Photos by Krista Husa

The Scene

Rabbi Avraham Jacobovitz leads a lunch-and-learn discussion as Ethan Gilan and
David Nederlander listen.

Finding My
Religion

Why young Jews are
rediscovering the power offaith.

RICHARD REGEN
Special to The Jewish News

F

or years I had this running
gag. When talking to other
Jews, I would ask them •
whether they were brought
up Reform, Conservative or
Orthodox. Naturally they would ask
me the same. Then, like any good
borscht-belt comic, I'd pause for a
moment before delivering the punch
line: "Well, I was brought up Reform,
but after my last bar mitzvah check
cleared, I became an agnostic."
It was always good for a few gig-
gles. But then a strange thing hap-
pened.. Somewhere in my late 20s, the
joke started wearing thin. Laughing
off the loss of my heritage just didn't
seem, well, funny anymore. In fact, it
had come to trouble me greatly.
At the time, I was living in
Washington, D.C., working on
Capitol Hill. On a whim, I attended a
Yom Kippur service. To be honest, I
felt more than a little bit stupid. My
paltry knowledge of Hebrew made it

10/31
1997

74

nearly impossible for me to follow
along. And in addition to feeling igno-
rant, I felt ashamed that I knew next
to nothing about my own people. So I
decided to do something about it.
First, I read books on Judaism and
Jewish histoty and talked to one or
two observant people. I went to a col-
lege friend's family Passover seder. But
I kept my search for a Jewish identity
to myself because deep down I
assumed that friends and family, a
fairly nonreligious lot, would laugh.
One day, a friend asked about the
books that were lying around my
apartment. Although we had known
each other for years, he and I never
discussed religion beyond a mutual
love for pickled herring. To my great
surprise, I discovered that my friend,
one of the most irreverent, cynical
souls that I know, shared my curiosity.
So do many other young Jews who
feel that they were cast adrift from
their religion.
Growing up in Ramsey, N.J.,
Lauren Sorokin, a 29-year-old photog-
rapher, had little exposure to Judaism.

around the country, the breakdown of
"We did some things when I was a
the extended Jewish family and a
child, like Chanukah or Passover at
dearth of Jewish knowledge. Add it all
my grandparents. But I never had a
up, and one is left with the dirtiest
bat mitzvah," she says. "We went to
word in the Jewish lexicon: assimila-
synagogue once in a blue moon — if
there was a wedding or someone
tion.
Assimilation has traditionally hap-
died:"
pened to Jews who lived during a peri-
Such experiences are common for a
od of relative stability and affluence
generation of Jews who.were raised in
— whether it be ancient Babylon,
the 1960s and 1970s. Most of us, it
Rome or Germany before Hitler's rise.
seems, have sloughed off the greater
But the tug of assimilation has
part of our Jewishness as young adults.
prompted a counterresponse. In 1992,
Sure, we all knew that we were Jewish,
the AJC commissioned a series of bold
but few of us were in any way obser-
vant.
advertisements in the New York Times
"I never had strong Jewish identi-
on "What being Jewish means to me,"
ty," says Steve Elzer, 33, director of
essays by prominent Jews such as
corporate publicity for New Line
Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman
Cinema. The main concern of his
and Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel.
childhood friends in Beverly Hills,
AJC officials hoped the efforts would
Calif., was "who got the biggest checks convince wayward Jews that it was all
for his bar mitzvah." Elzer had a bar
• right to be, well, Jewish.
mitzvah at age 26, for
"We had to
purely spiritual rea-
actively participate to
sons.
stop the hemorrhag-
Adam Hutt, a 32-
ing," says David
year-old investment
Harris, AJC execu-
manager, says,
tive director. "We
"Looking back, I now
couldn't just place
see that the attitude of
this in the laps of the
my parents was that
rabbis."
they had no interest."
Many young Jews
Hutt grew up in the
seem to be respond-
heavily Jewish — but
ing, and so is the
not very religious —
marketplace.
suburbs of Long
The Judaica sec-
Island, N.Y
tions of bookstores
"I went back to my
feature titles ranging
synagogue on the
from Eveg Person's
Monday after my bar
Guide to Judaism by
mitzvah," says Hutt,
Stephen Enstein and
"and when the cantor
Lydia Kukoff
saw me, he said,
(UAHC Press) to
`What are you doing
How to Run a
here? You're done; get
Traditional Jewish
out of here."
Household by Blu
Hutt rediscovered
Greenberg (Jason
Judaism on a 1988
Aronson Publishers),
trip to Israel, when he
as well as translations
was 24. He was trying
of the Torah and
to find himself on a
Talmud.
And the
Top: Joe Feldman talks with
sabbatical after the
Rabbi j after a lunch and learn. National Jewish
stock market crash. He
Outreach program,
found faith.
based
in New York,
Above: Howard and Karen
"It dawned on me
sponsors
"crash cours-
Rosenberg: Finding a lot to be
that the Torah wasn't a
es" in Hebrew and
proud of
hoax. No human being
basic Judaism in
could have written it,"
more than 1,300
locations across America.
says Hutt.
One could say that given the
But for individual Jews, seeking out
increasing rates of intermarriage, many a rabbi is still the most popular way to
Jews do not seem to feel committed to
get in touch with their roots.
Judaism. The American Jewish
On a frigid January morning on the
Committee (AJC) cites several other
upper west side of Manhattan, some
reasons for diminishing identity — a
25 Jews listened to Rabbi Mark
low birthrate, the dispersal of Jews
Wildes conduct a beginner's Sabbath

