National Scholar Updates

Good morning. I would like to thank Tom Severson, Michael Davis, David Nelson for inviting me to speak to you this morning and the many of you for allowing me to talk with you today.

"It's 2:00 in the morning. We are at Hackensack University Medical Center in Northern Jersey and are grieving beyond tears and words. Our younger son, Daniel, hasn't been feeling well for a couple of days, complaining of back pain and shortness of breath.

“Two hours ago, what we thought was perhaps a virus or something tied to the heat and humidity was something much worse. Our little boy has cancer.

“Just two days ago, Daniel had scored two goals in a street hockey game at camp, a performance more impressive when realizing he was playing with a collapsed left lung.

“For whatever reason, we have been hit with a challenge we never sought. But with God's help and the strength of friends and family and a terrific medical team, we fully expect Daniel to celebrate his Bar-Mitzvah in three years and hopefully to marry and raise a family.”

I wrote this for CSP Daily News on July 5, 2013 – 9 days after Daniel fell ill -- as I prepared to take a short leave of absence.

Today, nearly 2 ½ years later, I am speaking publicly for the first time about the trials, challenges and the profound appreciation of a faith that had to transcend its routine.

For much of my life I have prayed every day. I grew up in Boston – and as many of you know I’m a devout Red Sox fans. I was raised with an Orthodox Jewish upbringing, one imbued with a sincere pride in our religious faith, coupled with a deep love of people of all backgrounds.

More recently, I have come to appreciate a certain insight. It is one thing to go to Church or Temple or a Mosque and recite the daily or weekly prayers when there is little at stake. Oftentimes, in this scenario, it is we who define God – what He means to us, the role He plays in our daily lives.

It is another thing to cry in our prayers, to wonder if God is truly listening and whether we will receive the favorable answer that we seek. In this relationship it is God defining who we are, who I am and the relationship that God and I share.

This has been my life over the past two years. I pray three times a day, every day. Prayer has always served as my spiritual food much as breakfast, lunch and dinner provide the nutritional source to empower us through our day and evening.

With Daniel’s cancer, prayer took on an additional role – that of medicine, my cure, my hope.

There is a beautiful and yet complex story in the Bible. It occurs in Chapter 20 of Genesis. We have just completed the story of Lot and his two daughters and how after the destruction of Sodom and Gemorra. Thinking that the world had been destroyed, Lot’s two daughters intoxicate their father and have relations with him in order to bring new life. That’s the last we read about Lot and his life.

The story now moves to Abraham and Sarah. He is 99 and she is 89. For decades they try to have a child but without success. Time is certainly NOT on their side.
Living in the Near East, they travel South to the city of Gerar and as they do, Abraham notices that Sarah is still attractive. He suddenly fears that the people of this community may kill him if he is truthful about his marriage. So he tells Sarah to “lie,” to reply that she is his sister if asked about their relationship.

And indeed, such happens. The King – known as Abimelekh – literally “takes” Sarah. But before any hanky panky can happen, God appears to Abimelekh in a dream and says Sarah is married and that her husband Abraham is a Prophet.

God then punishes not only Abimelekh but his entire palace by blocking their orifices. After Abimelekh apologizes to Abraham and returns Sarah to him, Abraham prays for the King and his Court to be healed. God answers and Abimelekh and his crew are able to conceive and bear children.

It is this prayer of Abraham – of praying for others for the very thing that he and Sarah lacked – a child – that prompts God in the following chapter to reveal that he has remembered Sarah and that he’ll restore her youthfulness – V’HaShem Pakad et Sarah.
Interestingly, the Hebrew root PKD means more than just “remember,” it suggests that God took an accounting of the lives of Abraham and Sarah and affirmed their worthiness to be blessed with a child. Only then does Sarah bear her first and only child -- Isaac.

[Parenthetically, it is striking that the 3 vignettes of Lot, Abimelekh and Abraham/Sarah all deal with fertility and perpetuating or obstructing life.]
In the stories of Abimelekh and then Abraham/Sarah, there are inspiring lessons. The first is the power of prayer, of Abraham’s ability to intercede on behalf of Abimelekh and his Palace. The second is the altruism to place someone’s needs ahead of your own even when you share that very need. [Rashi]

This is where you come in. In the days after our discovery, you extended yourself and embraced me and my family. In less than one week after we learned of Daniel’s cancer, I received more than 150 emails from you – the leaders who make up our convenience-store industry.

Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews, as well as many who do not associate with a particular denomination, prayed for my son. And some of you – nearly 2 ½ years later – continue to pray for Daniel. How amazing. In the depths of my greatest pain you have been a source of salvation.

