Holocaust Reparations

(This satire was originally published in the New York Jewish Week in December 1998)

What’s all the fuss about Holocaust money going to our organizations and not to the survivors and their families? That’s the way it has been for the longest time in American Jewish life and there is no reason to change a formula that has resulted in the steady growth of our establishment.

Anyway, the Holocaust ended fifty-three years ago and, as the Swiss were saying until recently, there are few survivors and those who remain among the living cannot prove their claims. The real Jewish survivors are our organizations which, although they stopped functioning years ago, continue to be in business.

As for the Jewish needy who lived through the destruction of European Jewry, they can collect welfare, Medicare, food stamps, Section 8 and a slew of other government benefits. If that’s not enough, they can shnor in shul or from relatives. Besides, they’ll soon be getting $500 each from the humanitarian fund that Jewish groups have set up with other people’s money. This should keep them quiet for quite a while.

We should be more concerned about the dozens of major Jewish organizations which each day are on the firing line doing battle to raise money and get some scraps of publicity. It’s hard work to get a press release published once a year in the New York Times and it’s hard and degrading to get the very rich to part with some of their wealth in return for a meaningless dedication or insincere sycophancy.

Jewish organizations have a profound respect for the dead and they show it at a cost of millions of dollars each year when they give their departed machers a deserved final resting place on the obituary page of the Times. Isn’t it more appropriate to spend money on this cause than to enrich Holocaust survivors who for a half a century have been able to recount their wartime experiences?

We have learned from survey research, another expensive habit of our establishment, that two-thirds of American Jewish Holocaust survivors have been to Miami Beach at least three times and most have done well financially, while raising their children to be good Americans.

Thanks to our trailblazing organizations, while their parents still speak with an accent, the children have warmly embraced the great American Jewish imperative of assimilation. It took the European Jews who came here between 1880 and 1914 three generations to accomplish what the children of so many Holocaust survivors have achieved in one generation. We ought to show gratitude for the groups that have demonstrated that you can be a good Jew without being Jewish.

Jewish leaders have struggled for years to stay in business, enduring the slings and arrows of those who say that they and their agencies are not needed. Why can’t we understand that it has not been easy to go to all of those conferences and conventions, to eat at so many dinners, to sit at boring meetings and to listen to inconsequential speeches?

The recent General Assembly in Jerusalem gave proof of the sacrifice of American Jewish leaders. Three thousand made the trip – just a small proportion of our apparently inexhaustible supply of machers – and most were forced to travel economy class. There were fat cats and back-home big shots who had to squeeze into narrow seats because there weren’t enough business class seats and too many were occupied by the nouveau riche Israelis. Worse still, they endured long days of long speeches and streams of cliche. Some speakers had the temerity to give their talks in Hebrew, a strange language for American Jewish leaders. Machers who are accustomed to sit front and center on the dais were forced to sit hundreds of feet away. On the trip home, one was heard to mutter, “This is like being in a cattle car.”

As for those who were in the cattle cars, they aren’t showing any appreciation. Instead of accepting what their superiors are offering, they have become greedy as they grasp for the spoils resulting from the slave labor of class action lawyers. Some are demanding an accounting of the past fifty years of reparation and restitution money. There are accusations that German Jewish property was stolen by the Nazis has been denied to their rightful Jewish owners because our restitution contortionists have constructed an elaborate bureaucratic maze that makes it impossible for Jews to get what is theirs. It’s wonderful that this disgusting charge has been ignored by the American Jewish media and only the Jerusalem Report, which no one reads anymore, has picked up the story.

Some of the worst noise is coming from Williamsburg Chasidim, people who think that just because they are Holocaust survivors they have the right to sit at the same table with the machers and decide what to do with the Swiss money. They do not even speak English and with their old world dress and folkways, they are an embarrassment. Who cares whether their families suffered in Auschwitz and Treblinka? For decades they have been aloof from the establishment and the old boys’ network that controls Holocaust funds. Now they are greedy, like Chasidim always are.

Let them be represented by clean-shaven Orthodox Jews who are always willing to make a deal giving the establishment what it wants, so long as they get their cut. Some Jewish leaders are fed up with all the criticism, saying that whoever does not like the way business has been conducted in American Jewish life since Haym Solomon’s time can go back from whence he came. Thankfully, cooler heads are prevailing. They know that it’s best to ignore the pesky noise-makers. They might cause some trouble and get a bit of attention but soon enough it will all pass.

At the end of the day, our organizations will get their money and their way. That’s the way it has always been.

Soon enough, there won’t be any Holocaust survivors.

Defining Judaism Downward

(Originally published in the New York Jewish Week)

A new form of Christian-Jewish comity has arisen, not as the agenda of any organization but from powerful social realities that are certain to be transient, yet which are alive in contemporary Jewish life.

American Jewry is in a post-assimilation stage in which the massive, ceaseless Judaic abandonment of the past two or three generations has been incorporated into our communal and personal lives. Organized American Jewry continues to send a message imploring Jews to become more committed, even more traditional. Activities aimed at promoting this goal receive significant funding. From the look of things, there is progress, as when the Reform movement embraces greater religiosity. There are homes where Judaism is more vibrant today.

Still, the far larger picture in terms of numbers is one of irreversible loss, along with the acceptance of this loss by defining Judaism downward. In the process, a new reality has been established at the family and personal level in relationships between Christians and Jews.

If the petty warfare abates among the statisticians who are called demographers, we should be told within a year whether the intermarriage rate has changed since the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey. The news will be interesting, perhaps important, and much will be made of it. It will beget articles and reports, conferences and task forces, and projects galore. In the end, though, it will be mainly a sideshow.

The big news in American Jewish life no longer is intermarriage or Jewish loss. They are yesterday’s story, although they have a great bearing on today’s reality. Today’s new story is how in the face of what seems to be massive Jewish loss, American Jewry is attempting to reinvent itself as a secularized ethnic group — essentially as a membership group — in which our religious practices and beliefs are artifacts and options, but not imperatives.

By the hundreds of thousands or more, American Jews are saying that it is for them to choose how they will act as Jews. Attention may be paid to history and to tradition, but we owe the past nothing. We are not obligated to follow the ways of our grandparents or, for that matter, our parents. Nor should we fret much about posterity, since after all, our offspring deserve to have the same freedom as we claim for ourselves.

In this Reconstructionist vision (not the movement) of Jewish life, the door is wide open for experimentation and change, including the erosion of barriers between Jew and Christian. In the amalgam that is evolving among post-assimilation Jews, what separates one religion from the other is articulated in arrangements that allow for closer personal religious interrelationships than anything that was visualized by the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

This development is the inevitable consequence of intermarriage and the corollary living patterns that have become standard in many American Jewish households. It has been apparent for a generation that a steadily growing number of those living in what loosely is called a Jewish household are people who are not Jewish, not by birth or choice or any other definition. They number today well above 1 million and they are, in the main, Christians by birth and, to a lesser extent, the children of intermarried couples. If these non-Jews are not practicing Christians, they identify in some fashion as being Christian, whether because they adhere to symbols that identify them as such or because of family ties with practicing Christians.

It will take a decade or two to have a fuller appreciation of the religious and social outcomes of mixed marriages, but what can already be appreciated is the weakening of attitudinal and behavioral features that separate Christian from Jew.

While Jews who intermarry used to withdraw completely from Jewish life, there is now an expanding tendency to straddle the two religions. There are intermarried Jews who have heeded the part of the continuity message that urges American Jews to identify as Jews. Their ability to do this in the face of intermarriage has been made possible by the attenuation of religion in Jewish life and by the growing receptivity of Christians toward Jews.

Among Americans generally, Jews are a greatly admired people, respected for their intelligence, industry and contributions to the arts and sciences and to society. This makes it easier for Christian spouses in intermarriage situations — and their nuclear families as well — to be receptive to some maintenance of Jewish identity by the Jewish spouse. This receptivity is in line with the religious tolerance and pluralism that is critical in the outlook of liberal Christian groups.

At one level, this development is reflected in two-religion families, in the effort to accommodate both religions — their major holidays and some element of observance. It is facilitated, as well, by marital arrangements that allow each spouse to go his or her separate way and for the children to decide as they approach adulthood how they may want to identify religiously. Interestingly, Jewish demographic surveys are beginning to ask respondents about church attendance and other outside religious experiences.

It is likely that we are still early in the process of creating hybrid religious experiences. As American Jewry becomes more secular and also more heedful of the pleas to stay in the fold, the new kinds of arrangement are likely to expand.

This is the Jewish social reality at the end of the century. It is a remarkable story. Under conditions that are now present in Jewish life, this development will carry well into the next century. As a social reality it cannot be ignored, no matter what reservations any of us may have. Indeed, what is at present mainly the personal experience of many Jews is likely to be incorporated into the outlook at activities of organized American Jewry.

From a religious standpoint, it is an arrangement that cannot last more than two generations. Jewish survival cannot be based on intermarriage or advanced assimilation, or on a hybrid religion that eliminates our distinctiveness.

Christians and Jews

We no longer hear about the National Conference of Christians and Jews and so it’s hard to say whether they are still in business, although when it was alive for sure, it was scarcely breathing. The group’s agenda touched the lives of few Christians or Jews, while the refrain of a Judeo-Christian tradition that was central in the development of Western thought was high-sounding rhetoric belied by the Holocaust. For all of its truly good intentions, the organization served as a mausoleum for an idea. While no one could inveigh against what was being preached, few people embraced it as a central theme of their lives.

