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12/24/04
In the office of Dr. Michael Gray
6635 Daly Rd, West Bloomfield, Ml
11/12
2004
54
248-539-FACE
Arts Life
Jewish Book Fair
Kosher Country
Work chronicles 350-year history of Jewish religion in America.
JONATHAN GRONER
JBooks.com
I
f those who try to predict the
fate of American Jewry can be
divided into pessimists and opti-
mists, count Jonathan Sarna emphati-
cally among the optimists. In this suc-
cinctly written and cogently argued
history of American Judaism, aptly
named _American Judaism (Yale
University Press; $35), the well-known
Brandeis University historian makes a
strong case that Jews on these shores
have a promising future as well as a
storied past.
This book is particularly appealing
because Sarna, unlike many academics,
has a clear prose style that occasionally
even displays a bit of flair. "Since the
demand for first-rate rabbis greatly
outstripped the supply, the market-
place soon restored substantial power
to the rabbinate," he writes, discussing
America in the 1840s.
Or take a look at this comment on
American Judaism in the 1880s: "East
European Jews looked to Reform Jews:
sometimes they quietly emulated
them, sometimes they explicitly reject-
ed them, but never could they totally
ignore them."
To clarify what Sarna's book is not:
It is not an account of all aspects of
American Jewish history. That would
be well nigh impossible in only 375
pages of text. Rather, it is a
history of the Jewish religion
in America — what
American Jews have believed
about God and about their traditions,
which religious rituals they have prac-
ticed (or stayed away from) and how
they have organized themselves reli-
giously.
The reader wishing to learn about
anti-Semitism in corporate America,
or the rise and fall of the Yiddish the-
ater, or Jews in electoral politics will
have to delve into those important
topics in other places. Sarna's concern
here is belief and practice.
On the question of belief and prac-
tice, of course, we have been hearing
for a long time about the "disappear-
ing American Jew," the decline in reli-
gious observance in an ever-moderniz-
ing community and the rapid onset of
"assimilation," a term that Sarna gen-
erally shuns in this book as "virtually
meaningless."
Sarna reminds us that the predictors
of gloom and doom have been pre-
dicting that gloom and doom
for generations and that the
community has somehow sur-
vived the predictions.
He tells us, for example, that in
1924, it was reported that only 17
percent of Jewish children in New
York City were studying in any kind
of Jewish school, and that a decade
later, a distinguished American journal
of social science foresaw "the total
eclipse of the Jewish church in
America."
Sarna is, of course, aware that inter-
marriage between Jews and non-Jews
is at historically high levels and that
Jews probably constitute only about 2
percent of the American Jewish popu-
Dr. Sarna Speaks
The author of 'American Judaism," this year's National Jewish Book Award winner for Book
of the Year, makes Book Fair appearance,
_WOKS STAFF
Jbook.com
1 31 onathan Sarna, author of the
thick and thoughtful new work
American Judaism, was seem-
ingly born into the Jewish-studies
business. In a recent phone interview
from Miami, where the
Massachusetts-based Sarna was visit-
ing his father, Nahum, he reported
that his dad is a "significant Jewish
Bible scholar."
This prompted Sarna to joke:
"Some people have argued that I
went into the only Jewish field that
my father didn't know much about."
Soon Sarna turned serious and
explained that the first steps on his
professional journey occurred when
he was a rather young man: "Even in
high school I realized that not much
had been done in the field."
regain their faith."
Years of tilling our histori-
And about those people
cal soil has paid off in a
whose Judaism is largely
bumper crop of insight for
secular?
Sarna, and his labor has left
His response: "Jewish
the Joseph H. and Belle R.
secularists have a kind of
Braun Professor of American
natural propensity to disap-
Jewish History at Brandeis
pear into the mainstream.
University feeling hopeful.
Our worldly brethren,
Cautiously hopeful.
said
Sarna, face two specific
Jonatha n Sarna:
"I think it's not good for
challenges. First, they are,
Mmeric a is very
Jews to be either too pes-
in some parts of the coun-
pluralist in its
simistic or too optimistic,"
try, seen as suspicious.
hatred.''
he said. "If they are so opti-
Sarna pointed out that in
mistic that they grow com-
our nation — in which
placent, that's bad."
more than 90 percent of
Despite all the various historical
the population constitute believers
nay-sayers who insist that Judaism is
and a very high number are church-
wobbling its way toward extinction,
goers — the non-religious Jew is
Sarna sees Jewish history as a cyclical
looked on as an oddity.
vehicle. It's a history, he said, "of peo-
Issue No. 2? It's difficult for secular
ple who lose their faith but also who
Jews to convince their children to