Definitions of Jewish identity are at the heart of the battle over J Street’s conference. The haters of J Street fear a universalist Jewish identity that won’t ask first, Is it good for the Jews? In an interview with Jeremy Ben-Ami, Jeffrey Goldberg, the most important Jewish journalist in America, alas, notwithstanding the rise of Roger Cohen, brings up the intermarriage issue, and the two get "seriously diverted," Goldberg says. And why? Because Goldberg is upset about intermarriage. Emphasis below mine. Ben-Ami is granting this interview for the same reason that Barack Obama granted Goldberg an interview, and Netanyahu, and Tarantino too: because Goldberg is the royal road to the Jewish unconscious:
JG: Let me ask you something about something that you said to James Traub in The New York Times Magazine. You said that all of the people who work for you are intermarried and I was wondering –
JB: No, I never said that. I asked The Times for a retraction but they wouldn’t give it. I never said that. What I said is that the young generation of Jews is a different generation, and all that. No one is intermarried in my office! No one on my staff is intermarried.
JG: So it’s an inaccurate quote.
JB: An inaccurate quotation. Our staff is not intermarried. Not that that’s a bad thing. There’s nothing wrong with being intermarried.
JG: This is getting Seinfeldian here.
JB: There’s nothing wrong with intermarriage. What’s wrong with intermarriage?
JG: We’re a small people–
JB: Right, but you know what I find? I find that most of my friends, and we’re talking mid-to-late forties at this point, most of my friends who intermarried, their spouses either converted, or they’re kids are being raised Jewish. What I find so fascinating about my intermarried friends is that they’re searching for welcoming Jewish communities. So let’s make ourselves a welcoming community.
JG: Look, I have that sadness of ‘Oh, why are you leaving?’ but I also recognize that you may as well just open up the door and say, "Come on in."
JB: The fastest answer to the shrinking Jewish population is to welcome in all of these spouses.
JG: It’s good for the gene pool, too.
JB: It’s incredibly good for the whole community. I think to put forward the notion that intermarriage is bad is exactly the kind of unwelcoming feeling that this community gives off to this generation.
JG: I don’t think it should be phrased as bad or good. I think that marrying someone Jewish should be considered a positive thing, and we should be able to say that we’d like you to marry Jewish people or marry someone who wants to be Jewish and join the Jewish community.
J Street needs to invite Eli Yishai to set them straight:
link to ynetnews.com
Yeah, you gotta watch that intermarriage thing. I mean it’s just a small trickle now, rising from 0% to about 2% or 3%. But what if it went to almost 50%, God Forbid?
How would we live, how would we stand it?
Are those the percentages Mooser? Because that would be in line with my personal experience. The majority of Jewish people I have known throughout my life, from good friends to acquaintances, are all keeping it in the tribe. Intermarriage is rare in my experience.
No, Dan, those are not percentages, those are a joke. The real figure is running about, I believe 50%. That intermarriage train has left the station, all aboard, headed for Outer Mongrelistan.
“Intermarriage is rare in my experience” Please go educate yourself just a little.
Also, you are overlooking, and always do, a very salient fact. How does a person get counted as a Jew? Another words, a guy marries a Gentile woman, and finds the Jewish social rejection strong enough to drive him away from an association with organised Judaism. So from then on, how is he counted as a Jew? He’s not.
Now, Dan, I don’t want to shock you, but those Jews in Europe did not live all together in ghettos and marry each other exclusively because they wanted to. There were laws which forced them to! Hard to believe Christians would make laws like that, but true. And when Jews came to the US, where there were no religious separations enforced, they acted a whole lot different.
For God’s sake, Dan, how do you account for those girls in Israel that the Jewish Chastity Patrols go after? Even in Israel if you don’t rigidly enforce almost complete social and legal segregation, the Jews start mixing with the others.
Again Dan, this may be too much for you to absorb all at once, but there are all different kinds Jews, from all over. Did you read the Shlomo Sands article here?
Some are very insular, some are very outward looking. Just like anybody else.
Well, just like anybody else, apart from those who know how desperate our fight to save America from the “alien culture” is, and that consanguinity is our only hope. Patriotic hemophilia, here we come, America Fust-Cless!
Calm down, man. Geez.