A new form of Christian-Jewish comity has arisen, not as the agenda of any organization but out of powerful social realities that are certain to be transient, yet which are alive in contemporry Jewish life.

American Jewry is in a post-assimilation stage in which the massive, ceaseless Judaic abandonment of the past two or three generations has been incorporated into our communal and personal lives. Organized American Jewry continues to send a message imploring Jews to become more committed, even more traditional. Activities aimed at promoting this goal receive significant funding. From the look of things, there is progress, as when the Reform movement apparently embraces greater religiosity. There are homes where Judaism is more vibrant today.

Still, the far larger picture in terms of numbers is one of irreversible loss, along with the acceptance of this loss by defining Judaism downward. In the process, a new reality has been established at the family and personal level in relationships between Christians and Jews.

If the petty warfare among the statisticians who are called demographers abates, we should be told within a year whether the intermarriage rate has changed since the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey. The news will be interesting, perhaps important, and much will be made of it. It will beget articles and reports, conferences and task forces and projects galore. In the end, though, it will be mainly a sideshow.

The big news in American Jewish life no longer is intermarriage or Jewish loss. They are yesterday’s story, although they have a great bearing on today’s reality. Today’s new story is how in the face of what seems to be massive Jewish loss, American Jewry is attempting to reinvent itself as a secularized ethnic group – essentially, as a membership group – in which our religious practices and beliefs are artifacts and options, but not imperatives.

By the hundreds of thousands or more, American Jews are saying that it is for them to choose how they will act as Jews. Attention may be paid to history and to tradition, but we owe the past nothing. We are not obligated to follow the ways of our grandparents or, for that matter, our parents. Nor should we fret much about posterity, since, after all, our offspring deserve to have the same freedom as we claim for ourselves.

In this Reconstructionist vision of Jewish life, the door is wide open for experimentation and change, including the erosion of barriers between Jew and Christian. In the amalgam that is evolving among post-assimilation Jews, what separates one religion from the other is articulated in arrangements that allow for closer personal religious interrelationships than anything that was visualized by the National Conference of Christians and Jews.

This development is the inevitable consequence of intermarriage and the corollary living patterns that have become standard in many American Jewish households. It has been apparent for a generation that a steadily growing number of persons living in what loosely is called a Jewish household are people who are not Jewish, not by birth or choice or any other definition. They number today well above one-million and they are, in the main, Christians by birth and, to a lesser extent, the children of intermarried couples. If these non-Jews are not practicing Christians, they identify in some fashion as being Christian, whether because they adhere to symbols that identify them as such or because of family ties with practicing Christians.

The 1990 data indicated that a majority of children in Jewish homes were not being raised as Jews. It will take a decade or two to have a fuller appreciation of the religious and social outcomes of mixed marriages, but what can already be appreciated is the weakening of attitudinal and behavioral features that separate Christian from Jew.

While Jews who intermarry used to withdraw completely from Jewish life, there is now an expanding tendency to straddle the two religions. There are intermarried Jews who have heeded the part of the continuity message that urges American Jews to identify as Jews. Their ability to do this in the face of intermarriage has been made possible by the attenuation of religion in Jewish life and by the growing receptivity of Christians toward Jews.

Among Americans generally, Jews are a greatly admired people, respected for their intelligence, industry and contributions to the arts and sciences and to society. This makes it easier for Christian spouses in intermarriage situations – and their nuclear families as well – to be receptive to some maintenance of Jewish identity by the Jewish spouse. This receptivity is in line with the religious tolerance and pluralism that is critical in the outlook of liberal Christian groups.

At one level, this development is reflected in two-religion families, in the effort to accommodate both religious – their major holidays and some element of observance. It is facilitated, as well, by marital arrangements that allow each spouse to go his or her separate way and for the children to decide as they approach adulthood how they may want to identify religiously. Interestingly, Jewish demographic surveys are beginning to ask respondents about church attendance and other outside religious experiences.

It is likely that we are still early in the process of creating hybrid religious experiences. As American Jewry becomes more secular and also more heedful of the pleas to stay in the fold, the new kinds of arrangement are likely to expand.

This is the Jewish social reality at the end of the century. It is a remarkable story. Under the conditions that are now present in Jewish life, this development will carry well into the next century. As a social reality it cannot be ignored, no matter what reservations any of us may have. Indeed, what is at present mainly the personal experience of many Jews is likely to be incorporated into the outlook at activities of organized American Jewry.

From a religious standpoint, it is an arrangement that cannot last more than two generations. Jewish survival cannot be based on intermarriage or advanced assimilation or on a hybrid religion that eliminates our distinctiveness.

The Flip Side Of The First Amendment

(Originally published in the New York Jewish Week)

The controversial exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum has given us an unwelcome lesson in the anti-religious tendencies that inform much of what is considered to be contemporary cultural life. In the great debate over the exhibit, the First Amendment rights of museums and artists have understandably been advanced, without sufficient attention being given to the corollary First Amendment strictures that mandate governmental neutrality in religious matters.

I am no fan of Mayor Giuliani, not by a long shot. True to form, he has been clumsy and bullying in his cancellation of a legal contract and in his threat to evict the museum from the architectural treasure that it has occupied and brought distinction to. He had an opportunity to articulate a principled position, to explain why government ought not to act in a hostile way toward religion. He could have taught by leadership, not by threatening, and he could have embraced an eloquence that places principle above narrow political gain. Instead of saying that the city would abide by a contract, despite the pain caused to a great number of New Yorkers, he took a path that guaranteed the seat in court.

I recognize that those who have suggested that some of the challenged art was not meant to be offensive to Catholics may be right. When we compare what is now in dispute with what has been displayed elsewhere, it may be that what has been called a “sensation” may primarily be an exploitative ploy aimed at attracting attention, attendance and financial support. Alas, the mayor could not resist taking the bait.

Giuliani has, however, raised a basic question that must not be obscured by any animus toward him or by one’s personal aesthetic. Why should the designation of something as art or literature or any form of expression result in its exemption from the constitutional ban on governmental action that advances or inhibits religion? It isn’t sufficient to argue that the First Amendment guarantees freedom of expression. Prayer is, after all, inherently a form of expression, yet I am certain that there is no First Amendment aficionado who contends that government can promote sectarian prayer.

There is selectivity in some quarters in how the high wall separating church and state is looked at. One set of rules — a strict set — applies when the issue is governmental support, even indirect, of religious activity, and there is a lax set of rules when the issue is whether public funds can be provided to those who bash religion. The inconsistency is explained by the anti-religious thought that has dominated Western culture and which is too often accepted as a legitimate part of the Western democratic heritage. In this skewed view of things, government is regarded as neutral in religious matters when it finances anti-religious expression.

This formula explains why a crèche that depicts the Virgin Mary is not to be placed on public property, while public funds can be used to defile the same symbol. In the first case, the government is supporting religion; in the second, it does no more than allow others the freedom of expression.

To my surprise and his credit, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, leader of Reform Jewry, issued a strong statement expressing concern for Catholic sensibilities, something I was unaware of until it was called to my attention by an editor at this newspaper. Still, if there was a dominant Jewish position, it was in support of the art and against the mayor who has received backing from the Orthodox. Overwhelmingly, the rank and file of New York Jews is clearly in the museum’s corner. There is scant concern for the evident anguish of Catholics, not even a slight murmur of empathy for Cardinal O’Connor, whose condemnation of the display might have evoked a sympathetic hearing among Jews.

It is too extreme to charge that an anti-Catholic bias persists in American Jewish life. Sensitivity is another matter and on that count the record is not one that we can be proud of. It is unfortunate that few American Jews can begin to sense the pain of Catholics, to see that they are hurt when their symbols and artifacts are defiled.

For all of American Jewry’s elevation of the First Amendment as the noblest enshrinement of liberty, I imagine that if the shoe were on the other foot we would not so readily proclaim the virtues of unlimited, publicly funded expressions of anti-religion. It is usually not attractive to make inter-ethnic or inter-religious comparisons, to suggest that one group is favored while another is mistreated. That is usually a sly way of giving vent to prejudice. But can there be any question as to where we would stand if a Torah scroll was utilized in an obscene or sacrilegious fashion in what was called a work of art? For that matter, what are the odds as to whether the Brooklyn Museum would ever exhibit such a work?

Don’t Keep 4th-Grade Test A Secret

(Originally published in the New York Jewish Week)

There’s never been a test like the English Language Arts exam given earlier this year to New York’s fourth-graders, on whose slender shoulders and relatively poor grades now rests much of the current discussion of what is wrong with the education of our children.

These mostly 9-year olds — some were only 8 at the time of the test — must know what it is to be guinea pigs in a glass house whose walls are surrounded by politicians, journalists, educational bureaucrats and other onlookers who have invested a trivial pursuit with undeserved significance.

First there were the front-page stories detailing how poorly most of the students had done on a test they should have had little difficulty in passing, provided that they were properly taught and had the requisite skills. The Jewish media chipped in with articles showing how each school had fared and with the doleful news that too many of the most Orthodox yeshivas were guilty of a shande far der yidden — disgrace of the Jews — because of their poor performance.

Then there were reports of the tens of thousands of failing students who were required to attend summer school and of the many who would be left back. Now we have the news that some of the test results were misinterpreted by CTB/McGraw-Hill, the company that developed key parts of the test, so that overall the students did not do as poorly as was first reported.

McGraw-Hill owns and has copyrighted the exam. It cannot “be reproduced or distributed in any form by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.” The instruction manual contains repeated warnings against duplication and requires that teachers sign a document averring that they “are not to discuss this test, show it to anyone, or photocopy these materials.”

