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Conservative conversion
program in Denver
• Reform Jews who left
their Long Island suburb
because they felt their
Orthodox neighbors were
judging them.
However, not all con-
flicts are Orthodox-secular.
He also writes of
• Tensions that emerge
in a traditional
Conservative congregation
in Los Angeles when one
of the members seeks to
include the matriarchs
in the liturgy;
• The intra-
JULIE WIENER
Orthodox tensions
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
ignited when five fer-
vently
Orthodox stu-
New York
dents declared the Yale
ust as American Jews spent
University's dorms
the last decade worrying
improper settings for
about "continuity," they will
observant Jews, even
likely spend this one worrying
though hundreds of
about lack of consensus as to just what
Samuel
Freedman
modern
Orthodox
kind of Judaism should be continued.
Jews
had
happily lived
That's the message of Samuel
in them for years.
Freedman's provocatively titled new
Each of Freedman's narratives of con-
book, Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the
flict is introduced with an essay outlining
Soul of American Jewry (Simon &
the issue and placing it in historical con-
Schuster, $26). The award-winning jour-
text. He traces trends in immigration_
nalist is a Jewish Book Fair speaker on
and assimilation, denominational shifts
Wednesday, Nov. 8.
and growth, patterns of leadership and
That there are tensions among the
more. Linked, these pieces provide a tex-
different streams of Judaism — particu-
tured chronicle of Jewish life in America
larly between Orthodox and liberal Jews
over the last 40 years.
— is nothing new
Umbrella organizations like federa-
tions and Jewish community centers
have struggled with dueling demands
Freedman, a Columbia University jour-
such as whether to close for Shabbat or
nalism professor raised in an "intensely
remain open, to allocate overseas funds
secular" household, brings a bit of an
to the liberal streams of Judaism or to
outsider's perspective to the debate. This
Orthodox yeshivot and social organiza-
is his first book on a Jewish topic, and he
tions, to support the Israeli prime minis-
is reluctant to take sides or prescribe
ter's willingness to exchange land for
solutions,
preferring instead to "create a
peace or to condemn it.
dissonance
in the reader's brain," by
What makes his book unique, says
showing the humanity of those with
Freedman, is that it is not "from one
whom they might passionately disagree.
polemical point of view or another."
Interested in Judaism as a child,
Instead, the book puts faces on the
Freedman
chose against his parent's wish-
Jewish disunity, thoroughly chronicling
es
to
have
a
bar mitzvah. But his Jewish
the stories of a handful of people caught
interest
"ended
abruptly" when the rabbi
up in such disputes. The disputes in
refused
at
the
last
minute to lead the ser-
modern American Judaism, contends
vice
due
to
a
dispute
over whether the
go
beyond
simply
Orthodox
Freedman,
reception would be sufficiently kosher.
vs. secular.
"We had to find another rabbi and
But the central conflicts of the book
another
synagogue, so everything I'd
are the ones that pit Orthodox against
heard
from
my parents_ about how sectar-
liberal Jews.
ian
and
petty
Judaism was, seemed to
Freedman examines:
have
been
confirmed,"
said _Freedman.
• The simultaneous demise of a secu-
He
returned
to
religion
years later, in
lar Zionist summer camp and exponen-
an unlikely spot: as a reporter writing a
tial growth of a neighboring Chasidic
book on an African-American church in
community in New Jersey
Brooklyn. The church members fre-
• A failed joint Orthodox-Reform-
Journalist
puts human
faces on
the war for
Us. Jewry's
future in his
latest book.
j
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