Incidentally, I don’t know if the numbers have jumped since 2001, but from what I could gather, 50% was the rate of intermarriage then (47%, actually). The total number of Jewish adults who were intermarried in 2001 was 31%. Perhaps the total number has jumped to close to 50% since 2001, I don’t know. I’ll let you educate me.
Now that I think more intently about it, my personal experience is probably around 20 percent. These aren’t hard and fast, of course. I’ll begin a more thorough documentation for my trial…
“Calm down, man. Geez”
I will do so, and right away. I think my wife made the coffee a little strong this morning, sorry.
Mooser, I didn’t think before responding to your initial post. Obviously, 2 or 3 percent is ridiculous.
Now, is your wife brewing Starbucks at home? They support Israel, you know…
“Now, is your wife brewing Starbucks at home? “
Hell no! You know, every once in a while, every few months or so, I buy a coffee at Starbucks to see if it’s as bad as I remember, and it is, and I wouldn’t call me fussy about coffee. And this is at Starbuck either at, or within a mile of the main corporate office! And the stuff is bitter, burnt and undrinkable.
My Dad is the same way. He prefers a good old cup from the corner deli, as opposed to Starbucks or any of the newer, stronger beans. It pains to admit it, but my populism turns to elitism when it comes to coffee: I really love the more expensive varieties.
But Jews do all have horns, don’t they?
I don’t think it should be phrased as bad or good. I think that marrying someone Jewish should be considered a positive thing, and we should be able to say that we’d like you to marry Jewish people or marry someone who wants to be Jewish and join the Jewish community.
I think that marrying someone who isn’t Jewish should be considered a positive thing, and we should be able to say that we’d like you to marry non-Jewish people or marry someone who no longer wishes to be Jewish and join the gentile community.
Goldberg’s gone off the deep end. So much for that universalist Jewish presence.
Tribal, tribal, tribal…
Pingback: Now ‘J Street’ is incorrect on… intermarriage! | JewPI
I think both should be considered a positive thing.
But, marrying someone Jewish, and more importantly, raising a Jewish child keeps the Jewish community, whereas inter-marrying and bearing assimilated children is a path for the communication of values, but risks the values being diluted in modern commercial “culture”.
Jewish continuity is a jewel.
ANY either/or emphasis is the wrong one. When Phil ever implies that marrying a Jewish woman or having Jewish children is some moral compromise, I shudder. (He doesn’t recognize it when he infers that, but sometimes in his defensiveness he attacks those that don’t intermarry.)
“Jewish continuity is a jewel.”
Translation from the hasbara: Sacrifice your children to Israel.
“diluted in modern commercial “culture”.”
Oy Gottenyu! To Citizen and Fust-Cless, the modern commercial culture is a Jewish product, and to Witty, it’s all the fault of those crass Gentiles! What a frickin crew we got here!
Isn’t it ironic, Mooser? Modern commercial culture is probably is probably the single aspect of American society that is truly secular. And people play hot potato with it — which, honestly is a good sign to me. It means it is not considered a primal American virtue as much as it used to be, back when Jimmy Carter was committing nigh unto heresy by decrying wasteful consumer culture and got replaced by phony “fiscal conservative,” Ronald Reagan.
“being diluted in modern commercial “culture”.”
Unlike Israel, of course, which is run entirely on a left-wing communal basis.
lol. “We can share the women, we can share the wine…”
“because Goldberg is the royal road to the Jewish unconscious:”
What am I, chopped liver? Well, he may be the “royal road” but I’m the secret tunnel through the back yard and and basement to the Jewish unconscious.
But look, guys, what can you do? These days, the best Jewish wives and mothers are Gentile girls !
“But look, guys, what can you do? These days, the best Jewish wives and mothers are Gentile girls !”
Good God, what kind of person would say something like that? It’s insane and distasteful from so many angles.
Slightly O/T:
From a JTA email alert:
Just in case someone thinks a smiling face and good attitude is going to change what Israel is doing –
SAN FRANCISCO SOUNDS OFF AGAINST OLMERT
but risks the values being diluted in modern commercial “culture”.
Careful Richard, you’re headed right into the Protocols. You know, the one that says that the Jews will destroy the rest of humanity through “commercial culture” (or something like that).
Anyway, believe it or not, it is indeed possible for two people, one of whom is Jewish, to form a union and, absent any form of Judaism going forward, remain free from the corruption of modern culture.
