Tweet
THE YEAR ASSIMILATION TOOK A BACKSEAT
By Yair Sheleg
Ha'aretz
Mon., September 10, 2007
Israel
The most noticeable aspect of the first international gathering of
the Jewish People Planning Policy Institute (JPPPI) in Jerusalem
two months ago was the change in focus of Jewish concern - from the
issue of assimilation, which was the crux of all Jewish conferences in
recent years, to the physical threat to the Jewish people's existence,
especially the Iranian threat against Israel.
The Iranian threat also seems to have been the most important item
of Jewish news for the entire year of 5767: the existential threat
has returned to the headlines, and concern over assimilation
has increasingly turned into a luxury left for educators and
philanthropists.
Now, says Prof. Sergio Della Pergola, one of the JPPPI's heads,
this change of focus could also affect another important issue -
the question of Israel's centrality in the Jewish world.
Advertisement
"If the threat of assimilation is the focus, the claim for Israel's
centrality is very significant," Della Pergola says. "But if the
existential threat is the focus, Israel loses part of the argument
in favor of its centrality to the Jewish people, as the best place
to assure the future of the Jewish people."
This change was all the more evident in recent days, following
the release of a study by Prof. Steven Cohen and Prof. Ari Kelman,
which indicates the decline in the identification of American Jewish
youths with Israel: Only 48 percent of non-Orthodox youngsters felt
that Israel's destruction would be a personal tragedy for them, and
only 54 percent feel comfortable with the very existence of the state.
On the other hand, fear among Jewish communities in Europe (especially
France) of the substantial growth of the continent's Muslim population
has led to increased immigration to Israel, and to a rise in the
acquisition of apartments and in visits by French Jews. (French
Jewry constitute the third-largest Jewish community in the world,
after the United States and Israel.)
American-Jewish identification with Israel suffered several other major
blows this year, in a series of public attacks claiming that the Israel
lobby in the U.S. works to ensure Israel's interests at the expense
of American ones, with the war in Iraq being the primary example.
These claims were raised in an article (and also in a recent book)
written by prominent researchers Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer,
but it had an even more dramatic impact when former U.S. president
Jimmy Carter made similar claims in his own book, and in a series
of lectures he gave on the topic. Carter embarrassed the Jewish
establishment so badly that, for the first time in a long while,
an American president was labeled "anti-Semitic."
Despite the fact that concern over Israel's future has become
the primary Jewish concern, assimilation continues to be a major
worry. Another study conducted by Steven Cohen that was published
this year indicates that two types of Jewish communities are evolving
in the U.S.: those with two Jewish spouses in one household, who are
therefore certain of their Jewish identity; and those households with
intermarried spouses (43 percent of the community's young people),
where the number of those who light Shabbat candles is equal to those
who set up a fir tree on Christmas.
There were numerous efforts in 5767 to cope with assimilation. A
$25 million donation from the Jewish millionaire Sheldon Adelson
injected new momentum to one of the major undertakings in this area,
the Taglit birthright project, which sends young Diaspora Jews on a
free 10-day trip to Israel.
According to participants and research evidence, these visits usually
succeed in deepening their interest in both Israel and Judaism.
In addition, Adelson promised - following complaints by Taglit
officials that due to budgetary limitations they are only able to
bring a third of Jewish students to Israel - to issue an open check
to fund whatever number of students the organization's workers manage
to enlist.
In order to deal with these simultaneous crises, former president
Moshe Katsav formulated the concept several years ago of the Jewish
Parliament, which was to gather the brightest Jewish minds from
across the world for discussions and decision-making. However,
Katsav's downfall this year has led to the collapse of the program.
While Akiva Tor, the head of the Foreign Ministry's Diaspora department
who served as Katsav's Diaspora Affairs adviser, says that the new
president, Shimon Peres, is interested in reviving the effort, it
remains unclear if and when this will happen.
Tor adds that there is a noticeable gap between the general picture
of a decline among Diaspora Jewry - especially in the U.S. - and the
success of certain groups within it in reviving themselves.
Most notable in this respect is the continued recovery and growth of
the Orthodox Jewish community, as opposed to the weakening of the two
more liberal streams of Judaism, the Reform and Conservative movements.
Yet even among these two streams there are signs of interesting
processes to renew their agenda, even though such a tendency is still
not necessarily reflected in quantitative terms: The Reform movement
has increased its commitment to learning Torah, kashrut and other
traditional elements.
At the same time, the Conservative movement - which in recent years
experienced a substantial decline in popularity - took two dramatic
steps this year: for the first time in many years, it appointed a
prominent academic researcher of American Jewry, Prof. Arnold Eisen,
as head of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the movement's main
rabbinical and academic learning center, instead of handing the
position to a rabbi.
Eisen has already welcomed another revolutionary process led by the
Conservative movement's Va'ad Hahalakha: approving same-sex marriages
as well as ordaining homosexual male and female rabbis.
