More on the crisis of Jewish identity. Yesterday I did a post about my own efforts to transcend identity politics and adjust to a diverse American culture in the age of Obama, in which young people don't see race and religion as prominent.
Yes and some of those people actually fall in love across those shadowy lines. Here's a great piece of reporting by Jeremy Gillick for New Voices about the opposite impulse in social organization, the intolerance at rabbinical colleges of students who want to marry non-Jews. The policies are of course rationalized as a means of preserving "the Jewish people." Preserve, preserve–but on what terms?
[Aspiring rabbi David Curiel] was shocked when Hebrew College (HC), the non-denominational,
Boston-based rabbinical school that appealed to him because it seemed
“progressive and forward-thinking,” told him he would not be welcome at
its seminary because his wife was not Jewish.
Neither Curiel’s situation nor HC’s policy is unique. The
Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), the Reform
movement’s Hebrew Union College (HUC) and the Reconstructionist
Rabbinical College (RRC) all refuse to admit or ordain students in
relationships with non-Jews. “Because we believe in the importance of
Jewish family modeling,” reads the policy at HUC, the network of
seminaries for America’s largest Jewish denomination, “applicants who
are married to or in committed relationships with non-Jews will not be
considered for acceptance to this program.”
If the policies affect only a small number of potential rabbis, they
channel strong ideological currents. Rabbinical leaders contend that
the policies are not only consistent with halacha, but
actually embody core notions of Jewishness. “Jewishness has not
historically been understood as a matter of individual faith or
choice,” explains Jonathan Boyarin, a professor of modern Jewish
thought at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “but as
entitlement and obligation based ultimately on descent.”
Halacha is Jewish law. Most American Jews violate it constantly. Halacha changes, like other legal codes. Here's a weird story from Philadelphia's Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in late 1990s:
[Rabbi Maurice] Harris recalls learning about at least five fellow students in covert
relationships with non-Jews—evidence that many students are too scared
even to “come out” about their partners. “We were the only out couple
which was an interesting thing in a seminary known for being very
gay-friendly and where issues of being closeted had a strong impact on
many students and faculty members…
Then an enlightened note:
Rabbi Yael Shmilovitz, a recent HUC graduate who gave a
controversial senior sermon in favor of intermarriage in 2007, differs
sharply with[sociologist Stephen] Cohen. Rabbis should serve as role models, she says, but
“endogamy is not a value to be emulated.” In her view, the ideals
embodied by the “blue sheet,” which is now colorless and exists only
online, are products of “deep-seated Jewish fears of disappearing. It’s
about the reluctance to realize that in order to survive we have to
change.” And change won’t come if liberal Jewish movements see
intermarriage “as a necessary evil to be contended with rather than a
blessing,” she says. “If Judaism is strong and vibrant it will survive,
and if not, it won’t, regardless of who anyone marries.”
Another story of the closet, and of hurt/coercion:
M, who was admitted to rabbinical school last month after her boyfriend
agreed to convert by 2010, says it would have been easy to pretend he
was Jewish. Although she decided against hiding his background from the
school—albeit “with no judgment for friends who have made that
choice”—M remains torn about the conversion. “The fact that it’s forced
puts this strain on his relationship with Judaism,” she says. “The
worst parts of Judaism, the parts that exclude and marginalize people,
seem to be the parts asking the person I love to convert. That’s really
hurtful to me.”
Piece culminates with a vision of Judaism by a rejected would-be rabbi:
[David] Curiel envisions a Jewishness free from the exclusive, tribal
inclinations that history once mandated for the Jews, inclinations that
he feels mainstream Judaism still clings to, and that are excluding him
from the rabbinate. [He imagines a school policy] acknowledging a variety of valid Jewish identities [and that] agrees to “accept
applicants in interfaith relationships and marriages who will be able
to engage with, support, and otherwise Jewishly enrich the families of
the communities they serve.”