Taken literally — and there is no reason why it should be read otherwise — this means that teachers cannot discuss any aspect of the exam with fellow teachers or with their supervisors.

For all of the attention that has been paid, there has been nary a comment about the appropriateness of a public test required of all fourth-graders in New York being the private property of an outside business that has barred any of the documents from being reproduced. On occasion, The New York Times publishes SAT questions or parts of other exams and, yet, for all of the coverage that has been given to the English Arts Test, it has had nothing to say about the test itself and the rules established by McGraw-Hill.

As president of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School, I am involved with three schools whose students took the test. One school did poorly, another performed fairly well and the third did very well.

Because of this responsibility and my intensive involvement in day-school education, I wanted to have more than a second-hand view of what had transpired, which meant getting the exam material. Because I did not know of the McGraw-Hill embargo, I mistakenly assumed that this would be an easy task.

Ultimately, persistence paid off and I have the material. I believe that it is wrongful to keep these tests hidden from the public. Regents exams are public information, as are nearly all other standardized tests, including those for admission to college, graduate and professional schools. An entire industry has arisen around test-preparation. The McGraw-Hill folks should be well compensated for their efforts, as I am sure they are, and they also should learn how to properly interpret material that they have produced. Beyond this, standardized, governmentally mandated and funded tests must be regarded as public information. The right to know, so vigorously asserted in more tenuous situations, must override the monopolistic impulse of a private corporation.

Without public disclosure, it’s not possible to have an open or reliable discussion of the suitability of this material for fourth-graders. This is not an idle issue. The new language arts test replaces a predecessor that had been discarded as too easy and therefore also unreliable. My admittedly inexpert review of the material leaves me with serious doubts as to whether the McGraw-Hill test is too difficult for too many children. At the least, this is a matter that is entitled to a public airing.

The secrecy rules imposed by McGraw-Hill contributed directly to the misinterpretation of results and to the harm done to thousands of children and their families. In fact, what occurred has as yet not been satisfactorily explained. When I received the test results from Albany, I immediately noticed that each school was given a cumulative score in the 600-700 range. There was no explanation as to what this number meant, nor was I able to get a satisfactory answer from the state officials I contacted.

The instructions for teachers and students that accompanied the test raise questions about the competency of the people who wrote the stuff. What are we to make of phrases like “an independent writing prompt” or “nationally normed test” or “shrink-wrapped packages”? To think that these are the same people who are measuring the language-arts skills of our schoolchildren.

As important as these considerations are, they may be less compelling than the wrongful barrier interposed by state and McGraw-Hill officials that deprives parents of the ability to work with their children in preparation for the test. Parents have an overriding interest in the results and many would want to work with their kids. The improper and unwise rules of the game make it difficult for them to fulfill their parental instinct and obligation.

It may be legal for the state to enter into this kind of arrangement with McGraw-Hill, although I have my doubts about this, but what is legal may not be right. It also isn’t right if none of these concerns has made it into the voluminous reports on the fourth-grade exam. New standardized tests on other subjects are to be introduced soon and, if this precedent is allowed to stand, a veil of secrecy will be imposed on them.

Let us have a public debate about the propriety of the privatization of public testing and let us allow parents entry into a process that deeply involves the educational growth and well being of their children.

Limit The Freebies To Jewish State

(Originally published in the New York Jewish Week)

Summer is the main season for boondoggling — taking advantage of free or heavily subsidized trips to Israel — an expensive pastime that has the sole virtue of being for ordinary folks and not just the rich people. Although it is practiced throughout the year, boondoggling reaches its peak in July and August when thousands of diaspora Jews trek on expense-paid hegiras to the Holy Land. Federations, foundations, the Jewish Agency and other repositories of philanthropic funds that are intended for the betterment of Jewish life foot the bill.

Betterment there is aplenty, as airlines, hotels, restaurants and all who live off the tourist trade in Israel reap economic advantage. The prime beneficiaries are educators, community workers, students and whoever else manages, with or without protektzia, to connect with any of the dozens of organizations that offer free trips as they exult in self-delusory ecstasy that a stay in Israel brings about extraordinary transformational results.

This has not been an especially busy year for the boondoggle business, as 1999 is wedged between Israel’s 50th anniversary and the millennium. Recently, though, there was an especially lamentable example of the tendency to spend limited Jewish communal money on these extravaganzas. More than 350 Jewish educators from around the world came to Israel for two weeks as the guests of the Jewish Agency. They were wined and dined; the culminating event was an expensive catered affair at the magnificent Haas Promenade in East Jerusalem that was followed by a fireworks display.

It may be that the Israeli army had spare cherry bombs that it wanted to dispose of. More likely — and I am told by educators that this was the case — the Jewish Agency had unspent money and could not think of any better way to use the funds at hand.

I am not against going to Israel. We all should go, as often as we can, to experience the glory of our heritage and, less important, to help the country’s economy along the way. I also accept, to a degree, the premise of Birthright Israel, that a community-financed trip to Israel may make a difference in the lives of marginally committed teenagers.

What I object to is the lavish expenditures to bring Americans and other foreigners wholesale to Israel and the comparable use of Israeli funds to send Israelis abroad on what usually amounts to shopping and pleasure junkets. The programs that involve educators, community workers, etc. are an egregious example of the broader tendency that encompasses, as just one more illustration, the hundreds of academics who are invited, all-expenses paid, to Israeli conferences on arcane subjects.

What I also object to is the pollyannaish fantasy that sending principals, teachers and others will result in their being better at what they are paid to do. While there is zero evidence that these trips improve job performance or lead to other communal gains, they are failsafe arrangements. The trip to Israel alone is proof of success. Nothing more is required, although it is customary to ask the participants to complete a questionnaire that asks about their degree of satisfaction. It is customary as well for the junketeers to respond that it was a wonderful and meaningful experience and ought to be repeated.

Because it is failsafe, people in the philanthropy business constantly dream up new variations on the theme. Leadership training has become popular. Jewish kids of college age are selected, and while few have demonstrated anything that can be called leadership potential, it is expected that they will emerge from 10 days or two weeks in Israel as nascent Jewish leaders.

All that is being proved is that tens of millions of dollars of Jewish philanthropy can add up to lots of zeros.

These activities limit what foundations and federations can do to advance Jewish life. People involved in day schools claim that for all of the talk of additional philanthropic support, the situation is no better than it used to be and it may be worse. The funders insist that they are doing more. Presumably, both positions cannot be right. Or can they? The explanation lies in the preference of funders for tangential projects, rather than direct support to the schools. Trips to Israel are one manifestation of the trend. There are also family education, workshops and conferences, all of which allow philanthropic givers to believe that they are aiding Jewish education when, in fact, the schools are not being helped.

Day schools are badly underfunded, even with parents being pressured to pay rapidly rising tuition charges. It is difficult to determine the extent to which the high cost of day school education is a disincentive for marginally religious parents. It is certain that inadequate facilities, limited academic programs and a slew of other shortcomings are a disincentive in many cases. American Jewry is not willing to make the investment needed to make day schools attractive alternatives to families that are Jews at risk.

Instead of sending principals to Israel, the money should be utilized to directly assist struggling day schools. This will make them better institutions of Jewish learning. In the process, principals will be capable of doing a better job.

Boondoggling

Summer is the main season for boondoggling in Israel, an expensive pastime that has the sole virtue of being for ordinary folks and not just the rich people. Although it is practiced throughout the year, boondoggling reaches its peak in July and August when thousands of Diaspora Jews trek on expense-paid hegiras to the Holy Land. Federations, foundations, the Jewish Agency and other repositories of philanthropic funds that are intended for the betterment of Jewish life foot the bill.

Betterment there is aplenty, as airlines, hotels, restaurants and all who live off the tourist trade in Israel reap economic advantage. The prime beneficiaries are educators, community workers, students and whoever else manages, with or without protektzia, to connect with any of the dozens of organizations that offer free trips as they exult in self-delusory ecstasy that a stay in Israel brings about extraordinary transformational results.

This has not been an especially busy year for the boondoggle business, as 1999 is wedged in between Israel’s 50th Anniversary and the Millennium. Recently, though, there was an especially lamentable example of the tendency to spend limited Jewish communal money on these extravaganzas. More than 350 Jewish educators from around the world came to Israel for two weeks as the guests of the Jewish Agency. They were wined and dined; the culminating event was an expensive catered affair at the magnificent Haas Promenade in East Jerusalem which was followed by a fireworks display.

It may be that the Israeli army had spare cherry bombs that it wanted to dispose of. More likely – and I am told by educators that this was the case – the Jewish Agency had unspent money and it could not think of any better way to use the funds at hand.

I am not against going to Israel. We should all go, as often as we can, to experience the glory of our heritage and, less importantly, to help the country’s economy along the way. I also accept, to a degree, the premise of Birthright Israel, that a community-financed trip to Israel may make a difference in the lives of marginally committed teenagers.

What I object to is the lavish expenditures to bring Americans and other foreigners wholesale to Israel and the comparable use of Israeli funds to send Israelis abroad on what usually amounts to shopping and pleasure junkets. The programs that involve educators, community workers, etc. are an egregious example of the broader tendency that encompasses, as just one more illustration, the hundreds of academics who are invited, all-expenses paid, to Israeli conferences on arcane subjects. There is a good prospect that somewhere along the line there has been a conference in Israel on the effects of Greek architecture on the small towns of Southern North Dakota.