Astonishingly, the Jewish person may even see more “value” in the other religion or culture than in his or her own Judaism, and choose to follow that path. Horrors!
My marriage has, seriously, made me much more tolerant of Christians, much more willing to not tar them all with the same brush, and much more forebearing in what I say. Same goes for my wife. I’ve even gotten her to stop playing that game where I have to call her Eva and she calls me Adolf.
Anyway, she would have made a terrible Jew, had she converted. I’d like to see the entire IDF try and get between my wife and good shellfish or pork. Now that I think about it, she must have been joking or temporarily insane when she offered to convert, considering the food angle.
You know, I asked my Dad, a very wise man, about this whole inter-marriage thing. “Daddila”, I asked, “Is it better to marry a Jewish girl or a Gentile girl?” My father stroked the non-existent beard on his non-existent chin (all of which I have proudly inherited) and said: “Son, is the question which one you would rather marry, or which one you would rather divorce?”
“C’mon Dad”, I wailed, “I’m serious!” To which he, of course, replied:
“Ho-Kay! You be serious, I’ll be Roebuck, we’ll start a store!”
What can I say, he was a big Jimmy Durante fan.
But the question is a good one, and quite relevant: Is it better to divorce a Jewish, or Gentile woman?
For me, of course, the question is mooted when I found out what my wife did to her first husband. Another quarter of an inch to the right and he would have bled out before the EMTs arrived. And who wouldn’t love a woman, Jewish or Gentile, who is such a marksman, even hung over on booze and barbituates?
I believe Kmart purchased Sears and Roebuck in 2004.
In a documentary I saw a Jewish woman recalled the first time she cried after WWII was over. She was walking down the street and suddenly she saw an adult walking with a child and the child was speaking Yiddish. And she started crying because “all” the Yiddish speaking children had been killed and this was the first time that she had heard a child speaking Yiddish.
Yiddish is no longer the most widely spoken Jewish language. Hebrew is. How many children of intermarriages speak Hebrew? How many children of Jewish marriages in America speak Hebrew?
“Yiddish is no longer the most widely spoken Jewish language. “
And Gosh, wondering Jew, (I’ll make the “J” uppercase, even if you won’t) who do you think had the biggest hand in that? My family was all fluent in Yiddish, some literate in Yiddish and members of Yiddish clubs.
The Zionists were completely opposed to Yiddish, the “gutter language” and made up a new language, Modern Hebrew, to try and replace it, and denigrated Yiddish at every opportunity.
Gosh, wondering Jew, why isn’t Yiddish the language of Israel, then?
Mooser – The Zionist decision to choose Hebrew as their language was wise, I think. For Hebrew is a Middle Eastern language and Yiddish is not. I think the nonAshkenazic portion of Israel would not have adjusted well to the language of Yiddish being the official tongue of Israel. Hebrew is the language of the prayer book and of the Hebrew Bible of the Mishna and much of the responsa of the rabbis.
The treatment of Yiddish by the Zionists was in keeping with their harsh ideological attitudes and as in other aspects they overdid it. But the success of the rebirth of Hebrew is one of the success stories of modern times.
Are you fluent in Yiddish? Do you feel that intermarriage promotes the speaking of the mother tongue?
The largest group of current speakers of Yiddish under the age of 20, I suspect, are Haredi Jews and many of them live in Israel.
Mooser- I was aware that the Zionists referred to Yiddish as a jargon, but this is the first that I’ve heard that they referred to it as a “gutter language”. I’m not doubting your word, but where did you see that?
First rule of Zionism: When cornered, play dumb. “Well that’s the first time I heard that!”
WJ, when was Modern Hebrew created? Answer that question.
wondering jew,
In his book, A Tale of Love and Darkness, Amos Oz tells how he was forbidden from learning/speaking Yiddish by his family as it was regarded as a language of the peasant, or more bluntly, gutter language.
I have been told by an ex-Israeli friend that the Zionists at the founding of Israel denigrated Yiddish because it was the language of so many of the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, for whom they felt contempt.
