THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, Decembet 11, 1982 15
Boris Smolar's
Between You
• . and Me'
Editor-in-Chief
Emeritus, JTA
(Copyright 1982, JTA, Inc.)
_ -
JEWISH "RETURNEES": What makes intellectual
Jews in this country — professors, college teachers,
psychiatrists, lawyers, social workers, executives — who
never had any proper Jewish education and were indiffer-
ent to Judaism, to become "returnees" to Jewish religion?
. . . Does this phenomenon indicate religious revival
among highly-educated Jews?
The question is considered of special importance in
view of the accepted opinion that traditional Judaism is
declining in this country. Yet there are today Jewish pro-
fessors at the prestigious Harvard University in Cam-
bridge, Mass., who conduct, as a group, Jewish worship on
the campus every Sabbath.
This group is formally independent of Hillel. Its par-
ticipants are not students but primarily faculty and staff
employed by the university. In terms of age, family status
and degree of personal Jewish observance, the group's
makeup is not unlike that of a typical synagogue. However,
its participants consider it clearly as an alternative to join-
ing a synagogue. Its informal atmosphere, the high level of
participation of its members who take turns conducting the
services and their weekly Torah discussions, make it un-
like most synagogues.
Then there are the Havurot, which come in different
forms. These are independent worship groups, small in size,
emphasizing personal participation rather than vicarious
involvement in communal worship and experiences. They
reflect a dissatisfaction with the impersonality and passive
style which characterizes so many synagogues. The mem-
bers of a Havura group, mostly professionals, share the
responsibility of leading the service, and novices are
encouraged to learn to do so. Stress is placed on group
prayer and singing and on intensive discussion of the Torah
portion of the week. There are also synagogoe-based
Havurot in which interested synagogue members break up
into small groups, meeting regularly in one another's
homes for discussions, studies and holiday celebrations.
There is, of course, the Lubavitch Hasidic movement
which has in its ranks intellectual Jews who were raised by
their parents in an atheistic atmosphere. Today they are
Hasidim in spirit and in their daily life. They send their
children to Lubavitcher yeshivot. In New York there is also
the Lincoln Square Synagogue, a modern Orthodox con-
gregation whose members have traveled a long distance to
become practicing Jews. Some of them were not observant
Jews did not feel that Judaism was a central part of their
daily life, although they did not resist it. Today they strictly
observe Jewish law.
AN EXPLORATORY SURVEY: The American
Jewish Committee, which has for years been engaged in
research to discover factors that strengthen Jewish iden-
tity and those that work against it, term the religious
revival among Jewish intellectuals as "new pockets of
Jewish energy."
Intrigued by the continuing growth of the number of
adults who find their way back to Judaism, the American
Jewish Committee embarked on a_n exploratory-survey by
interviewing in depth some of the "returnees." The purpose
of the survey,was to establish the psychological and human
factors which made these people feel more positively, more
strongly and more deeply about their Jewish identity than
they did in the past, and impelled them to return to Jewish
religion and tradition. Now completed, the survey presents
the conclusion that underlying the experience of Jewish
revival is a quest for purpose and meaning in life. The quest
has in recent years been prompted by a disillusionment
with the achievements of science and technology and West-
ern culture, as well as by the loneliness and rootlessness
created by the problems of an individualistic culture. The
individuals interviewed said they discovered meaning and
even excitement in Jewish religious practice, which led
them to study and contemplation.
Yehuda Rosenman, the director of the Jewish Com-
munal Affairs Department of the AJCommittee, a leading
social worker with great Jewish erudition, directed the
survey. He hopes that the implications of the survey will
help Jewish agencies map out new communal approaches
and programs to strengthen Jewish identity.
He points out that the central component of Jewish
identity is the confrontation between Judaism and the
mostly secular American society in which Jews have been
trying to adapt themselves by a variety of means to be fully
American while maintaining their Jewish identity.
Jewish Vegetarian Unit
NEW YORK — The
Jewish Vegetarian Soeiety
is planning to form a third
chapter in the New York
City area. The organization
has other U.S. chapters in
Los Angeles, Washington
and Alabama.
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