I’m happy to share that the daily medications of Mercaptuperine, the scheduled intake of Prednisone, Pentamadine, Methotrexate and countless other multi-syllabic, tongue-twisting drugs ? are nearly over. By next month, Daniel’s regular treatment ends.
We then embark on what is basically a six-month wait with intermittent treatment. If he is cancer-free, that portends well for his future. If cancer is found…

The shift from daily doses of medications to a certain hiatus is personally very frightening. The idea of meticulously preparing his medication has given us a sense of empowerment, a partnership between medicine and prayer; Man and God.

In just weeks, our partnership will change. In lieu of pills, prayer will be our sole representative, faith our lone agent. Truly the next six months will rest in the Hands of God.

One stage is nearly done, another soon to follow. What I know is what we all know –
Life truly is a Gift from God and it’s our mission to appreciate it each and every day.
When I wake up in the morning I recite a little prayer as soon as I open my eyes. It is called the Modeh Ani. It is a prayer of gratitude to God for restoring our soul – for giving us a new day. It is up to us to make each and every day a worthy gift from God.

Thank you so much and Bless you.

Religious mis-education engendered an egregious handicap for second-generation survivors. Theological implications of the Holocaust were typically ignored in yeshiva curricula and teacher-student discussions. Religious instruction consistently disregarded, and even censored, aspects of scripture that could have been utilized to reconcile some negative Holocaust experiences with religious doctrine. Instead, second-generation survivors were subjected to an idealistic religious perspective where God is consistently a just, kind, merciful micromanager, where human suffering is attributed to transgression and guilt. Whereas such an educational stance may be functional for children growing up in a relatively just world, it is definitely inadequate for youngsters from families who had just rebounded from the Holocaust and who confront its traumatic reverberations daily. Coupled with the negativity that permeated their home environments, this lapse in education resulted in disturbing—and often insurmountable—dissonance in many second-generation survivors. Utilizing developmental theory to inform the quality of relationship one has with God, the dissonance of second-generation survivors coming of age is annotated by discordant religious, moral, and psychological worldviews that were not ameliorated by proper education
A Jewish Modern Orthodox second-generation survivor who is a research clinician in trauma, the author highlights clinical insights from the perspective of the psychopathology of trauma and abuse. Paralleling this effort, he charts his own trials and tribulations as a student—juggling a heritage of despair with disparate teachings at home and yeshiva as he trekked through the ruins of his people in search of a kind God.

Introduction

Philosophy is not a central topic in formal education. Viewed as somewhat esoteric and less relevant than other disciplines in modern society, it is rarely offered in secondary schools (even as an elective) and is not in the core curriculum of higher education. Religious colleges and seminaries, of course, do feature philosophy as a required course.
However, religion and philosophy are less central to Judaism than conduct and behavior. Scholars across the Jewish denominations concur that Judaism is primarily a religion of deed, not of creed (Bleich, 1992; Borowitz, 2014). As such, theology and deliberations about the nature of God are not part of the typical discourse among Jews, even in synagogues and institutions of higher learning. Jewish religious instruction is primarily task- or behavior-oriented. Thus, the topics that are seen as “relevant” in religious schools usually relate to daily behavior and religious practices. Theology and religious philosophy are hardly of interest to elementary and high school students. It is therefore not surprising that typical yeshiva curricula paid little attention to theology or philosophy, other than frequent references to a kind, merciful God.
For the post-Holocaust generation, however, The Question of God was a burningly relevant issue. God’s nature was at the crux of the junction of its history and its religion. Religious education magnified The Question to the level of an enigma, since this generation of yeshiva students was exposed to scriptures featuring a host of references to a hostile and vengeful God, all the while being taught that God was merciful.
This educational conundrum left the instruction about God to parents, to the community, and to the media. Since second-generation survivors had parents who were survivors—by definition, a good amount of their theological “home education” was informed by the open sores of recent Holocaust experiences. The “street education” they received from the community at large—typically consisting of Holocaust survivors—echoed and reinforced the discordant perspective they absorbed at home about an unjust world managed by an unreliable God. Rounding out the circle, Yiddish-language media they were exposed to—newspapers, radio, contemporary lyrical music recordings, and library books—cemented the very same unhelpful understanding of God’s role in the world. Absent contravening corrective education in school, this orientation is what second-generation survivors internalized and took with them into adulthood. This internalization was a constant counterpoint to the merciful God icon championed by the religious education establishment.
Yeshiva students were also exposed to scripture references to God as Father. This complicated the internalization of God in this cohort. For many survivors and their families, their understanding of God’s role did not coincide with the imagery of a kind caring father. In another vein, second-generation survivors often had a non-idealized “father image” because of the perceived weakness of their parents during the Holocaust. Developmental theory posits that the God concept that children internalize is very much linked to their formative experience with parental figures. As such, the God-father contextualization negatively affected the ability of their children to establish a secure relationship with God. God as Father is an effective religious educational parallel only when Father is an idealized icon. It is not a functional parallel for those with a weak father image.
In the following sections, each of the above noted factors are detailed and discussed, from social, religious, and educational perspectives. Scriptural inconsistencies, variations in perspectives about God, providence (especially divine micromanagement), and trauma are elaborated, elucidating the plight of second-generation Holocaust survivors as they contended with religious inconsistencies within the context of their education. The cognitive and psychological coping modes of this cohort are elaborated and evaluated. Their challenges in establishing an adaptive relationship with God are explored, in light of an educational system that failed to address—and even exacerbated—the dilemmas and contradictions they faced.