This year, two prominent Jewish organizations experienced considerable
turmoil. For one of them, the World Jewish Congress, the turmoil had
been going on for several years, following the exposure of charges
of embezzlement by the previous chairman, Dr. Israel Singer, who
was instrumental in leading the Jewish campaign for the return of
Holocaust victims' assets.
While it seemed as though the WJC had survived the ordeal - following
the New York State Attorney General's report acquitting Singer of
criminal fault - the story took an interesting turn this year when
the WJC president, millionaire Edgar Bronfman, suddenly announced
he had discovered that the charges were true, and ordered Singer's
immediate dismissal.
At the same time, Bronf-man announced his own resignation, and was
replaced by another Jewish millionaire, Ron Lauder, in the hope that
this would finally calm the situation at the WJC.
The organization's European branch also had a tough year, thanks to a
scandal involving racism. The former president of the European Jewish
Congress, Pierre Besnainou of France, was pushed out in favor of a
Russian Jewish financial baron, Moshe Kantor.
The scandal involved the disclosure of a memorandum written by
Steven Herbits, the WJC's secretary-general who has since resigned,
stating that Besnainou's loyalty could not be counted on because he
is a Frenchman and a Tunisian, and "works like an Arab."
Until his deposal, Besnainou was the first senior WJC official of
Middle Eastern descent.
The second organization in turmoil is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),
which became embroiled in a conflict between its self-determined
goal of fighting racism and hate crimes, and its association with
and loyalty to Israel.
Americans of Armenian descent asked the ADL to join their fight to gain
official American recognition of the Turkish massacre of Armenians
during World War I as genocide. However, this claim contradicts the
position of the government of Israel, which is very careful not to
anger the Turks and risk Israeli interests in maintaining good ties
with Turkey.
ADL National Director Abraham Foxman found himself maneuvering
between opposition to the Armenian request for help in their
political struggle, and recognition that the Turkish massacre was
indeed genocide.
Here are a few other things that happened in 5767:
b Jewish oil baron Ronald Stanton donated $100 million to Yeshiva
University, the flagship institution of modern Orthodoxy in the
U.S. The donation is considered the highest ever given to a Jewish
organization.
b The Catholic Church again approved the use of a mass that includes
a prayer for the conversion of the Jews.
The move created tension in Jewish circles, and a sense that the
current pope, Benedict XVI, is reversing the policy of his predecessor,
John Paul II, who strove to deepen the rapprochement between Jews
and Catholics.
b Florida marked the opening of the Ben Gamla Jewish School, which
is not run by one of the American Jewish movements or communal
institutions, but by a private company called Academica. The director
is an Orthodox rabbi, Adam Segal.
By Yair Sheleg
Ha'aretz
Mon., September 10, 2007
Israel
The most noticeable aspect of the first international gathering of
the Jewish People Planning Policy Institute (JPPPI) in Jerusalem
two months ago was the change in focus of Jewish concern - from the
issue of assimilation, which was the crux of all Jewish conferences in
recent years, to the physical threat to the Jewish people's existence,
especially the Iranian threat against Israel.
The Iranian threat also seems to have been the most important item
of Jewish news for the entire year of 5767: the existential threat
has returned to the headlines, and concern over assimilation
has increasingly turned into a luxury left for educators and
philanthropists.
Now, says Prof. Sergio Della Pergola, one of the JPPPI's heads,
this change of focus could also affect another important issue -
the question of Israel's centrality in the Jewish world.
Advertisement
"If the threat of assimilation is the focus, the claim for Israel's
centrality is very significant," Della Pergola says. "But if the
existential threat is the focus, Israel loses part of the argument
in favor of its centrality to the Jewish people, as the best place
to assure the future of the Jewish people."
This change was all the more evident in recent days, following
the release of a study by Prof. Steven Cohen and Prof. Ari Kelman,
which indicates the decline in the identification of American Jewish
youths with Israel: Only 48 percent of non-Orthodox youngsters felt
that Israel's destruction would be a personal tragedy for them, and
only 54 percent feel comfortable with the very existence of the state.
On the other hand, fear among Jewish communities in Europe (especially
France) of the substantial growth of the continent's Muslim population
has led to increased immigration to Israel, and to a rise in the
acquisition of apartments and in visits by French Jews. (French
Jewry constitute the third-largest Jewish community in the world,
after the United States and Israel.)
American-Jewish identification with Israel suffered several other major
blows this year, in a series of public attacks claiming that the Israel
lobby in the U.S. works to ensure Israel's interests at the expense
of American ones, with the war in Iraq being the primary example.
These claims were raised in an article (and also in a recent book)
written by prominent researchers Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer,
but it had an even more dramatic impact when former U.S. president
Jimmy Carter made similar claims in his own book, and in a series
of lectures he gave on the topic. Carter embarrassed the Jewish
establishment so badly that, for the first time in a long while,
an American president was labeled "anti-Semitic."
Despite the fact that concern over Israel's future has become
the primary Jewish concern, assimilation continues to be a major
worry. Another study conducted by Steven Cohen that was published
this year indicates that two types of Jewish communities are evolving
in the U.S.: those with two Jewish spouses in one household, who are
therefore certain of their Jewish identity; and those households with
intermarried spouses (43 percent of the community's young people),
where the number of those who light Shabbat candles is equal to those
who set up a fir tree on Christmas.