What I also object to is the pollyannaish fantasy that sending principals, teachers and others will result in their being better at what they are paid to do. In a way, this is an updated version of Operation Magic Carpet, the bold 1950’s program which brought hundreds of thousands of North African Jews to Israel. There is, however, nothing magical about the contemporary quickie excursions. They are scarcely dissimilar from the visits to Israel by ordinary tourists, the main difference being that the tourists pay for what is being given to them.

While there is zero evidence that these trips improve job performance or lead to other communal gains, they are failsafe arrangements. The trip to Israel alone is proof of success. Nothing more is required, although it is customary to ask the participants to complete a questionnaire which asks about their degree of satisfaction. It is also customary for the junketeers to respond that it was a wonderful and meaningful experience and ought to be repeated.

Because it is failsafe, people in the philanthropy business constantly dream up new variations on the theme. Leadership training has become popular. Jewish kids of college age are selected and while few have demonstrated anything that can be called leadership potential, it is expected that they will emerge from ten days or two weeks in Israel as nascent Jewish leaders.

All that is being proved is that tens of millions of dollars of Jewish philanthropy can add up to lots of zeros.

These activities limit what foundations and Federations can do to advance Jewish life. People involved in day schools claim that for all of the talk of additional philanthropic support, the situation is no better than it used to be and it may be worse. The funders insist that they are doing more. Presumably, both positions cannot be right. Or can they? The explanation lies in the preference of funders for tangential projects, rather than direct support to the schools. Trips to Israel are one manifestation of the trend. There are also family education, workshops, conferences, all of which allow philanthropic givers to believe that they are aiding Jewish education when, in fact, the schools are not being helped.

Day schools are badly underfunded, even with the parents being pressured to pay rapidly rising tuition charges. It is difficult to determine the extent to which the high cost of day school education is a disincentive for marginally religious parents. It is certain that inadequate facilities, limited academic programs and a slew of other shortcomings are a disincentive in many cases. American Jewry is not willing to make the investment needed to make day schools attractive alternatives to families that are Jews at risk.

Instead of sending principals to Israel, the money should be utilized to directly assist struggling day schools. This will make them better institutions of Jewish learning. In the process, principals will be capable of doing a better job.

Discord In Rejuvenating Ukraine Jewry

(Originally published in the New York Jewish Week)

A new struggle is now being waged in the former Soviet Union. It is no longer about emigration, that struggle having been won with more than a million Jews resettling in Israel or the U.S.— one of the great success stories of contemporary Jewish life.

The new conflict is not taking place in public view here but in unfamiliar distant places; once more, though, the stakes involve Jewish survival.

I learned about some of this struggle in a recent visit to Ukraine, a land steeped in Jewish history and blood, where an estimated 500,000 Jews continue to live.

In Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk, I saw how people of extraordinary commitment are rebuilding meaningful Jewish life in a race against time to reverse more than two generations of extreme communist repression of everything Jewish.

What I saw is only a part of a heroic picture. In Kharkov, through the valiant efforts of the Orthodox Union and others, a vibrant community has emerged.

To one extent or another this is true throughout the former Soviet Union, in all places where Jews live in significant numbers. Schools have been opened and shuls restored. There are children’s homes, programs for the elderly, food for the poor, community centers — in short, the framework for Jewish communal life. The Jerusalem Post has estimated that there are perhaps 400 Jewish organizations and institutions in Ukraine alone.

All told, there may be more Jews now in the former Soviet Union than the number that had been estimated 20 years ago when Jews were first allowed to leave. Whatever the number of Jews remaining in the FSU, it is certain to decline, as age and assimilation exact an irreversible toll.

On the positive side, emigration to Israel, especially among the young, is a significant factor.

This outcome and much of the beneficial activity to assist Russian Jews result in large measure from the role played by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and Jewish Agency. They have committed funds and personnel, working with Chabad and the mainly Orthodox groups that are leading this new struggle for Russian Jews. This was evident in Dnepropetrovsk, where Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky of Chabad has created an impressive infrastructure of Jewish life.

JDC’s cooperation with the Orthodox groups is predicated on the simple calculation that if it wants to accomplish its goals in the FSU, it must work with the groups that are in the field. Neither ideology nor theology come into consideration. As a result of the good relations that have developed, immense benefits have come to Jews living in the FSU, as well as to world Jewry.

This apparently is not good enough for the Reform movement. Eager as always to rain on any Orthodox parade, American Reform leaders have demanded that JDC terminate support for programs directed by Rabbi Yaakov Bleich of Kiev, the chief rabbi of Ukraine. This eruption, the latest in an endless series of anti-Orthodox rhetoric and advocacy, was a response to Rabbi Bleich’s position that Jewish communal property in Ukraine should not be given to the Reform movement, which never owned any of it.

Still a young man, Rabbi Bleich went to Kiev nearly a decade ago on behalf of the Karlin-Stolin chasidic group, which has its roots in the area. Small in number and with quite limited financial resources, these chasidim have sacrificed much as they have built a revived Jewish community in the city of slaughter, where Babi Yar is located.

Rabbi Bleich is a heroic figure. He is intelligent and knows that he cannot go it alone. He has established good relations with the non-Orthodox; and in his own activities and rulings has shown understanding and tolerance.

Truth to tell, his activities are sorely underfunded. The buildings that house the schools are desperately in need of repair, and Rabbi Bleich could accomplish much more with additional support. As it is, he relies on volunteers, primarily from the U.S., who come as counselors for his camps and to work in other programs.

This pattern of Orthodox volunteerism is evident throughout the FSU. Young Orthodox men and women of commitment forego financial gain and physical comfort as they embrace the opportunity to serve Jews in far-off places.

There is a message in this for the Reform, if they could wean themselves from the great temptation to take potshots at the Orthodox from their places of comfort and prosperity. Rabbi Bleich cannot prevent the Reform from coming to Ukraine and establishing its own projects. This is a movement that is far more affluent than the Orthodox and, we are told, three to four times more numerous. If, as we hear, Reform young people are imbued with a new sense of Jewish commitment, let some of them go to Ukraine and elsewhere in the FSU to help set up schools and camps, tend to the elderly and feed the poor.

Likely, such activities would attract JDC and Jewish Agency support.

This has not happened, and isn’t likely to, because the Reform movement lacks a sense of sacrifice. Its leadership attacks the Orthodox, in some measure because there are those in the media who foolishly pay attention, but primarily because that is the only option the movement has.

Jews in Ukraine and the FSU, overwhelmingly irreligious as they may be, respond to the loving kindness and giving spirit of the Orthodox because there has been so much hardship in their lives. They welcome the goodness that is being shown by people from the outside.

People respond to goodness, not to press releases issued thousands of miles away that have as their only message an attack on those who are doing good.

Visit to Ukraine

The struggle for Soviet Jewry as we knew it ended years ago. The exodus of more than one-million Jews, mainly to Israel and this country, eliminated the need to march and protest, to demand the release of prisoners of conscience. Our militancy had paid off, in one of the great success stories of contemporary Jewish life.

Another Jewish struggle is now being waged in the former Soviet Union. Because it does not take place on Fifth Avenue or in public view but in unfamiliar distant places, we hear far less about this story than we heard about Natan Sharansky and the refuseniks. Once more, however, what is at stake is Jewish survival.

I learned about some of this struggle in a recent visit to Ukraine, a land steeped in Jewish history and in Jewish blood, where an estimated 500,000 Jews continue to live. In Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk I saw how people of extraordinary commitment are rebuilding meaningful Jewish life in a race against time to reverse more than two generations of extreme Communist repression of everything that was Jewish.

What I saw is only a part of an heroic picture. In Kharkov, through the valiant efforts of the Orthodox Union and its visionary former president, Shimon Kwestel, and others, a vibrant community has emerged. To one extent or another this is true throughout the FSU in all places where Jews live in significant numbers. Schools have been opened and shuls restored. There are children’s homes, programs for the elderly, food for the poor, community centers – in short, the framework for Jewish communal life. The Jerusalem Post has estimated that there are perhaps 400 Jewish organizations and institutions in Ukraine alone.

All told, there may be more Jews now in the FSU than the number that had been estimated twenty years ago when Jews were first allowed to leave. This is because of what might be called the Madeline Albright syndrome. During the terrible Stalinist years, many Jews suppressed their identity because they believed that it could result only in ill for them and their families. Many tens of thousands of their children were never told of their heritage.

Whatever the number of Jews remaining in the FSU, it is certain to decline, as age and assimilation exact an irreversible toll. Emigration, especially to Israel, remains a factor, as among the young who benefit from the newly established Jewish activities, there is a strong inclination to live in the Jewish State.

This outcome and much of the beneficial activity to assist Russian Jews result in large measure from the role played by the Joint Distribution Committee and Jewish Agency. They have committed funds and personnel, working with Chabad and the mainly Orthodox groups that are leading this new struggle for Russian Jews. This was evident in Dnepropetrovsk, where Rabbi Shmuel Kaminetsky of Chabad has created an impressive infrastructure of Jewish life.

JDC’s cooperation with the Orthodox is predicated on the simple calculation that if it wants to accomplish its goals in the FSU, it needs to work with the groups that are in the field. Neither ideology or theology come into consideration. As a result of the good relations that have developed, immense benefits have come to Jews living in the FSU, as well as to world Jewry.

This apparently is not good enough for the Reform movement. Eager as always to rain on any Orthodox parade, Reform leaders have demanded that JDC terminate support for programs directed by Rabbi Yaakov Bleich of Kiev, the Chief Rabbi of Ukraine. This eruption, the latest in an endless series of anti-Orthodox rhetoric and advocacy, was a response to Rabbi Bleich’s position that Jewish communal property in Ukraine should not be given to the Reform movement which never owned any of it.