Call Me Ishmael:
Correct observation, CMI. Yiddish, along with Eastern European Jewish culture in general, was denigrated by the Zionists long before the Holocaust – as the language and culture of the weak, sniveling “diaspora Jew” (yes, they were rabid anti-Semites). The Holocaust however, gave this campaign a big boost. Yiddish was the language of those “who went like sheep to the slaughter” – the antithesis of the brave new Zionist Jew. I grew up hearing a lot of Yiddish. It was my dad’s first language, the only language my grandfather spoke well, and a language widely used in the synagogues and religious study halls where I grew up. My wife, on the other hand, who was raised in Israel, can’t stand hearing Yiddish or Eastern European Jewish music, because she said it reminds her of gas chambers. This is a common association among Israelis. A thousand years of rich, vibrant Jewish culture, reduced to its darkest moment.
Is spoken Hebrew the Jewish language or the Israeli language? I expect that more Palestinians speak Hebrew than do American Jews.
I suspect that more Palestinian citizens of Israel, or Occupied Territory Palestinians who have spent time in Israeli prisons, speak Hebrew than American Jews and therefore to call it an Israeli language is accurate. But that doesn’t deny the fact that it is also a Jewish language, just because Palestinians speak it as well.
Palestinian Jews spoke Arabic. Persian Jews speak Farsi. Doesn’t that make those languages Jewish languages than, too? Semitic languages, I dare say?
By such logic, American Jews speak English so therefore English is a Jewish language. No, English is not a Jewish language, it is a language that a lot of Jews speak. There are three Jewish languages that I am aware of: Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino. Hebrew is a Jewish language and Yiddish and Ladino are dialects of German and Spanish spoken by Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews respectively.
Modern Hebrew could be traced to Eliezer Ben Yehuda and when he decided to raise his son born in 1888 on a strict diet of only Hebrew. Or to the Haskala (enlightenment) users of Hebrew about the same time in Eastern Europe.
English isn’t a Jewish language? This, who knew? Maybe a mayven we should ask this question, already?
Actually, my wife did offer to convert after we got married. I never laughed so hard in my life! (although I was much affected, and very grateful, if somewhat puzzled, by the offer).
I love her because of who she is, and she doesn’t need to change anything, except her socks, once in a while. And for God’s sake, honey, DON’T SHOOT!!!
Who’s interviewing whom there? But I also wonder whether it’s about a road to the Jewish unconscious, or just a war of perception. Here’s a Jew who seriously believes Jews are basically easy-going folks who don’t complain and allow themselves to get walked all over by more vocal, annoying groups:
Why Don’t Jews Have an Al Sharpton?
link to theyeshivaworld.com
Note also what they really think of blacks.
“Note also what they really think of blacks”( Emphasis ed.)
They? Was the article written by a committee? Gosh, Fusty, I think I will go to the Liberty University website to find out what “they” (Gentiles) think.
All you ever want to talk about is your perception of the Jews as an eveil, cohesive group. That is because if we concentrated on what the Zionists are doing, you wouldn’t have a single disagreement with them. Purify the culture! Secure the borders! Get rid of the Aliens! We are under attack from outsiders!
Your only argument with Israel is that Jews did it, and not you.
Yeah, yeah, I know, Fusty; Polanski! Madoff! Don’t forget the Nussbaums.
You know what I wonder about, Fust-Cless? Are you really as bigoted and myopic as you seem, or is it just that you have decided that being bigoted and myopic is the best way to appeal to your audience?
Either way, what a mess, right down to the “America First” monicker! Why don’t you Google “Britian First- Mortimer” and see where you are headed?
Christ, it’s a one-ungulate rampage.
“They” is just what less literate anglophones like America First and myself use to substitute the singular third person because English doesn’t include a neuter pronoun for a single person.
Now I know, a more sophisticated anti-Semite would’ve used he/she. But sheesh, Mr. Antlers, I thought you’d be happy that at least AF didn’t refer to the Jewish author as “it.”
Who’s been spiking old Mooser’s tundra grass with ephedrine pellets?
Sorry, former, but America Fust-Cless has yanked the anti-Semitic chain so many times I might be over-sensitised. But he hones and refashions his schtick to try and get some of the most ostensible anti-Semitism out of it, and it’s fun to watch him paint himself into a corner again.
And the same thing is gradually happening to Witty, as he is buffeted by the slings and arrows of ever more intelligent and articulate reply. I am hoping for a grand confluence to occur, and soon.