There were numerous efforts in 5767 to cope with assimilation. A
$25 million donation from the Jewish millionaire Sheldon Adelson
injected new momentum to one of the major undertakings in this area,
the Taglit birthright project, which sends young Diaspora Jews on a
free 10-day trip to Israel.
According to participants and research evidence, these visits usually
succeed in deepening their interest in both Israel and Judaism.
In addition, Adelson promised - following complaints by Taglit
officials that due to budgetary limitations they are only able to
bring a third of Jewish students to Israel - to issue an open check
to fund whatever number of students the organization's workers manage
to enlist.
In order to deal with these simultaneous crises, former president
Moshe Katsav formulated the concept several years ago of the Jewish
Parliament, which was to gather the brightest Jewish minds from
across the world for discussions and decision-making. However,
Katsav's downfall this year has led to the collapse of the program.
While Akiva Tor, the head of the Foreign Ministry's Diaspora department
who served as Katsav's Diaspora Affairs adviser, says that the new
president, Shimon Peres, is interested in reviving the effort, it
remains unclear if and when this will happen.
Tor adds that there is a noticeable gap between the general picture
of a decline among Diaspora Jewry - especially in the U.S. - and the
success of certain groups within it in reviving themselves.
Most notable in this respect is the continued recovery and growth of
the Orthodox Jewish community, as opposed to the weakening of the two
more liberal streams of Judaism, the Reform and Conservative movements.
Yet even among these two streams there are signs of interesting
processes to renew their agenda, even though such a tendency is still
not necessarily reflected in quantitative terms: The Reform movement
has increased its commitment to learning Torah, kashrut and other
traditional elements.
At the same time, the Conservative movement - which in recent years
experienced a substantial decline in popularity - took two dramatic
steps this year: for the first time in many years, it appointed a
prominent academic researcher of American Jewry, Prof. Arnold Eisen,
as head of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the movement's main
rabbinical and academic learning center, instead of handing the
position to a rabbi.
Eisen has already welcomed another revolutionary process led by the
Conservative movement's Va'ad Hahalakha: approving same-sex marriages
as well as ordaining homosexual male and female rabbis.
This year, two prominent Jewish organizations experienced considerable
turmoil. For one of them, the World Jewish Congress, the turmoil had
been going on for several years, following the exposure of charges
of embezzlement by the previous chairman, Dr. Israel Singer, who
was instrumental in leading the Jewish campaign for the return of
Holocaust victims' assets.
While it seemed as though the WJC had survived the ordeal - following
the New York State Attorney General's report acquitting Singer of
criminal fault - the story took an interesting turn this year when
the WJC president, millionaire Edgar Bronfman, suddenly announced
he had discovered that the charges were true, and ordered Singer's
immediate dismissal.
At the same time, Bronf-man announced his own resignation, and was
replaced by another Jewish millionaire, Ron Lauder, in the hope that
this would finally calm the situation at the WJC.
The organization's European branch also had a tough year, thanks to a
scandal involving racism. The former president of the European Jewish
Congress, Pierre Besnainou of France, was pushed out in favor of a
Russian Jewish financial baron, Moshe Kantor.
The scandal involved the disclosure of a memorandum written by
Steven Herbits, the WJC's secretary-general who has since resigned,
stating that Besnainou's loyalty could not be counted on because he
is a Frenchman and a Tunisian, and "works like an Arab."
Until his deposal, Besnainou was the first senior WJC official of
Middle Eastern descent.
The second organization in turmoil is the Anti-Defamation League (ADL),
which became embroiled in a conflict between its self-determined
goal of fighting racism and hate crimes, and its association with
and loyalty to Israel.
Americans of Armenian descent asked the ADL to join their fight to gain
official American recognition of the Turkish massacre of Armenians
during World War I as genocide. However, this claim contradicts the
position of the government of Israel, which is very careful not to
anger the Turks and risk Israeli interests in maintaining good ties
with Turkey.
ADL National Director Abraham Foxman found himself maneuvering
between opposition to the Armenian request for help in their
political struggle, and recognition that the Turkish massacre was
indeed genocide.
Here are a few other things that happened in 5767:
b Jewish oil baron Ronald Stanton donated $100 million to Yeshiva
University, the flagship institution of modern Orthodoxy in the
U.S. The donation is considered the highest ever given to a Jewish
organization.
b The Catholic Church again approved the use of a mass that includes
a prayer for the conversion of the Jews.
The move created tension in Jewish circles, and a sense that the
current pope, Benedict XVI, is reversing the policy of his predecessor,
John Paul II, who strove to deepen the rapprochement between Jews
and Catholics.
b Florida marked the opening of the Ben Gamla Jewish School, which
is not run by one of the American Jewish movements or communal
institutions, but by a private company called Academica. The director
is an Orthodox rabbi, Adam Segal.