Still a young man, Rabbi Bleich went to Kiev nearly a decade ago on behalf of the Karlin-Stolin chassidic group which has its roots in the area. Small in number and with quite limited financial resources, these chassidim have sacrificed much as they have built a revived Jewish community in the city of slaughter, in the city where Babi Yar is located.

Rabbi Bleich is an heroic figure. He is intelligent and he knows that he cannot go it alone. He has established good relations with the non-Orthodox and in his own activities and rulings he has shown understanding and tolerance. Truth to tell, his activities are sorely underfunded. The buildings that house the schools are desperately in need of repair and there is much more that he could accomplish if he had additional support. As it is, he relies on volunteers, primarily from the U.S., who come as counselors for his camps and to work in other programs.

This pattern of Orthodox volunteerism is evident throughout the FSU. Young Orthodox men and women of commitment forego financial gain and physical comfort as they embrace the opportunity to serve Jews in far-off places.

There is a message in this for the Reform, if they could wean themselves away from the great temptation to take potshots at the Orthodox from their places of comfort and prosperity. Rabbi Bleich cannot prevent the Reform from coming to Ukraine and establishing its own projects. This is a movement that is a thousand times more affluent than the Orthodox and, we are told, three to four times more numerous. We are being told that its young people are imbued with a new sense of Jewish commitment.

Let some of these people go to Ukraine and elsewhere in the FSU. Let them set up schools and camps, tend to the elderly and feed the poor. No one could stop them or would try to. Likely, such activities would attract JDC and Jewish Agency support.

This has not happened and isn’t likely to because the Reform movement is bereft of a sense of sacrifice. Its leadership attacks the Orthodox, in some measure because there are those in the media who foolishly pay attention but primarily because that is the only option the movement has.

Jews in Ukraine and the FSU, overwhelmingly irreligious as they may be, respond to the loving kindness and giving spirit of the Orthodox because there has been so much hardship in their lives and they welcome the goodness that is being shown by people from the outside.

People respond to goodness, not to press releases issued thousands of miles away which have as their only message an attack on those who are doing good.

Chasidim And Politicians: An Unhealthy Relationship

(Originally published in the New York Jewish Week)

In a recent editorial, The New York Times lamented that the special election for an open state Senate seat in Rockland County “represents a new low.” While our newspaper of record was primarily upset that the commuter tax imposed on New York City suburbanites had been used as electoral bait, in fact the most sordid aspect of the contest was how chasidic communities were caught in the political crossfire and subjected to improper coercion, often because they rely more on government benefits than other groups.

This is a cautionary tale of what awaits chasidic groups if they do not exercise restraint in their involvement with public officials who are determined to win at any cost. Some of what happened is on the record already, as in the remarkable public threats against the chasidim made by Joe Holland, a Republican who had occupied the state Senate seat and who now is a local official. He was explicit in indicating what awaited Rockland’s chasidim if their leaders did not deliver the requisite votes for his designated successor.

Holland has not denied the comments attributed to him, although he has suggested that they were misinterpreted. In more private encounters, political operatives of Gov. Pataki and state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno were brutal in the pressure exerted on the chasidim.

For all of their distinctive qualities and the attention that they get, chasidim are small in number, indeed, a miniscule proportion of even the Jewish electorate. They may seem to be more numerous because they stand out in a crowd and also because they seek out politicians who, in turn, seek their support. In the process, they and the politicians exaggerate the number of votes they have and can deliver. There are dozens of housing projects that have more eligible black or Hispanic voters than there are in entire chasidic groups. Those who doubt the accuracy of this observation are invited to examine election results in such presumed chasidic strongholds as Williamsburg and Crown Heights. Even in their own bailiwicks, their impact is diluted.

But to say that they are small and far less important than is often presumed is not to suggest that they are entirely inconsequential. Chasidim gravitate toward politics and politicians toward them. This is evident in the photo-op visits of yarmulke-bearing candidates to grand rabbis, as well as in the familiar picture of chasidic groupies who hang around political headquarters.

Much of this is quaint, probably childish as well, with little bearing on anything that matters. Chasidim have the satisfaction of seeing attention paid to their leaders, while politicians have the satisfaction of believing that they haven’t left a stone unturned in their quest for votes.

Occasionally, there is a darker side, as the Rockland County story illustrates. In some local races, clusters of voters amounting to no more than several hundred can make a difference, which is why Rockland’s chasidim were sought out and subjected to uncommon pressure. Their small numbers and discrete living patterns ensured that politicians could figure out — literally to the last man and woman — how many of them voted and for whom.

In short, they became prey, and politicians exploited their vulnerability. They had to vote for a specified candidate. Else, there would be a price to pay.

Campaign contributions are another danger spot. This is territory where other ethnic groups have made their ignoble mark, as we know from the recent Chinese experience. American Jews have been deeply involved in political fund raising for decades, giving the impression at times that these contributions are a surrogate for charity.

Chasidim are, at the most, in the minor leagues as political contributors, although here, too, their concentrated numbers and penchant for political involvement result in heightened vulnerability. They are now being pressured for contributions in a way that would have been unthinkable less than decade ago. About three months ago, a prominent person in one of Brooklyn’s chasidic groups came to me to complain that the Giuliani administration was twisting the arm of chasidim, the message being that unless substantial contributions were forthcoming there would be retribution in the form of reduced benefits and support for chasidic projects.

Shortly after, I spoke to a respected Orthodox leader. To my surprise, he confirmed the report of Giuliani administration arm-twisting and then justified it on the ground that since there are limited goodies to be dispersed by City Hall, it is only right that the rewards go to those who have added to the campaign coffers. Unfortunately, there are people, both inside and outside of government, who believe that the kind of behavior engaged in by the Giuliani administration is appropriate, that there is nothing wrong when tiny and vulnerable religious groups are made to feel that their well-being is dependent on campaign contributions.

Small wonder, then, that in recent weeks there was a major Giuliani fund-raiser in Borough Park, as well as a dinner in Manhattan that attracted large numbers of chasidim. It might not seem odd to some that chasidim now contribute inordinately to political candidates. I regard this development as unsettling, even frightening.

(I tried without success on three days to reach Bruce Teitelbaum, a key fund-raiser for Mayor Giuliani and perhaps his primary link with the Jewish community. My aim was to inform him of what I was writing and to ask for his comments.)

I know that the conditions that have forged the unhealthy relationship between the political world and the chasidic world will not at all be affected by my argument that this relationship is rotten to the core. My hope is that there will be a measure of restraint, perhaps from governmental and political officials who understand that the short-term fund-raising gains are likely to result in long-term problems.

More critically, there has to be a feeling of restraint on the chasidic side and on the part of those who connect them with government. The more that chasidim are enveloped in an atmosphere that requires them to dance to the tune of politicians, the greater the likelihood that the ante will be upped. Is it too much to expect chasidic and Orthodox leaders to recognize that abuse begets abuse and that unless the wrongful practices are stopped, substantial damage will be done to significant parts of the religious Jewish community?

Despite Hardships, Orthodox Schools Succeed

(Originally published in the New York Jewish Week)

Education is one of the two key functions of Jewish schools. The other, often more important function is religious socialization, the process whereby young children are taught to understand and accept the principles of our faith. This role transcends courses and curriculum and explains why all who care about Jewish continuity now place so much hope in all-day Jewish schools, institutions that for nearly the entirety of the American Jewish experience were treated as unwanted leftovers of a Jewish past.

If Jewish schools produce graduates who go on to elite colleges and successful careers but who abandon religious commitment, they are failing in their mission. This does not mean that educational performance is to be neglected. It cannot, if only because these are schools, after all, and what they do mostly is impart knowledge and develop intellectual and other skills. Parents would be outraged if schools did not maintain educational standards.

Jewish schools and especially yeshivas confront potent and largely immutable difficulties as they carry out their responsibilities. They have a dual program, which means learning two or three languages, and increased costs. With few exceptions they are badly underfunded, a condition that is reflected throughout the educational program. Libraries, labs and nearly all of the other accoutrements of a good school are often inadequate or even nonexistent. Funds are not available to offer electives to gifted students or provide additional attention to special students. Extracurricular activity can consist of nothing more than recess. On the secular side, the faculty may consist of stringers or unlicensed seminary graduates.

In short, all of the ingredients for educational failure are abundantly on display in Jewish schools. Somehow, though, our schools manage to do a credible job — even more than that, including in the secular area. This is one of the primary findings of an ongoing study I am conducting of yeshiva and day school student performance on standard New York State examinations. The results are uneven, so that girls perform better than boys and students at chasidic schools do not do as well as those who attend elsewhere. There is, as is true of all human contrivances, a measure of failure and more than a little room for improvement. Overall, the record is laudatory.

Why this is so may be a mystery to outsiders who cannot see how a strong performance can emerge in schools that operate under such severe limitations or, more likely, have come to believe the worst about yeshivas. People who are familiar with the workings of our schools, including admissions officials at first-rate colleges and professional schools, know that for all of the time and financial pressures they face, Jewish schools produce exceptional graduates.

One reason for the unexpectedly strong outcome can be summed up in one word: commitment. This is manifested when underpaid teachers, in both religious and secular programs, devote long hours at home to prepare their lessons and find ways of reaching out to students beyond the ordinary classroom experience.

