Professor Paul Eidelberg
“ARE AMERICAN JEWS DISAPPEARING?” is the lead article in a recent
issue of the magazine New York. One could readily substitute “French”
or “English” Jews in the title, for assimilation and intermarriage
are widespread throughout the Diaspora. Prominent Jews were interviewed, but
none seems to have explored the basic causes of Jewish assimilation in America.
Inasmuch as assimilation is most rampant among college graduates, the first
basic cause should be obvious, namely, the doctrine of CULTURAL RELATIVISM that
has long dominated American education. Students immersed in the social sciences
or in the humanities are taught that religion is not a matter of objective truth
but of cultural conditioning or of personal preference. It follows that Judaism
is no more valid than any another religion. Hence why be Jewish? Incidentally,
those who preach religious “pluralism” are tainted by relativism,
to which extent they have no rational grounds for preferring monotheism to polytheism.
The second basic cause of assimilation and intermarriage in the Diaspora is
more subtle. Few Jews realize that JUDAISM IN THE DIASPORA IS A “RELIGION”
IN CONTRADISTINCTION TO A “NATIONALITY.” This historically conditioned
dichotomy, which is rooted in Christianity, profoundly divides and enfeebles
the Jewish People. Indeed, this dichotomy affects even religious Jews, though
of course not nearly as much as secularists. Hence it will also be found in
Israel, especially among Left-wing politicians and intellectuals. Here a brief
digression is in order.
Like nineteenth-century Reform Jews, and like Arabs today, Israelis such as
Shimon Peres identify Judaism as a religion, not as a nationality. His colleague
Dr. Yossi Beilin even denies the existence of a Jewish People. Meanwhile, certain
Orthodox Jews in Israel deplore Zionism or Jewish nationalism.
But we were speaking of the disappearing American Jew. So long as American Jews
have no sense of Jewish nationality, hence no sense of Jewish national pride
and destiny, they are all the more likely to intermarry and “disappear.”
Even Orthodox Jews assimilate to the extent that Israel is not at the center
of their consciousness.
Consider. The vast majority of those who make aliya from the West to Israel
are religious. Many if not most find their religiosity in the Diaspora inadequate:
They want to live in or raise their family in a “Jewish State.”
Although most come to realize that Israel is not an authentic Jewish State,
their sense of Jewish nationality in Israel is certainly more vivid than that
of Jews in the Galut.
What did the Jewish Sages mean when they said that to live in the Galut is to
worship false G-ds? Does this apply to young men immersed in some American yeshiva
twelve hours a day? How do such students differ from their equally studious
Torah counterparts in Jerusalem? I think a major difference is that the commonplace
experiences of Jews in America, unlike the commonplace experiences of Jews in
Jerusalem, are less likely to be related to the history and future of the Jewish
People. Which is almost to say that one is more likely to think of G-d and of
G-d’s ways in Jerusalem than in America.
We may arrive at this conclusion another way. There are relatively few Reform
and Conservative Jews in Israel. One reason for this is that diluted Judaism
has little relevance, and has no future, in the Middle East, where the very
existence and meaning of Israel is at stake. That’s why hundreds of thousands
of Israelis are becoming Orthodox. They want wholehearted and truth-bearing
Torah Judaism, not the anemic Judaism or indifference to truth that poses as
“pluralism.” Hence they want to overcome the nineteenth-century
dichotomy of religion and nationality which secular Zionists inherited from
Christianity. Stated another way: THESE JEWS WANT PARTICULARISM AS WELL AS UNIVERSALISM
-- which is what authentic Judaism is all about.
Jewish studies programs at American universities may bring a few Jews back to
Torah, but Jewish particularism is more likely to be undermined by the relativism
and vacuous internationalism prevailing on American campuses. Nor is this all.
The inevitable absence of Jewish nationalism in the Diaspora is bound to make
most American Jews more self-centered, hence more prone to assimilation. Even
American yeshiva students cannot be insulated from the larger society, hence
from America’s preoccupation with self-indulgence. All of us are social
beings. We are more or less influenced by what others around us say and like
and do.
Let us be candid: Although Jewish outreach programs are important, the most
effective cure for assimilation is aliya. Accordingly, such programs should
clarify and seek to overcome the (false) dichotomy of Judaism as a religion
and Judaism as a nationality. This requires elucidation of the Torah as the
paradigm of knowledge and of how man should live. A step in this direction will
be found in my recent book Judaic Man, which reveals Judaism not as a religion
so much as an all-comprehensive civilization.
One last word. American Jews are part of a multicultural or pluralistic society
which, by definition, lacks a strong sense of national consciousness. Pluralism
allows Jews to prosper in America. At the same time, however, pluralism fosters
Jewish assimilation on the one hand, and diminishes the sense of Jewish nationality
on the other. That’s why so many American Jews are not interested in Israel.
But the desire for nationhood is primordial. This being so, the solution to assimilation in the Diaspora resides in Israel. Jews will cease to disappear from Judaism in proportion to Israel’s becoming an authentic Jewish state. This will require political leaders whose pronouncements and policies are conceptually linked to the Jewish heritage and are recognized as such by the ordinary citizen.