Opinion
Destiny And Memory
In These Changing Times
Joe Judaism
Serves Personal Needs
RABBI MARVIN HIER SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
JOSEPH AARON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
These are tem- Kosygins and the rest of the Cold vigorated, ready to pounce on us
with such audacity, as it did at the
perate and rela- War tyrants.
World
Trade Center and Okla-
But
the
critical
question
is:
tively quiet
times in human "What does Jewish history tell us homa City.
Goodness, on the other hand, is
history. The pos- about the advent of a new era?"
sibilities of glob- What does it mean in Jewish slow and deliberate, often hin-
al confrontation philosophical thought? Is there re- dered by indecisiveness. We want
have diminished ally such a thing as permanent to do good but are easily distract-
ed by the burdens of daily exis-
considerably. change?
The Jews of Canaan were once tence.
Peace has come
How else are we to explain that
to many war-torn corners of the nomads, pasturers of flocks, mi-
earth. There are new worlds to nor-league players until, by a fluke so many of those who had the
conquer in the fields of medicine, of circumstances, one of their own, courage to stand up to Hitler from
science and global communica- Joseph, made himself known to the beginning paid dearly, not only
tions.
Nonetheless,
the last year has
been a very diffi-
cult one for world
Jewry. A religious
Jew murdered the
prime minister of
Israel. There were
horrible attacks by
llamas against
the citizens of Is-
rael. There are
profound dis-
agreements about
current Israeli pol-
icy. A great divide
has engulfed
Knesset Y'Israel,
pitting one Jew
against the other.
But the issues
are greater than
just debating land Former inmates and family members of prisoners gathered on the grounds of Mauthausen.
for peace. They go
to the heart of the
meaning of Jewish destiny and the Egyptian pharaoh and during the Third Reich, but to this
through that connection brought very day?
memory.
If we do not persist on our
To some, the dawn of a new the Jewish people to the center of
course, if we are not faithful to
civilization is upon us. The sun the world stage.
But then, the unpredictable oc- memory, then one day no one will
is about to set. There is no need
to retrieve the past. A new Hong curred. "And a new pharaoh rose believe that those eerie sounds of
Kong is about to be born in the up in Egypt who knew not Yosef." the trains once delivered millions
Middle East. The real tyrants Joseph's contribution suddenly of unsuspecting men, women and
children to the death camps.
are gone. The pretenders left be- was minimized.
No one will remember the wed-
hind are not really dominant
ding of the bride and the groom—
players. The world finally has
the old man with the beard, stand-
come under the control of the
ing beneath the canopy intoning
"good guys."
the blessings, as the hundreds of
As the noted Israeli intellec-
guests looked on and the music
tual A.B. Yehoshua recently told
played.
a group of American Jews,
No one will remember that the
"There is nothing you can do for
bride and the groom, like
us anymore unless you want to
the hundreds of guests who had
come here and settle." In other
assembled, never knew each oth-
words, thanks for the fuel and
er. And the old man was no
This
reminds
us
that
to
be
a
the lift-off, but we are airborne
now. We are on our own and Jew we must be prepared to ex- rabbi, merely one of the victims
we're doing just fine, so why not pect new twists and turns. We forced to stage a wedding by SS
just stand back and watch the must be ever cautious not to over- Untersturmfueher Meuter. When
reach and never to declare with the wedding was over, Meuter per-
ride?
There is, of course, some truth certainty that the Messianic Age sonally escorted the bride and the
to that. The whole world knows has arrived. We may hope for it. groom, and all the hundreds of
that the '90s are not the '40s, nor We may pray for it. But we should guests, straight to the gas cham-
ber, that summer day at Treblin-
are they the '70s. Our planet is never bank on it.
We must know that our histo- ka in 1943.
no longer about Brezhnevs and
If we lose that memory, we lose
ry is full of detours, and that we
have always traveled the more ar- the secret and the meaning of our
Rabbi Marvin Hier is founder and
duous and longer path, many survival, which has always been
dean of the Simon Wiesenthal
times thinking we were home free embedded in the commandment,
Center in Los Angeles. This
only to awaken to another disap- "Zachor!"
piece was excerpted from a
We demand that the world
pointment.
recent speech he delivered in
must
remember, for memory is life
But
it
is
not
only
that
history
is
San Francisco at the American
unpredictable. It is also that evil itself. A world without a past is a
Jewish Press Association
is bold and boundless, easily rein- world without a fiture.❑
Convention.
