be Jewish?' was an absurd kind of question."

When I asked Rabbi David Hartman, founder and codirector of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, to put into words the biggest problem the Jewish people face, his answer was, "How to survive with freedom ... When Jews were being persecuted, they had a way of coping with suffering. Now the issue is not suffering. The issue is the freedom to become anything you want while living in an open society which doesn't constrain you."

Is there something that we can do to keep Judaism alive, and significant, in North America? Yes, if we care enough. But first we must recognize just how serious the situation is. For Judaism to survive with the freedom Jews now enjoy, we must unite to fight the new enemies: our own ignorance and apathy. If we can cure the apathy about Judaism, then we will be able to cure the ignorance. It's not too late to act, but the prognosis is not good if we do not.

I dreamed up the phrase "Jewish renaissance" with Richard Joel when I first began my work with Hillel in 1994. We used it to describe what we wanted to accomplish at Hillel and throughout the Jewish educational system. (We thought of "rejuvenation" and discarded it as a pun in bad...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: St. Martin's Griffin
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312598890
• ISBN 13: 9780312598891
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: KreGa Onlinehandel GmbH; 4950000000000; info@krega-onlinehandel.de; ; Birkenweg 31; Brakel; 33034; Deutschland