I met my wife at the home of a guru in Calcutta. The group typically encouraged inter-racial marriage. (It was their very assertive manner of opposing caste culture).
While there, I was introduced to my Jewish wife by an Icelandic mutual friend. She thought we would get along well. We didn’t start off well, but we are best friends now.
We have Jewish children. We participate without inhibition in Jewish life in town, both anarchic (havarah) and organized (I’m the treasurer of our local synagogue).
40% of families in the shul are inter-married, and most of the spouses have converted. Some expressed some confusion about the association element. They loved the values but wondered about the exclusion or feeling of being different.
The rabbi conveyed, when you adopt Judaism and fulfill the criteria to make that formal and permanent, you ARE Jews. There is no distinction, excepting the impossibility of being Cohenim.
Those that don’t consider the future of Judaism important as in “teach your children” should acknowledge that they are passing Jews, “still” but going to be “prior”.
Judaism IS an inter-generational phenomena (not that every Jew has children). Past -> present -> future.
It is reasonable to think in longer time scales than one’s individual life about what one is and what one is a part of.
And gosh, Richard, the “prime directive” of Jews fighting and dying to establish a national homeland, Zionism, isn’t even mentioned! I’m glad you have relegated Zionism to its proper place in the hierarchy of Jewish beliefs.
And Richard, a “guru”? Shouldn’t we be going to “Jewrus” (Rabbis) instead?
I met my wife at the home of a guru in Calcutta.
For a second there I thought you ended up marrying a Bengali Hindu. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just curious, why did you open with that line?
The 50% rate is accurate, but it’s not new. The intermarriage rate is pretty constant.
What has changed here is that interfaith families do not drop out of the Jewish community, in many Reform congregations they ARE the community. This is almost 30 years old at this point. Israelis, as a rule, don’t begin to understand American life or American Jewish life. Eli Yishai, as an ultra-Orthodox politician just states it the most clearly.
What has changed is that now, interfaith is so mainstream that it’s defining Jewish identity. This is a challenge but also a blessing in many ways. Not least, sn that, you can’t claim your place as a Jews of an interfaith family without breaking out of the Israeli lobby headlock.
Go, J Street!
“What has changed is that now, interfaith is so mainstream that it’s defining Jewish identity. This is a challenge but also a blessing in many ways”
So in two simple lines he says everything I wanted to, but better! Well, that does it, I’m gonna go boil my head for a while.
Good job Elliot. Perfect!
Yishai conflates the intermarriage rate with assimilation, ie, unJudaizing, but then, I doubt that he considers any Reform Jews to be Jewish.
“What has changed here is that interfaith families do not drop out of the Jewish community, in many Reform congregations they ARE the community.”
I hate to sound so naive but the Jews I know are all secular, so I have to ask someone: Wouldn’t these interfaith families in Reform congregations be essentially secular (i.e., minimally religious)? And obviously the race thing is out the window. As stated, the Israel connection is blasted. So, in that case, what does the Jewish identity thing hang on? Bar Mitzvahs?
If Jews are 2.3% of the population, wouldn’t the intermarriage rate be 97.7%, if they weren’t ethnocentric? I personally don’t care whom people marry, but when the 50% is sometimes cited as proof that Jewish power is on the wane, we should be very skeptical, especially when all the other evidence points to Jewish power being more fearsome than ever.
“cited as proof that Jewish power is on the wane,”
All mixed up, as usual, America Fust-Cless! It’s a sign that Jewish Power is increasing! We are taking your women wholesale, and well, I don’t have to detail what comes next, but the thought of all those Polly Purebreds trembling like a wounded bird in the bedrooms of swinish Jewish swains, well, it just wrings your withers, don’t it?
C’mon America Fust-Cless, everybody knows that “Jewish Power” never ever wanes, it only wax’s! And wax roth it does! Yes, America Fust-Cless, Jewish Power is trampling through the warehouse where the Drapes of Roth are stored, and will soon by ravishing a little Gentile prietzkh near you! Gory Glory, How’ryadoin?
If all the Gentile girls married to Jewish men were laid end to end, well, I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Personally, I can’t stay away from mine, she’s a real doll.
, we should be very skeptical,”
What you mean-um we, Paleface? It’s just you in there, America Fust-Cless, with the ghost of Father Coughlin and Joe McCarthy. Even so, I’m sure you can still make room for Pat Buchanan.
