OPINION
Is There An Alternative
To President George Bush?
LEONARD FEIN
I
t is, of course, much too
soon to write off George
Bush's prospects for re-
election. Among other
things he has going for him,
there is no coherent Dem-
ocratic party that can focus a
national debate on the
failures of the Bush presi-
dency and propose reasoned
alternatives. It's easy
enough to recount the Bush
failures, which mount
almost daily, but it is by no
means clear what we are be-
ing offered instead.
Still, it is difficult to imag-
ine a restoration of Mr.
Bush's earlier popularity.
The president's virtual ab-
dication of responsibility for
domestic affairs, and espe-
cially for the economy, has
led to a re-examination of his
alleged international vir-
tuosity, and the fact is that
even in the international
arena, it's not at all clear
what Mr. Bush has done,
beyond running up huge
long-distance telephone and
travel bills.
Saddam Hussein is still in
power, the Soviet Union
heads towards disaster, the
bloom is off the rose of East
European freedom,
Yugoslavia becomes a kill-
ing field while we sit idly by;
aside from the Middle East
negotiations, the outcome of
which is obviously still un-
predictable, there's not
much to show for all the
trips and the calls. Nor does
"a new world order" define
itself, and the president has
offered us no developed
definition of it.
Normally, I'd be pleased
that the once-invulnerable
president now looks like a
loser. To the degree that he
has a domestic policy, I op-
pose it. I am offended, and
not merely as a partisan of
the other party, by his
cynical exploitation of race,
whether it takes the form of
a Willie Horton commercial,
a misleading opposition to
the civil rights bill, or the
nomination of Clarence
Thomas. And so forth.
But the fact that Mr. Bush
may be defeated in 1992 is
not nearly the source of
relief and delight it might
be, for this next year of a
weakened president carries
Leonard Fein is a writer and
lecturer based in Boston.
with it two sorrows of major
concern.
First, only a strong presi-
dent can be expected to move
the Middle East peace
negotiations along. I am not
all that optimistic about the
prospects for a successful
conclusion to the talks in
any case, but a confident and
powerful American presi-
dent seems to me an essen-
tial condition for their
success.
To put it bluntly: unless
the president of the United
States is prepared to coax,
cajole, bribe, and bully Israel
and the Arabs, to use both
his prestige and his power to
get the parties to move
beyond their dismal history
and to focus on new
possibilities, there is vir-
tually no chance the talks
will bear fruit. A troubled
president, a president beset
by criticism, increasingly
perceived as a bumbler,
damages the prospect of
peace.
Moreover, he invites the
kind of dangerous response
from the Democrats that
now threatens to become the
centerpiece of their opposi-
tion: neo-isolationism.
It is difficult to counsel the
Democrats to lay off their
emerging line of attack. This
president, with his studied
refusal to relate to the econ-
omic stagnation, with his
evident inability to com-
prehend the decline in
America's physical and so-
cial infrastructure, from
highways to education, in-
vites, nay begs for, such
criticism. But I fear, and
deeply, that if, because it is
so handy, the Democrats
persist in beating the neo-
isolationist drum, and beat
it all the way to victory, they
may find that its echoes
linger long after they come
to power, inhibiting dra-
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matically their capacity to
govern.
The truth is that there's no
joy in the unmasking of yet
another incompetent presi-
dent. How much better it
would be for the nation if our
choices were not between in-
substantial promises of com-
petence and manifest in-
competence, but between
sets of priorities and sets of
proposals.
It is too far into the Bush
presidency to hope for that
in '92; we know this presi-
dent too well; his dismal per-
formance in office, the utter
waste of it, is fast becoming
an American tragedy,
alienating yet another ge-
neration from civic in-
volvement, adding to the al-
ready overflowing river of
public cynicism. But where,
oh where, are the Democrats
who are ready to offer us an
inspiring alternative, a seri-
ous platform that will enable
us to begin to re-build the
crumbling foundations of
our society, our nation? ❑
Borrowing Tactics From Evangelists' Book
BARRY MEHLER
T
he Council of Jewish
Federations' "Angst
Over Assimilation,"
(Nov.29) is certainly called for.
