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What We Learned From the 1970's

(Sh'ma 10/184, DECEMBER 28,1979)

At Sh'ma's annual meeting of the contributing editors last June, a symposium was held on the implications of the past decade on Jewish life. Opening, prepared remarks were made by Nora Levin, Arnold Jacob Wolf, and David Novak. A lively discussion followed. As we now wind up the 1970's and move forward into a new decade, we would like to share with you the highlights of last spring's exchange. Although recent world events have been such that if the symposium were held today it would undoubtedly include additional material, the contents of the June discussion remain current and provocative.

We will republish the symposium over the next six weeks. We will first feature the three initial presentations as well as the first part of the discussion which followed, remarks by Michael Wyschogrod. Further discussion by Balfour Brickner and Eugene Borowitz, and the concluding remarks of the three speakers will follow.

What we learned from the 1970's

Balfour Brickner

This conservation makes me want to cry. As a still unredeemed Jewish Social activist I cry every day for lost Jewish liberalism. I hear a lot of analysis on why that has happened, but I don't get much synthesis which will restore it. I don't see many of our people on he battlefronts when they are needed. I'm not talking about picketing or crazy demonstrations. I'm talking about day to day struggles against the elements of American society which would take us back into the eighteenth century if they could. I must tell you, I find a hell of a lot more support from some of my activist Christian friends than I find from my Jewish colleagues in the religious community. The forces of conservatism and reaction are growing in this country as they ever have grown before. David is absolutely right. We need the restoration of Jewish humanism and Jewish liberalism as we never needed it before. The drift to "the right" is growing in the Jewish community.

Mix with the Jews of New York, particularly in some of our Long Island communities; you will experience what I mean. After such session, I come home convinced that unless, there is a massive injection into America of unrefined, unquenchable Jewish humanistic liberalism, there will be a decline in American life which can prove to be fatal.

That is observation number one. Observation number two: Why is it no one wants to tackle the mediocrity of American Jewish organizational life? I live in the middle of it and I know how phony and inept it is. Only one person I know consistently tries to keep us honest, Trude Weiss Rosemarin. For two years she has been crying like a voice in the wilderness. She has single- handedly exposed the excesses in the UJA and the Jewish Agency and what good has it done?

None! We must invest in American Judaism

Observation three: Not enough of us talk about how to create quality in Jewish life. We do not plan the creation of a national Jewish arts movement, a Jewish cultural movement, the need to reinvest - no, not reinvest - invest funds in that. No one talks about creating Jewish Prep Schools which are crying to be built. Shlomo Bardin, in California, was a pioneer, a maker of blueprints that were unbelievable. This dream he could not carry out. There should be a dozen of these schools all over America.There are Jews in America who would give money to such programs. But we're not serious about them, certainly not enough to put our lives on the line for them, to invest our time, our energy, our hearts in what is necessary.

Final observation: The survival of American Jewry. I don't believe for one single moment that I live in Exile. I have never believed I lived in Exile. I never teach it to my children or to any other children. I wouldn't teach that to anybody. I don't live in Exile. I live in a Jewish diaspora and I'm perfectly content to live in a diaspora. I think the emphasis on aliyah is nonsense for American Jewry. This ought to be said quite directly. Talk about "lend-lease" between Israel and America; that is possible and desirable. But, don't tell me I'm living like some second-class citizen in Exile somewhere and that all my future is wrapped up only in Israel. It is about time that we begin to talk realistically to the American Jewish community about what the American Jewish community is and is not. And if that means challenging all the bankrupt "institutionalities" of American Jewish life - then so be it.