There is a culture of learning and study in Jewish schools that compensates — not entirely, but in large measure — for programmatic and even attitudinal shortcomings. Students in Jewish schools are, in the aggregate, serious-minded. They are less distracted by outside elements and certainly not by the social pathologies that have harmed too many bright students in elite secular schools. When students in Jewish schools set their mind to educational tasks, the outcome invariably is impressive. This affinity for serious study stands yeshiva graduates in good stead when they enter the job market or take graduate and professional training, often after they have concluded their seminary study.

This picture of yeshiva education is not the one we usually get. We are told of corruption, which must be severely criticized and never condoned, in a small number of schools, as if this is the pattern everywhere. We read of writers and people of accomplishment who look back with disdain at their yeshiva education, without any thought being given to the possibility that the skills or discipline acquired during the yeshiva years had anything to do with their later success. Worst of all, we are given a distorted and invariably ugly description of how yeshiva graduates fare financially. They are depicted as parasites when the truth is that nearly all adult Orthodox men, including those who are referred to as haredim, work in a wide range of professions. Many of the women, as well.

The further truth is that despite their hard work, many of these graduates have difficulty making ends meet. Those in communal positions, including teachers, are badly underpaid. Family size is a critical factor, as is the cost of living an observant life — tuition and other expenses. Residual job discrimination takes a toll, as does their nearly total lack of geographical mobility. As a consequence, many of the Orthodox take a second job, wives work (usually part-time), parents help out and there is a measure of reliance by a minority on communal and governmental benefits.

None of this alters the basic picture of hard work or the extraordinary ongoing value of their yeshiva education. Of course, more Orthodox Jews are poorer than the non-Orthodox, but instead of seeing the dignity — indeed the spirituality — of thousands who struggle to make ends meet and each day do their jobs well, their goodness is denigrated, at times by know-nothing writers who employ the mantle of sociology to transmit their bigotry.

I suspect what I write here will have no impact. We are far from the point when the cascades of hatred flowing toward the Orthodox will cease. Still, the effort must be made and the truth must be written. At long last, is there any decency left in our community? Are we incapable of stopping the bigotry?

Birthright

(Originally published in the Jewish Week in 1999)

It is easy to jab at Birthright Israel, the plan to promote Jewish continuity by providing a brief Israel experience to Jewish youth who haven’t been to the Jewish state. Charles R. Bronfman and Michael H. Steinhardt are marketing an idea in search of a program. What we have so far is a catchy slogan, good public relations and the old and odd notion favored by philanthropists that throwing lots of money after a problem is the best way to resolve it. We have, in short, the key ingredients for success in the contemporary period, success being determined by the ability to attract attention. The announcement of the program and its promotion are the program.

Just the same, Birthright needs to be given a chance, even though what we know about its particulars inspires little confidence in its efficacy. Every continuity initiative confronts daunting odds because of the powerful assimilatory forces that have directly resulted in so much Jewish loss. These elements are active in the lives of nearly all Diaspora Jews and they are not going to disappear because world Jewry now feels endangered and is taking steps, mainly feeble and belated, to promote Jewish identity. All that is being done in the name of continuity is today inherently tenuous and tentative, even experimental. This holds true even for many day schools and while I have been one of their most enthusiastic advocates, I know that their reach is limited because the families that are being attracted to them are Jews at risk.

Israel experiences are a legitimate means of advancing continuity. If Birthright is not oversold, if the religious factor is not deliberately downplayed and if its key people are willing to make adjustments, some good will come from the venture. Under the present plan, eligible youth will be offered a round-trip ticket and funds for a brief stay, typically ten days, that hopefully will be a learning or cultural experience which whets the appetite for greater involvement in Israel and/or Jewish communal life. Those who choose to stay longer will be responsible for any additional costs.

It is expected – and almost certainly this will be the case – that the typical trip will fit into school schedules, primarily the flow of campus life. Even the most ardent votaries of Israel experiences recognize that ten days can hardly counteract the corrosive impact of thousands of prior days of assimilatory relationships that have impelled so many away from Jewish commitment.

The assumption, probably correct, is that thousands of teen-age and college-age Jews will not look a gift horse in the mouth. Birthright’s offer will be accepted, which raises the critical question of what these youngsters are likely to do when they arrive in Israel. There is also the collateral question of whether Israeli institutional and organizational life has the additional capacity to serve the expected influx. While Michael Papo, the project’s president, told me in a useful telephone conversation that there already is unused capacity to accommodate additional young foreigners, I think it unlikely that there are or will be facilities and programs for the thousands who may accept the opportunity.

The problem is illustrated by Livnot Ul’hibanot, a Jerusalem and Safed-based program that has a good track record with American college students of a secular orientation. Presently, Livnot enrolls perhaps as many as two hundred participants a year in its three-week program that combine work and study. I doubt that it can expand its reach quickly or that it would be desirable to do so, lest it weaken its effectiveness.

Birthright apparently accepts the notion that money is the primary inducement. In the words of its promotional material, “money is not the only issue but it is a central one.” The flip side is that the lack of funds is the main deterrent. In fact, surveys including the 1990 NJPS, provide strong evidence that funding is scarcely the issue. In the main, Jews do not visit Israel because they are not particularly interested in Israel. In nearly all of their contemporary places of settlement, Jews are quite affluent and Jewish youth by the many tens of thousands each year are able to find the means to traipse to exotic and mundane places, from the Himalayas to Fort Lauderdale. They do not, in the aggregate, put Israel on their itinerary because the Jewish state does not resonate in their lives. It is also of note that the Orthodox, by far the least affluent of Jews, come to Israel in droves.

There will be Jews who make the visit because of the Birthright opportunity and this may well be salutary. But by targeting the first-timers, emphasizing the quick-fix aspect of the experience and reaching out to Jews who are scarcely, if at all, involved in Jewish life, Birthright may be foregoing the opportunity to make a more lasting contribution.

Jewish youth everywhere outside of Israel are Jews at risk, a status that is shared, perhaps not equally, by young Jews who already are engaged in communal life through synagogues, day schools, community centers, youth groups or in any of a number of other ways. These Jews have opportunities aplenty to go to Israel, whether with their parents or alone or with school groups or as participants in the March for the Living and other projects. In the U.S., most Federations provide subsidies for Israel experiences and the expanding world of private Jewish philanthropy is especially keen about including Israel programming in their repertoire of activities. Community-sponsored and subsidized Israel experiences have become a big business, so that Birthright Israel can hardly claim to be operating on virgin territory.

It’s a good bet that the presumed success of these ventures has contributed to the belief that this is the primary way to reach out to the young and unaffiliated. The Bronfman Foundation has been in the forefront of the Israel experience movement. Evaluations of these activities present a rosy picture of what can be achieved through a relatively brief stay in the Jewish state. I have read several of these and they tend toward an excess of self-praise which is off-putting and can scarcely pass as serious scholarship.

Their major deficiency goes to the heart of what is errant in the conceptualization of Birthright Israel. The evaluations, perhaps out of necessity, are conducted shortly after the experience has been concluded, which means that they at best measure short-term impact when the respondents are still enveloped in the aura of the experience. This is notably true of the claims made by March for the Living, a rather new initiative whose life-span does not yet allow an assessment of long-term impact.

March for the Living is aimed at high school students, a great number of whom happen to be in a Jewish school, an environment that presumably strengthens their Jewish commitment. When they return from Israel and Poland where they visit Auschwitz and other death camps, their understandable response is to say that they have been profoundly affected by the experience. This response is truthful, yet it begs the question, for when the high school years are concluded, the next phase in the formative process for these students is the college campus, an environment that is universally regarded as a disaster area for Jewish life.

Because Jewish youth who have been to Israel and those who have not are nearly all Jews at risk, their lives will inevitably be affected, perhaps permanently shaped, by powerful and inescapable assimilatory forces. If the goal of Birthright is to enhance the prospect for meaningful Jewish continuity, it makes sense to use Israel as the instrumentality for Jewish reinforcement among those who might make the best use of the opportunity. In economic and programmatic terms, the greatest benefit may be derived from concentrating Birthright’s resources on young marginal Jews who have been to Israel, thereby strengthening a commitment that while already evident is certain to be severely challenged.

This point was acknowledged, in a way by Michael Papo who indicated that studies show that a follow-up or second trip cements the relationship with Israel and forces a deep sense of Jewish peoplehood. It may be that because Birthright’s resources are limited, preference is being given to those who have not been to Israel. But it also may be the case that the emphasis on the first-timers arises from a desire to reach out to unaffiliated Jews rather than to those who are affiliated. This would be a serious mistake.

Because of the severely weakened state of Diaspora Jewry, the success of initiatives to encourage Jewish commitment depends on whether they are linked to other activities that promote the same goal. Birthright can reinforce the progress achieved through meaningful Jewish education and youth groups; in turn, it needs to be reinforced by collateral activities in other zones of communal life. It cannot be regarded as a stand-alone venture.

Nor should its sponsors be intoxicated by its immodest claim, “This journey lasts a life-time.” There are tens of thousands of Jews who have been to Israel whose Jewish commitment, even in secular form, is gone with the wind and for whom Israel is scarcely more meaningful than Timbuktu.

A trip to Israel is not the birthright of a Jew, although identity with Israel is, a point that is powerfully demonstrated by nearly 2,000 years of our history. The birthright or heritage or legacy bequeathed to us by previous generations was religious at its core. It was this religious sensibility that kept Israel alive in the imagination and prayers and therefore also in the lives of Jews who never stepped foot on the Holy Land, nor had even the slightest prospect of going there. Only as a consequence of our religious identity can we claim Israel as a birthright and only if it is able to foster a religious commitment can Birthright Israel claim to be promoting Jewish continuity.