Many Americans now living
in Israel look at America as
a lost cause. They left, they
say, because there is no future
for Judaism in America. Cer-
tainly, the CJF/CUNY
Population Study makes that
case.
Everyone seems to quote
the intermarriage rate which
is currently at 52 percent na-
tionally. But you never see
the statistics which show that
Orthodoxy has failed as
miserably as every other
branch of Judaism.
Orthodox Jews dropped by
half in the last two decades.
Only 6.8 percent of the
American Jewish population
now identifies itself as Or-
thodox. Orthodox outreach is
a total bust.
Less than 1 percent of
American Jews are "ba'al
teshuvah" and over 90 per-
cent of those who get involv-
ed with the much-touted
Lubavitch outreach drift
away after a few years.
American Jews are not going
to become Lubavitchers no
matter how much money is
spent and they are not going
to become Orthodox in large
numbers either.
Rabbi Irving Greenberg
summed it up well:
"Considering that these
groups (Lubavitch and Or-
thodox) are spending hun-
dreds of millions of dollars a
year — the bulk of the total
Jewish community outreach
budget — the yield is
disastrously low."
Of course, the Conservative
and Reform movements are
doing no better. It almost
seems that we have created a
conveyor belt from Orthodox
We should go out
and try to convert
people.
to Conservative to Reform to
Unitarian.
Naturally, if the majority of
all Jews are choosing to
marry non-Jews and if hun-
dreds of thousands of people
who are born Jews are now at-
tending the church of their
choice, we all must be doing
our part. But the answer is
clearly not more money for
Orthodox outreach.
I hesitate to say this, and I
know my remarks will fall on
deaf ears, but I think the
answer is in evangelism. You
know, you go out and try to
convert people to your faith.
And you don't restrict
yourself to those long-lost
Jews as the Lubavitch do. In-
stead, you try to find those
people who are interested in
Judaism — and I believe there
are millions of them — and
you convert them.
The pool is unbelievably
diverse. In America, for exam-
ple, black Americans have
been converting to Judaism
or pseudo-Judaism for
decades. Have you ever notic-
ed that black Baptist chur-
ches all have Hebrew names?
The Jewish community has
completely ignored the love
affair black American Bap-
tists have with Israel and
Judaism, with tragic results.
What we have in Dimona,
Israel, are a group of pseudo
Jews, but we could easily
have a community of real
Jews.
Among Christian evangel-
ists, a group that I regularly
talk with, one finds people
who are almost begging to be
Jewish. There is a back-to-
Judaism movement in the
churches and certainly some
of those Christians would like
to go all the way back to
Judaism.
Muslims, too, contain a pool
of potential converts. Islam is
the fastest growing religion in
the world. The first thing my
Islamic friends want to know
from me is, "Where can we
get kosher food?"
There is no reason why
Judaism can't be one of the
world's fastest growing
religions. After all, if the Mor-
mons can do it, why can't we?
There might be another ad-
vantage to evangelism as
well. To evangelize, you need
to "witness." That is, you
need to look someone in the
eye and tell them why you are
a Jew.
In churches across this
country Christians stand up
and say in their own words
how God has entered their
lives. Jews almost never do
that. But in Judaism the idea
of being a "light unto the na-
tions" is central. And the
theme of testimony is
repeated endlessly.
As for those who say that
evangelism is against Jewish
tradition, I would say look
again. Go back and re-read
the Kuzari; take a look at the
story of Ruth.
Converts have enriched
Judaism throughout our
generations and we have not
always opposed evangelism.
In fact, I think what stops
us from evangelism is a kind
of bigotry. Judaism is too good
for the gentiles. And, of
course, we wouldn't want our
daughters to marry converts.
If we wish to survive I think
we need to compete with
other evangelical religions. If
we want to grow, we can. ❑
Barry Mehler is on the
humanities faculty at Ferris
State University.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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