THE ULTIMATE DRIVING MACHINE
I are more active and committed than
-ever. That's due in part to the emphasis
on Jewish private schools for kids and
adult Jewish education. With that edu-
cation comes a more rigid ideological
bent, meaning more infighting.
• Feminism has yet to make its
impact. Women's Rosh Chodesh
groups, or study and fellowship clubs,
are gaining popularity. Jewish women's
writings are flourishing. People are seek-
ing a connection to Judaism's spiritual
side that fits portions of their identity.
• Israeli Jews are becoming more
American and American Jews are
becoming more Israeli. They want our
materialism and we want their spiritual-
ism — particularly from groups such as
the Sephardim, or Jews from Middle
Eastern countries. They are comfortable
\/- with Jewish prayers and rituals as well as
the paradoxes of going to synagogue
Saturday morning and driving to a soc-
cer game in the afternoon.
• The way to stop worrying about
intermarriage is simply stop worrying
about it. Spend more time making
Judaism fun, relevant and interesting.
What's a better use of dollars and ener-
gies: Seminars on how 85 percent of
intermarried couples don't raise their
kids as Jews, or a family Sephardi cook-
ing festival two weeks before the High
Holy Days?
• The looming question still not
being addressed comprehensively: Why
be Jewish in an open society? After all,
particularism is against the grain of
America, as is stopping intermarriage.
The Catholics do it with the Protes-
tants, and the Episcopalians with the
Baptists. We Jews, history teaches, aren't
good at swimming against the stream of
American society.
There was much more: many chil-
dren of the intermarried are being con-
verted to Judaism so never give up on
any Jew; if the 20th century marked
American Judaism's phenomenal rise,
the 21st could mean rapid demise as the
best and brightest move to Israel —
nothing is preordained; and we must
defeat the conspiracy of consensus,
which has most Jewish leaders afraid to
openly debate the important issues of
the day, something that could attract
those on the fringe.
Most important, the program
marked the start of a new generation of
Jewish journalists being trained to ask
probing and critical questions of and for
readers. That will keep our editorial
pages and communities places where
debate with integrity, something at the
heart of any successful Jewish polity, a
living reality.
\
/-
\
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Detroit Jewish News
7/3 1
1998
35