JG: Look, I have that sadness of ‘Oh, why are you leaving?’ but I also recognize that you may as well just open up the door and say, “Come on in.”
JB: The fastest answer to the shrinking Jewish population is to welcome in all of these spouses.
JG: It’s good for the gene pool, too.
JB: It’s incredibly good for the whole community. I think to put forward the notion that intermarriage is bad is exactly the kind of unwelcoming feeling that this community gives off to this generation.
“It’s good for the gene pool.” What, precisely, does JGoldberg mean by this? Apparently I was under the misapprehension that eugenics, having lead to the Holocaust and all, was a bad thing. But Goldberg (whose gushing fascination with ‘Hostel’ and ‘Kosher porn’ makes him a piece of shit in my book) seems to say that all the skull measuring, IQ testing, and general analyses of pedigree was ghastly when it pitted Gentile against Jew, but not so much the other way round.
“What, precisely, does JGoldberg mean by this?”
That’s easy! Look, intermarriage is like chicken soup for the Jewish genepool (such as it is) ; sure, it may not help, but it couldn’t hurt!
If one is rooting for the Jewish people or religion to disappear then intermarriage is a good thing. If one is rooting for some continuity of the Jewish people or religion, how can intermarriage be a good thing? For the Jews to survive will require effort; for the Jews to disappear will take time, but little effort.
This web site is devoted to anti Zionism. Because of the damage that Zionism has done to the Palestinian people I understand where it is coming from. This web site is also devoted for the devolution of Jewish power. Because the War on Iraq involved Jewish power (plus the thought processes of Vice President Cheney and President George Bush whose father was almost killed by Saddam Hussein) I understand where it is coming from.
Intermarriage is natural given the current freedom of American society.
But is there no value in the Jews trying to keep the candle burning?
To quote Peter Yarrow: “Don’t let the light go out/It lasted for so many years/Don’t let the light go out/Let it shine through our love and our tears.
Hey pal, you get those Jewish girls to keep the birthrate up, and we’ll think about marrying them, okay?
And any guy who quotes Peter Yarrow, especially in this context, had better not confine his marriage choices, cause he is gonna need as wide a field as possible.
Also, your comment made, in genetic, or religious or social terms, no sense, but that’s allright. I’m sure that if I was a tribal kind of guy, squatting in the center of my little flat world, it’d make perfect sense.
Okay wondering, now you’ve done it, you’ve irritated me!
Look, how on earth is this our, us Jewish guys, our fault? Cause it’s not! Judaism, I beg to remind you, passes through the matriarchal line, bub. So the problem is not that Jewish guys are marrying Gentile girls, not at all. The problem is that Jewish girls are marrying Gentile guys, and then not raising the kids as Jews. I’m pretty sure you will find out that’s where the disappearing Jews are going. Okay?
“If one is rooting for the Jewish people or religion to disappear then intermarriage is a good thing.”
Eugenics much? Funny, wasn’t there another group of people who were really stringent about keeping the “master race” pure? What was the term again… oh, right. Reinrassig.
You know, it used to be sort of bracing to point out really trite, ironic and frightening similarities like this. Now, it’s really starting to feel more like a chore.
If every Jew marries a non-Jew and the non-Jew converts, then you’re doubling the number of Jews, in contrast to Jews only marrying other Jews.
Exactly, potsherd! But let me ask you (rhetorical you) this: Here in America, Jews are free. They are free to live in self contained communities, and free to marry only each other if they wish to. No one will stop them, nor could they. But Jews do not do this, nope, as soon as the average Jew got a chance he choose his mate, his living place, his job, from among all who would have him.
And this has been constant, and increasing as social barriers to Jewish relations, employees, residents dropped.
So the Zionist’s (along with the anti-Semites, incidentally) contention that Jews are in some way a people apart, that they cannot live in mutual productivity, with their neighbors given a framework of equality and rule of law has been disproved right before our eyes.
WJ,
Intermarriage in and of itself is neither good nor bad. It just is. Holding onto the “genes” or insisting on some meaningless conversion ritual is certainly no guarantee of Jewish continuity – religious or cultural. On the contrary, taken on its own, opposition to intermarriage is little more than atavistic tribalism that impoverishes rather than enriches the Jewish collective. Zionism, for example, poses a far greater danger to Jewish continuity – historical, spiritual, cultural, ethical – than any amount of “marrying out”. Zionism is a betrayal of the Jewish past as well as the Jewish future. You can’t get any less “continuous” than that.