Chabad

(This article was originally published in the New York Jewish Week in 1998)

Long before the last Lubavitcher Rebbe passed away – and perhaps even before he succeeded his father-in-law as Rebbe – the Chabad movement which he headed had developed an arrangement that over the years has propelled it into what is now by far world Jewry’s largest organization. Nothing else in Jewish life approaches it in scope of activity or in the number of Jews who are being served.

What is also impressive is the quality of much of what Chabad does. It publishes each year a large number of books, magazines and other material and it manages to do all of this while maintaining a high intellectual standard, which is also true of what Chabad presents on the internet. It is evident that a great number of talented people are involved in creative ways in presenting the Chabad message.

Likely, much of this is news to most of us. When reading about Lubavitch, the Moshiach issue attracts the greatest share of attention, which is understandable since in the last decade of his life the Rebbe constantly trumpeted the theme, at times obsessively, and some of his more ardent followers took the message to be personal rather than a bit of abstract theology. This question has now been somewhat muted, but certainly not settled, by the ruling of a Chabad beth din. The focus can now turn to the more mundane, yet quite significant, matter of understanding the phenomenal growth of the movement.

There is a tendency to regard Chabad as a centralized operation located in Crown Heights, with all key decisions controlled at the top. This is a simplistic view, which helps to explain its attractiveness. In any case, Chabad is a classic example of decentralization, a reality that was masked during the long years of the Rebbe’s charismatic leadership. Now that he is gone and the movement is directed by administrators who have had a long run at internecine conflict, it is a stretch to maintain the notion of centralized authority.

Decentralization has been the key to Chabad’s growth. For decades, emissaries and their families have been sent to localities or positions where, as a rule, the expectation has been that they will serve until the end of their days. In an earlier period, the emissaries usually settled in large cities and the movement’s authority was vested in them. If another Lubavitcher wanted to come into the area and engage in Chabad activities, the Rebbe’s blessing was always sought but the ultimate decision of whether the person could come was made by the local emissary who was in charge.

This arrangement has produced an excess of nepotism within Lubavitch as relatives of emissaries frequently get the plum assignments. This has also meant that younger Lubavitchers, including some of the most gifted, have had to seek out new places and services, which goes a long way toward explaining why the movement is constantly expanding.

If this appears to be something like a franchise system, it is. Like franchises in the business world, there are common features, including the ubiquitous pictures of the Rebbe, the distinctive look of Lubavitcher men, standard services and events that are often pre-packaged and promotional material. As is also true of other franchise arrangements, the success of each separate enterprise depends to a considerable extent on the talent and drive of the people who are put in charge.

In this regard, Chabad is well served by a talent pool which feeds on the expectation developed at an early age among the best and the brightest of young Lubavitchers, that their mission in life and greatest accomplishment is to become emissaries. Chabad’s post high school educational process is less geared to the creation of scholars as it is to molding people who can go into the field. Through travel and contacts with fellow Lubavitchers in various settings, as well as work experience, young men and women mature quickly. By their mid-twenties, many are self-reliant and seem ready to establish, if not also conquer, new Chabad worlds.

As they seek opportunities that have not been spoken for, the young emissaries need a measure of good fortune to go along with their abilities. Although overall the results have been impressive, inevitably the record has been spotty. I remember coming upon the Chabad House on a major Midwest college campus where 7,000 Jews were students. The emissary, whose family I know, had been there nearly twenty years and he looked like a beaten and lonely person. Campus-based Chabad Houses, which were much in vogue in an earlier period, have not been a Lubavitch success story, I think because campuses have not been fertile ground for Jewish outreach.

The Mitzvah Mobiles or “Tanks,” which used to be familiar Lubavitch apparitions, seem no longer to be in style, a change that few would regard as a loss.

Inevitably, some emissaries do not succeed in the field, at times because they have had to settle for dead-end positions, serving in communities with few Jews who will pay attention to their activities or message and with little prospect for success. Shabbos, one such Lubavitch wife told me, is the worse day of the week because without the car and telephone, she and her family are alone and cut off from the world. The emissaries - especially the women – cherish the trips back home, usually to Crown Heights.

While Chabad has had a handful of rogue operators who use the movement’s imprimatur for self-enrichment, they have been few in number and they are greatly counterbalanced by the men and women who have sacrificed so much and who strive to do good. Because communal service is the highest ambition for Lubavitchers and status is given to those who choose this path, there are not too many Lubavitchers who have become affluent through business activity.

Fundraising is, of course, essential to the Chabad enterprise and, here too, decentralization is an important factor. Emissaries in the field learn immediately that they cannot count on 770 Eastern Parkway to pay their bills, so they hone their fundraising skills. In the process, they acquire greater confidence, as well as greater independence from central authority.

In the aggregate, what is raised to support all that the movement does must come to a staggering figure. My low estimate is a half-billion dollars, although there is no way to know the true figure. The emissaries’ fundraising accomplishments provide evidence of their skill, especially since nearly all of what is raised comes from people who are not Lubavitchers.

What we know about the consequences of advanced assimilation should suggest that the Lubavitch Chassidic outlook and ambiance is not one that Jews in communities across the continent are seeking. The beard and dress and much else should be turn-offs for Jews who are not observant, who live modern lives and certainly are not seeking an old-world look. Yet, a great number are attracted to Lubavitch, a phenomenon that requires an explanation.

What the emissaries offer is a presence, at times the only Jewish presence, in a community. They perform pastoral duties that traditionally have been the responsibility of pulpit rabbis, including visiting the sick, elderly and frail, helping the needy, arranging for life-cycle events and counseling. They provide basic religious services, such as Menorah lightings and Passover seders, in a friendly environment that emphasizes a soft sell.

Above all, there is a certain sweetness and kindness in the contacts between the emissaries (and their families) and the people who are their clientele. This is evident in the personal services that are given, as well as in the expanding network of Chabad synagogues and day schools.

The lesson is that even as more American Jews are moving away from Judaism’s core observances, many feel comfortable with Lubavitchers because of the kindness which they experience. In a sense, what Lubavitch offers even more than formal services and activities is the ability to fill an emotional need that overcomes whatever hesitancy non-observant Jews may have about dealing with these Chassidim. In a world where loneliness is pervasive and insecurity erodes happiness, caring and being available go a long way.

The flip side of non-observant Jews being comfortable with Chabad is that the relationship usually does not have a lasting religious impact on these Jews and their families. Assimilation continues to undermine Judaic commitment in too many homes that are involved with Chabad. With the possible exception of Sephardim and ex-Israelis who in some communities are the mainstays of Chabad, increasingly the movement is reaching out to American Jews of questionable religious status, Jews of the sort whom the Rebbe insisted should not be accorded Jewish identity when the Who Is a Jew? issue was debated in Israel. This is an inconsistency that has not been addressed.

There is, more generally, the compelling question of the efficacy of Chabad’s brand of feelgood Judaism, of an approach that does not challenge or disturb the status quo and thereby becomes an inadvertent handmaiden to ongoing assimilation. It is, of course, meritorious to make Jews feel good about themselves and it certainly is important to reach out in a tolerant way to marginal Jews. But what we now ask or expect of other Jewish activities must also be asked and expected of Lubavitch: In what ways are the Jews served by the movement being influence toward greater Judaic commitment?

Renee Schick, a'h

(Originally published in the New York Jewish Week in May 1998)

My mother died on April 21, two days after Pesach and sixty years after my father. She was an extraordinary person, with a prodigious memory and powerful mind. Her courage sustained and molded a family that might have disintegrated under the burden of tragedy. At 92, she was too young to leave us.

She was born in Romania into a comfortable family that lost everything, as did many others, in the World War. Although she was an outstanding student, her studies were not continued after high school graduation, something that she regretted all her life.

In 1928, she came to the U.S., shortly after her marriage to my father, a cousin from the same area in Rumania who was already in this country, serving as the Rabbi of a Manhattan synagogue. We have few photographs and know little of her early years here. She began to raise a family – Arthur in 1930, Ruth in 1932, Allen and me in 1934. In 1931, she published a recipe book in English, with the income going to charity.

Purim in 1938 fell on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day. My father had been hospitalized for a burst appendix but seemed on the way to recovery. My mother saw him in the morning, went home to care for the children and then was called back to the hospital to be told that her husband had died of peritonitis. Just weeks before her passing and sensing that she was seriously ill, she sat down immediately after Shabbos and wrote a narrative of that dark day, of how she fought her way through the carousing crowd with tears streaming down her face to return home to cover the mirrors and to mourn.

She entered a period of pain and despair, of a desperation that she never spoke of although over the years scraps of information appeared. My father had died penniless; three weeks later she was served with eviction papers. She had no close relatives in this country, no parents or siblings or nieces and nephews, only cousins and four young children, ages 3 to 7.

Allen and I were placed in an orphans’ home. In 1939, I was hospitalized critically ill with diphtheria. The next year was Allen’s turn with pneumonia. She turned to people for help and some of the responses added to her pain. A handful of people who assisted in a modest way could not forget to remind her of what they had done.

Already in 1938 she had written to a saintly relative in Europe, asking whether she could send Arthur and Ruth to be cared for back home and also for advice. He responded that there were darkening clouds in Europe and told of a widow who, faced with a similar situation a century earlier, had provided for her children by baking challahs for Shabbos.

Late in the year she moved to Borough Park where there were cousins who helped. Out of a small oven in her apartment, she began to bake, four challahs at a time. Skilled in all ways with her hands, her challahs and cake quickly gained acceptance. In 1943, the year of Arthur’s bar mitzvah, the family was reunited and my mother opened what would become perhaps the most famous kosher bakery in the world.