I
Evil is bold
and boundless.
Goodness is slow
and deliberate.
am pleased to announce to-
day the founding of a new de-
nomination. It's called Joe
Judaism.
Joe Judaism proudly takes its
place next to Orthodox, Con-
servative, Reform, Reconstruc-
tionist and all the other
Judaisms there are, and no
doubt, all the others that soon
will be. Joe Judaism has been
established because I wanted a
segment of Judaism that total-
ly and completely agrees with
everything I feel, think and be-
lieve.
After all, having my own de-
nomination is a lot easier than
trying to talk to or struggle with
other Jews. And certainly easi-
er than getting along with oth-
er Jews or respecting Jewish
views that are not totally in sync
with mine.
The chief rabbi of Joe Ju-
daism will be me, Joe. Mem-
bership requirements are as
follows: You don't have to be
named Joe, but it helps. You
should have a love of journalism
and the Chicago Cubs, support
the peace process in Israel, be-
lieve the Torah was given to us
on Mount Sinai, observe the
same mitzvot in the same way
that I do. And like ice cream.
Tax-deductible contributions
to support the important work
of ensuring the continuity of Joe
Judaism can be made out to me,
Joe. All other denominations
need not apply.
While I've been thinking
about starting Joe Judaism for
quite a while, I must admit that
what finally pushed me to ac-
tually do it was a story out of Is-
rael. A story that, to me, all too
clearly shows where we are
headed as we continue our ef-
fort to label and treifesize any
Jew with whom we do not agree.
Rabbi Yisroel Rosen, head of
the conversions department for
the Chief Rabbinate of Israel,
recently submitted a proposal
for dealing with the fact that Or-
thodox and Reform Jews see
and handle things differently.
His proposal: make Reform Ju-
daism a "completely separate
religion" from Judaism.
Under Rabbi Rosen's propos-
al, Reform Jews would be equal
to Christians, Druze, Muslims
and followers of other religions
in Israel. Each is recognized as
an edot, or religious communi-
ty, and so is legally permitted to
oversee issues such as marriage,
divorce, conversion and burial.
Reform Judaism as a sepa-
rate religion, just like Chris-
tianity, Islam and Druze. Take
that in for a minute.
Joseph Aaron writes for the
Chicago Jewish News, where
this article first appeared.
To be honest with you, it
doesn't surprise me. For years,
I have felt that we were head-
ing in this direction. For more
and more have we less and less
seen ourselves as part of the
same people. Less and less have
we been willing even to talk to
each other, let alone respect
each other.
There is no official
dialogue group
among Reform,
Conservative and
Orthodox Jews.
It is a sad but true fact that,
at this moment, there are dia-
logue groups between Jews and
African-Americans, Jews and
Poles, Jews and Hispanics, Jews
and Catholics, but not one
official dialogue group among
Reform, Conservative and Or-
thodox Jews. Not one.
And instead of dealing with
the problems between us as
Jews, the solution that's pro-
posed by an official state insti-
tution calls for a total split, for
us to see each other as members
not of different parts of the same
religion but as members of dif-
ferent religions. What is so pro-
foundly sad about all this is that
there has never been a better
opportunity for some kind of
coming together. And there has
never been a greater need.
The need is the result of the
fact that we are doing to our-
selves what no anti-Semite in
history has been able to do: tear
us apart from each other.
To listen to the new leader of
the Reform movement is to rec-
ognize how different Reform is
from 50 years ago — to recog-
nize that, ironically, while Jews
have never been further apart,
what they are espousing has
never been more the same.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, Reform's
new head, has made it clear that
"my goal is to build a movement
of Reform Jews for whom Torah
is at the center of their lives ...
We are coming home to Torah
because it is the very essence of
our being and because we see as
our first duty and great joy the
teaching of those sacred texts
that bind us to a shared faith
and a shared way of life."
His predecessor, Rabbi
Alexander Schindler, in his
farewell address, echoed that,
saying his movement's central
mission is one of teaching "our
children Torah, not just to know
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