Shmuel, I’m no Bible scholar (I only passed my Bar Mitzvah by inscribing a list of the “begats” on my shirt-cuffs), but I thought God made it pretty clear what He though of Jewish political organisation, after He got pretty fed up with us.
Am I correct in stating that He pretty much gave the thing up as a botch until future times unstated? And the change in His decision would be pretty plain and unmissable? Seemed to me like something to give heavy consideration to.
God/Moses (the fictional heroes of the Bible) gave us not a bad constitution for the day and age in which it was penned, but frowned on secular Jewish power – such as monarchy. The Prophets (first and foremost, my namesake) made aversion to temporal power an art form. Politics being politics however, we muddled our way through, with the help of this or that ancient superpower, finally giving up our sovereign ghost some two thousand years ago. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.
If his argument from a racial perspective, then I’m not interested at all (I sense it is). Race isn’t real. My only position where I may understand is if he is worrying about people leaving Judaism.
I’m a Muslim. If I have kids, I will raise them up as Muslims, although, I know that they will eventually make a decision for themselves and love them for who they are because they would be my children. I view my job as making sure that I give them a non distorted view of the religion, because I would feel sick with myself if they end up pushing away Islam because of what they see in our media.
Although not married, I know that if I married someone who wasn’t willing to help me raise them Muslim (regardless of their personal beliefs), then it would make that task harder.
If his worry is that marrying Non Jews will dilute the religious fervor, sense of community, and thus carefully eliminate their religious identity…then I can understand that (although I’ve seen plenty of people with parents of the same religion come out with different beliefs….which is why I think his position is more about ‘race’).
But in terms of race and humans…we are all the same people, this notion of diluting “Jewish blood” is as ridiculous as diluting “Muslim Blood” or “Christian Blood”. Religion isn’t in the blood.
However, lets be honest – it isn’t just Jewish people that do this. This is extremely common among…well, all ethnic groups as well…and by ethnic I don’t just mean “non white”….I refer to virtually every group of people in this world.
AM, although this is hard for me to believe, the furthest apart any two people on earth can be is about fifth cousins. Mind-boggling, but true.
I can’t see that being hard to imagine….do you have some kind of source for that? Given an arbitrary population A and B – there is just as much genetic variation within A and within B as there is BETWEEN A and B. It was on a PBS video I saw in one of my classes 2 years back on race and video ;) I remember finding the video on their website, but they wanted quite a bit of cash for it!
I would say that the Jews are both a religion and a people and I oppose intermarriage more on the religious grounds than on the people grounds. Of course there are occasions when the nonJewish spouse converts. I’m not referring to that. I’m referring to the cases when the children will be raised in “both religions” or as Christians. (At this time the number of children being raised as Muslims is not significant, I assume.)
(None of my previous statements on this thread have mentioned genes or diluting Jewish blood. I have mentioned language, religion and peoplehood.)
To keep the Jews alive will take effort. To make the Jews disappear will only require time and the lack of effort.
And if you don’t appreciate quotes from peter Yarrow, let me give it to you straight. Hundreds of years ago, our forebears were willing to be burnt at the stake (and often were) rather than give up their religion and now, what the hey, let’s flush a few thousand years down the toilet.
So you are saying it is a race. You can hide it under the flowery language of ‘peoplehood’, but that is what you are referring to.
Of course I respectfully disagree.
Btw, to keep ANY cultural group alive you need an effort. It isn’t exclusive to Jews (and neither is being burned at a stake for any beliefs).
Just as an example, what are some of the religious bits that you see flowing into the sewer?
AM- Race is a very specific term referring to genes, color, shapes of eyes, noses and mouths, texture of hair and other facial and physical features. “People” is not a flowery term. It is an attempt to translate the Hebrew word “am” which is written with the Hebrew letters ayin and mem. In the 19th century the term used was nation. There are a number of aspects that are included in the concept of ‘am’- language and culture are two of them. Culture is a very broad term. There is also an aspect of common ancestry, but this gets into the genetic or blood idea. But I discussed this last week in a thread that was discussing a book by Shlomo Sands.
