OPINION

OPINION

Try Jewish
Literacy

Understanding Humanism

observance. It was here that the real
n a recent issue of The Jewish
crisis of toleration and pluralism lies.
News, a confrontation was
If you can stop people from lighting
reported. The Shabbat dinner of
candles (a private behavior) in a non-
the Seventh Biennial Congress
religious setting like a hotel, why not
of Secular Humanistic Jews was invad-
forbid them to drive or read "outside"
ed by Orthodox protesters who object-
books or dress differently? This is not
ed to the lighting of Shabbat
the Jewish state that Herzl and
candles after sundown.
Ben-Gurion had in mind.
In response to this report,
Liberal Jews in Israel who
some letters to the editor
are in favor of pluralism have
expressed outrage — not at
to tolerate the existence of the
the uninvited protesters, but at
segregation of women at the
the Secular Humanistic Jews
Western Wall, a national shrine
who dared to light candles
for all Jews. This situation, in
after sundown. As a Secular
my opinion, is an affront to
Humanistic Jew training for
the Reform and Conservative
the rabbinate, I was very dis-
AD AM
movements in which families
mayed by this response.
CHAL OM
may sit together and pray and
Our delegates were not try-
Speci al to
to basic ideas of equality. Yet I,
ing to singlehandedly destroy
The J ewish
and other pluralistic Jews,
the Orthodox monopoly on
Ne ws
would never demand that
religious life in Israel. We were
Orthodox men and women be
in what we were told was a
forced to do anything that violates their
private room in the hotel. We did not
convictions. Toleration only works
go around to yeshivas eating ham and
when it is a two-way street.
cheese sandwiches. We did not run
It constantly amazes me that we can
into the kitchen to pollute it with
be more tolerant of other religions than
treife meat. We merely wanted to cele-
we are of our fellow Jews. I would
brate our Jewish identity in a different
never tell other Jews how they must,
way, a way no more halachically objec-
and must not, celebrate their Jewish
tionable than driving home from
identity. Yet, many Jews have no trou-
Shabbat services.
ble telling me what to do. There are as
We were not insensitive to what is
many personally significant ways of
important to the Orthodox in Israel;
feeling Jewish as there are Jews because
they were insensitive to what was
every Jew is an individual who responds
important to us. We were not even
to his or her own Jewish convictions.
making a public event of our Shabbat
The basic issue is whether you accept

I

Adam Chalom is a rabbinic intern at
the Birmingham Temple.

the reality of individuality and plural-
ism, or whether you reject it.

Humanistic Jews do not run
around telling other Jews what they
have to do for their Jewish identity.
Humanistic Jews do tell others that
they have the right and the freedom to
find for themselves their own path to
happiness and Jewish identity. If that
means following Halachah, fine. If
that means celebrating freedom from
Halachah, fine. If that means celebrat-
ing our Jewish identity in some mid-
dle ground, then that's fine, too. Plu-
ralism rests on mutual toleration and
mutual respect.

Toleration only
works on a
two-way street.

The biggest myth of Jewish history
is that Jews always celebrated Judaism
uniformly in one (Orthodox) way
until modern times. The historical fact
is that there have always been varieties
of Jewish observance, permitted or
not. Early Chasidism challenged the
establishment's belief that prayer at the
correct time was more important than
prayer with the correct intention.
Ashkenazim and Sephardim still can't
eat at each other's houses during
Passover because of alternate rules of
chametz. What have we forgotten from
our past when the power of an indi-
vidual rabbi determined the pluralism
of Jewish behavior? ❑

LITTERS

largely un-Jewish Detroit." He proba-
bly meant un-Orthodox Detroit. I am
also inclined to believe he was refer-
ring to the northwest area where many
Jews live who are not Orthodox.
We are decimated by so many in so
many ways, why should any Orthodox
Jews confuse non-Orthodox with non-
Jewish? We have the same ancestry
and pray to the same God.
The point I am making is that
most Jews are not Orthodox, but are
100 percent Jewish. To be more specif-
ic, when they wish their children,
friends and family to be more Jewish,
they probably mean more Orthodox
because their children and others are
already 100 percent Jewish by birth. I
suppose it is a matter of semantics.

Moishe Baruch (Ben) Mandell
Southfield

11 / 20

1998

32 Detroit Jewish News

On The Path
To Destruction?

Tragic that the Oslo Accords 1993
and 1995 and the Wye Summit 1998
did not cause Jews to protest against
the State Department and the presi-
dency.
Quite the opposite. An editorial in
The Jewish News ("Stay The Course,"
Nov. 13) proclaimed that to surrender
to the Arabs was the only plausible
choice. "What is the alternative?" the
editorial cried.
The classic Czechoslovakian solu-
tion (1939) was one of surrender and
capitulation to the Nazis under British
'fraud. Today, it is the Arabs under
American tutelage. Regardless of the
editorial claims, a similar super-Intifa-
da rebellion exists already, even if
Israel conceded. Thus, the Jews will

have to decide again whether to fire
real bullets causing death in defense of
Hebron, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, or with-
drawal in the face of raging Arab
mobs and Jewish children being shot
and murdered in cold blood. For
what? Half an Israel that is again
under Arab domination as "palestine"?
Indeed, tensions with the United
States, the "massive provider of Israeli
aid," are bound to increase because of
the Wye Summit and Israeli surrender.
Even if Israel gave the entire Judea-
Samarian hills (the Arab "west bank")
to the Arabs, Jews will continue to die
from increased Arab aggression
because of Oslo and Wye. There can
be no treaty that will stop the Arab
expansion into Jewish areas. Besides, if
Israel surrenders land, would it not
need less aid rather than more?
The Israeli economy is always

DAVID WEINBERG

Special to The Jewish News

0

ne key approach to repairing
the fraying Israel-Diaspora
relationship didn't find much
of an echo at this week's
grand CJF/UJA General Assembly
program in Jerusalem. A renewed
commitment to the study of Jewish
heritage: Jewish literacy as the bond
between Americans and Israelis.
American Jewish experts will
explain that Israel is not the utopian
dream of yesteryear; no longer roman-
tic enough to capture the imagination
of the masses or serve as an identity
builder for youth.
Indeed, the state's politics have
changed, grown complicated and dark-
er. Sephardim, religious Jews and the
Right have taken the driver's seat —
and they don't exactly share all the lib-
eral values of American Jews. Israel's
rabbis, they'll also tell you, effectively
have impugned the Jewishness of
American Jews.
Moreover, Israeli leaders themselves
have taken the wind out of American
Jewry's Israel-identification sails by
telling them Israel no longer needs
American Jewish communal lobbying
(Yitzhak Rabin), public relations efforts
(Shimon Peres) or philanthropy (Yossi
Beilin). Israeli Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu welcomes the
JEWISH LITERACY on page 35

David Weinberg is a regular commenta-
tor on public affairs for the Jerusalem Post.

straining because of its smallness. But
since the editorial agrees that Russian
immigration would increase because of
"Russia's domestic situation," why
should not Israel keep the land and
put Russians into Judea and Samaria,
rather than surrendering it to the
Arabs and having less room in a
shrunken Israel?
As plausible as the above may be, it
is outside pressure from the president
of the United States that earned the
collapse and dissolution of the State of
Israel. Jews do not, cannot, under-
stand that. Presidents have been work-
ing from its very beginning to destroy
Israel.
Still, the Zionist-Jewish dream of
peace did not come from simply
declaring "peace" with the Arabs
(Shimon Peres) nor by withdrawing
PATH To DESTRUCTION on page 34