The next seventeen years were hard work, running the bakery and trying to raise four children. In quality of product, kashruth and business ethics, my mother maintained a high standard. I cannot recall a single dispute with a supplier or customer. Our practice was to give a weight allowance on every piece of cake that was sold.
My mother’s schedule in those years was legendary, but only in the sense that it was so extraordinary that in the absence of unimpeachable corroboration, it would be impossible to regard the testimony as credible. We lived above the bakery. Except during the summer, on Thursdays she would arise at 3 am, be in the bakery within the hour, and work without let-up until an hour or two before Shabbos.

By 1960, Arthur had started his own business, Ruth was married and living elsewhere, Allen and I were on the way toward doctorates and academic careers. The bakery was sold.

Retirement hardly meant inactivity or much leisure. My mother had gone to Israel in the 1950’s to seek relatives who had survived and to provide help. This became a larger part of her life, as did the local women’s burial society. She read and corresponded widely, made bedding for the children and grandchildren, and cooked and baked up a storm. She often responded to calls by saying that she was too busy to talk.

The pain of her first years as a widow left its mark, mainly in her fierce caring for the unfortunate and also for ordinary people who led simple, good lives. She cared not whether they were Jewish or of the color of their skin. At her local supermarket, she find out when the cashiers had a birthday, confirmation or other happy event coming up in their family and for each one she would bake and decorate a cake and have it delivered. So it went in doctor’s offices and wherever else she met people she hardly knew.

As the years went by, she developed close bonds with each of her grandchildren, later her great-grandchildren, offering advice and revealing more about herself than she had to her children. They were a constant presence in her life.

Age began taking its toll in her 80’s and protesting against the inevitable, she slowly reduced her chores, much like a general yielding territory to a superior enemy. Yet, through some amazing chemistry, her mind became stronger and her memory a wonder, as if the diminution of her physical powers was the catalyst for mental growth. In her 91st year, while celebrating Pesach at Allen’s home in Silver Spring, she recited from memory a long poem by Goethe in German.

A year earlier, Allen commemorated her 90th birthday, as we had her 80th, by dedicating a Sefer Torah that was written in her honor. It was a wonderful events, one of her happiest days. Afterwards, she wrote a letter of appreciation to the community which began, “I have been fortunate to spend the last Shabbos celebrating my birthday in your warm, friendly, caring community. Thank you.” Then, “The Kovod and respect is for the Torah. The Torah is everlasting and its message lets us live and survive in this modern society.”

Despite our pleas, she never allowed us to bring someone in to stay with her. This past fall, after the holidays, her health began to fail. Six weeks before her death, my mother relented and a woman was hired, yet her condition worsened and reluctantly she was hospitalized at Maimonides. Ten days of constant care from family and nurses did not prevent further deterioration. We (and she) sensed that she was dying and for Pesach and her last ten days, she was at Arthur’s and Dorothy’s home in a makeshift hospital room where family members and several wonderful medical people ministered to her.

As she lay dying she bequeathed us a legacy of living. It was a gift that she never lost awareness or her remarkable memory. Each day she recited from memory chapters of Tehilim (Psalms) and favorite prayers and said the Viduy, the confession for the dying. On her last Friday night, the final day of Pesach, she blessed the Shabbos lights and heard Kiddush. The next afternoon, we thought the end was near. Her four children gathered around her bed, held her hands and said the transcendent Sh’ma Yisroel prayer with her, word by word. The grandchildren then came in, one by one, to say goodbye, to cry, to be blessed.

On her final day, as she reviewed what might be left unfinished, she gave instructions to give gifts to three nurses at Maimonides, a book by Allen for the hospital’s president, a birthday cake to a handicapped man. On Monday morning, while holding my wife’s hand, she let go and she died.

Amidst the tears and Tehilim, we had celebrated a Pesach of loss and of redemption.

Secular Education

A foundation with a splendid record in Jewish education wants to upgrade secular studies in yeshivas and day schools. Since these institutions need all the help they can get, the new initiative is welcome, although to be effective, the essential character and mission of Jewish schools needs to be respected.

Education is one of the two key functions of Jewish schools. The other – often more important – function is religious socialization, the process whereby young children are taught to understand and accept the principles of our faith. This role transcends courses and curriculum and explains why all who care about Jewish continuity now place so much hope in all-day Jewish schools, institutions that for nearly the entirety of the American Jewish experience were treated as unwanted leftovers of a Jewish past.

If Jewish schools produce graduates who go on to elite colleges and successful careers but who abandon religious commitment, they are failing in their mission.

This does not mean that educational performance is to be neglected. It cannot, if only because, after all, these are schools and what they do mostly during the hours they operate is to impart knowledge and develop intellectual and other skills. Parents would be up in arms if schools did not maintain educational standards, if subjects were not taught properly, if assignments and exams were not taken seriously, if student performance was not graded.

Jewish schools and especially yeshivas confront potent and largely immutable difficulties as they carry out their responsibilities. They have a dual program, which means that starting from a very young age, children have to be taught two sets of subject matter, almost always in two or three languages. In most places, Jewish education occupies the first half or more of the school day, with the secular program consisting primarily of basic courses and little more.

The problem of maintaining a dual educational program is intensified by the financial crunch at most Jewish schools. It costs about $10,000 a year to educate (such as it is) a public school student in New York, about double what yeshivas spend to teach Jewish kids religious and secular subjects. Our schools are, with few exceptions, badly underfunded, a condition that is reflected throughout the educational program. Libraries, labs and nearly all of the other accoutrements of a good school are inadequate or non-existent. Funds are not available to offer electives to gifted students or to provide additional attention to special students. Extracurricular activity can consist of nothing more than recess. On the secular side, the faculty is invariably made up of stringers or unlicensed seminary graduates.

In short, all of the ingredients for educational failure are abundantly on display in nearly all Jewish schools. Somehow, though, our schools manage to do a credible job and even more than that, including in the secular area. This is one of the primary findings of an ongoing study I am conducting of yeshiva and day school student performance on standard New York State examinations. The results are uneven, so that girls perform better than boys and students at chassidic schools do not do as well as those who attend elsewhere. There is, as is true of all human contrivances, a measure of failure and more than a little room for improvement. Overall, the record is laudatory.

Why this is so may be a mystery to outsiders who cannot see how a strong performance can emerge in schools that operate under such severe limitations or, more likely, have come to believe the worst about yeshivas. People who are familiar with the workings of our schools, including admissions officials at first-rate colleges and professional schools, know that for all of the time and financial pressures they face, Jewish schools produce exceptional graduates.

One reason for the unexpectedly strong outcome can be summed up in a single word: commitment. This is manifested when underpaid teachers, in both the religious and secular program, devote long hours at home to prepare their lessons and find ways of reaching out to students beyond the ordinary classroom experience.

There is a culture of learning and study in our schools that compensates – not entirely, but in large measure – for programmatic and even attitudinal shortcomings. Students in Jewish schools are, in the aggregate, serious-minded. They are not distracted by outside elements and certainly not by the social pathologies that have harmed too many bright students in elite secular schools. When students in Jewish schools set their mind to educational tasks, including subjects that may be regarded as of lesser consequence, the outcome invariably is impressive. This affinity for serious study stands yeshiva graduates in good stead when they enter the job market or take graduate and professional training, often after they have concluded their seminary study.

This picture of yeshiva education is not the one that we usually get. We are told of corruption – which must be severely criticized and never condoned – in a small number of schools, as if this is the pattern everywhere. We read of writers and people of accomplishment who look back with disdain at their yeshiva education, without any thought being given to the possibility that the skills or discipline acquired during the yeshiva years had anything to do with their later success. Worst of all, we are given a distorted and invariably ugly description of how yeshiva graduates fare financially. They are depicted as parasites in language that comes dangerously close to the language used traditionally by anti-Semites.

The truth is that nearly all adult Orthodox men, including those who are referred to as charedim, work, as do many of the women. They are lawyers, teachers, communal employees, accountants, computer experts, technicians, doctors and medical personnel. They work at large firms where they are regarded as devoted and trustworthy employees. Among chassidim especially, there is an entrepreneurial instinct which already has an important bearing on the economic profile of the community.

The further truth is that despite their hard work, many have difficulty making ends meet. Those in communal positions, including teachers, are badly underpaid. Family size is a critical factor, as is the cost of living an observant life, specifically tuition but other expenses as well. Residual job discrimination takes a toll, as does their nearly total lack of geographical mobility. As a consequence, many of the Orthodox take a second job, wives work (usually part-time), parents help out and there is a measure of reliance by a minority on communal and governmental benefits.

None of this alters the basic picture of hard work or the extraordinary ongoing value of their yeshiva education. Of course, more Orthodox Jews are poorer than the non-Orthodox, but instead of seeing the dignity – indeed the spirituality – of thousands of people who struggle constantly to make ends meet and who go daily to their jobs and do them well, the goodness of these people is denigrated, at times by know-nothing writers who employ the mantle of sociology to transmit their hate and bigotry.

What I write here will have no impact. We are far from the point when the cascades of hatred flowing toward the Orthodox will cease. It is remarkable how so many secular Jews who claim to embrace tolerance and enlightenment can display so much prejudice toward their fellow Jews. As yet, there is no way to stop those who traffic in hate, especially since it masquerades at times as scholarship.

Still, the effort must be made and the truth must be written. At long last, is there any decency left in our community? Are we incapable of stopping the bigotry?