You are allowed to disagree and say that the Jews are only a religion and not a people if you so wish. Have you studied many books on Jewish history? Upon what are you basing your opinion?
In the modern world especially in America with its emphasis on individualism and the culture that comes into our homes in music, television, books and the internet, it is true that any culture or religion is difficult to maintain. I doubt one would say that in Saudi Arabia it is difficult to maintain being Islamic, but of course it is true that the fight against modernism is taking place there as well.
Another point that I wish to make is an obvious one: Judaism is a small religion or people with about 14 million who identify as Jewish versus Islam and Christianity with adherents in the billions. The dynamics inferred by these numbers are staggeringly different. One other thing: the greatest setback that Christianity and Islam have experienced over the last hundred years has been modernism in the case of Christianity and modernism plus Western imperialism in the case of Islam. The advent of modernism had a striking effect on Judaism as well, but the Nazi genocide needs to be mentioned as well.
potsherd- When Jews intermarry and raise their kids in both religions or as Christians the Jewish holidays including the Sabbath and Passover flow into the sewers. The study of Jewish texts, Jewish prayers, Jewish history and Jewish thought flows into the sewers.
WJ – is this not just as likely to happen when both parents are of Jewish background but decide to let the religion part drop? Intermarriage isn’t the only problem for perpetuating religious traditions.
WJ, Potsherd’s point is good because it would help us understand just how much of your “peoplehood” is cultural and how much is bloodlines. (I think everyone understands that you’re talking about a combination of both, but people aren’t sure where the emphasis lies.) So are you also against intermarriage for people of Jewish ancestry who are already completely secular?
(Be careful, because I imagine this represents the majority of that 14 million number.)
“Hundreds of years ago, our forebears were willing to be burnt at the stake (and often were) rather than give up their religion and now, what the hey, let’s flush a few thousand years down the toilet. ”
The same could be said of any religuous fanatics. For example, today we have religous fanatics who are willing to be blown up by bmbs strapped to their bodies, rather than give up the ladn to which they religiously indentify.
It is true that intermarriage is very often the last step culminating a secularization process. Yet there are Jewish traditions that are common amongst the secularized Jews- including the Passover seder that linger on even when most other traditions fall by the wayside. When these secularized Jews intermarry their offspring instead may find themselves celebrating Christmas and Easter. You are asking me to root for the disappearance of even a semblance of Jewish tradition and its replacement with Christmas and Easter. I refuse.
Shingo- When you read the stories of the Jews overrun by the crusading mobs at the end of the 11th Century being given a choice of baptism or death do you equate them with those who strap bombs to themselves to kill innocents in a war? I think your analogy is tasteless. (understatement)
wj – I don’ t think anyone is asking you to “root” for anything. The question is whether intermarriage really is behind any trend to eroding religious traditions, if indeed they are eroding.
Whether this is a bad thing or not is another question.
I wonder if I could get denim trousers made in Israel? What wouldn’t people pay for real Jewish jeans?
Levi Strauss was Jewish. I told you Jews control everything. Even blue jeans.
CII,
For some families, the Bar Mitzvah is the most public Jewish event they participate in, but what I see is that Jews who put their children through Bar Mitzvah are very Jewishly-connected (albeit not observant). Bar Mitzvah training typically requires 4 years of weekly carpooling, tuition and other headaches. If you’r willing to do that, you’re doing a bunch of other things too.
The vibrancy of liberal American Judaism is really remarkable. The place Judaism occupies in mainstream American culture is astounding.
That’s not to say that liberal American Judaism is going through profound, historic changes: the biggest one, imho, is interfaith families.
“The place Judaism occupies in mainstream American culture is astounding.”
Elliot, to what would you attribute this? And, in this context, how would you define “Judaism”?
It would seem that you agree that some Judaism is alive and well in America and it’s not limited to religious rituals for pre-teen boys and girls. Whether you define Judaism as a secular culture or as a religious tradition, its prominence in public life is truly remarkable. And that Judaism is not going away despite interfaith marriage and despite cultural assimiliation. If you think otherwise, you’re in bed with Orthodox Jews and Israeli propagandists.
Now, if you’re suggesting that Jews are over-represented in public life, sure, I’ll agree to that.