The Environmental Influence

Yeshiva education was particularly crucial to second-generation survivors who immigrated to major American urban centers. In the characteristic absence of discussions with parents about theological/religious significance of the Holocaust, the pervasive input these children were exposed to came from Yiddish media. In a sense, these media became primary transmitters of the Holocaust legacy to our generation.
A number of Yiddish newspapers thrived in the post-war era, and they featured a continuous diet of pieces saturated with interpretations of Holocaust experiences. Needless to say, the content of these pieces, which were usually reactive rather than educational or reflective, shaped the orientation of its young readers in a manner that was not conducive to developing an adaptive perspective.
The public library was an important resource for the immigrant family. With traditional values for the “written word” and minimal expendable income, families took full advantage of the library. My childhood family of four usually checked out seven or eight books each Friday.
The libraries in Jewish neighborhoods offered a large number of Yiddish-language books. In our local branch, the stacks for the Yiddish collection numbered well over a thousand, and the collection was second in size only to English-language fiction. By the time I was in ninth grade, I had to search each Friday for books I had not read yet. I estimate that more than 75 percent of these books were depictions of Holocaust experiences.
As early as I can recall, our radio was always on during waking hours, and it was tuned to WEVD, the Yiddish-language radio station. A good percentage of the programming consisted of songs and lyrics that found resonance among Holocaust survivors. Late evenings, when WEVD stopped broadcasting, the air was filled with the sound of phonograph recordings of contemporary Yiddish music. In retrospect, it seems that radio and records gave voice to the feelings that our parents could not verbalize to us. Indeed, many of my generation were given to humming the tunes of these compositions habitually, perhaps as a confirmation of the message conveyed by the lyrics.
With the limited venue of contemporary Jewish music, it is not surprising that the children soon knew all of the songs and lyrics by heart. One gets a poignant feeling of the mentality of the era in the song Eyli, Eyli (My God, My God; Heskes, 1992, No., 1194; Nulman, 1972, No. 74), written at the turn of the twentieth century, and popularized in the Warsaw Ghetto. The lyrics were disseminated widely when they were recorded by major cantors, especially Yossele Rosenblatt, and played regularly on New York Yiddish radio, rendering it the anthem of suffering of the contemporary Jew. I surely knew all the words of this piece and hummed its tune frequently as a child:

My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?
My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?
In fire and flames we have been burnt
Everywhere they shamed and mocked us
But no one could turn us away from You, my God
And from Your Holy Torah
From Your commandments, My God.
Day and night, I only think of You, my God.
I keep Your Torah and Your commandments with awe.
Save me, oh save me from danger
Like You once saved our fathers from an angry czar
Only You can help.
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

The tune left us all with in an atmosphere of confusion: If God helped in the past, why did he not help during the Holocaust? Why did God abandon his people?

Exposure to Confusing Scriptures

Seeking to inculcate us with compassion and kindness toward others, our teachers extolled us to emulate God (Deuteronomy 28:9: “You shall walk in His ways") using two general guidelines:
• You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy (Leviticus 19:2).
• For the Lord your God ... loves the stranger, providing him with food and clothing; and you too must love the stranger… (Deuteronomy 10:17–19).

These guidelines are elaborated by the Talmud into specifics:

Just as God is gracious and compassionate, you also should be gracious and compassionate (Talmud Shabbat 133b). Just as He is called “righteous,” so should you be righteous ... Just as He is called “pious,” so should you be pious (Sifri, Deuteronomy 11:22). Just as He clothes the naked ... visits the sick ... comforts the mourners ... and buries the dead ... so should you (Talmud, Sota 14a). [1]

But, the elaborations ignored verses that pull in the other direction, exemplified by the following:

• The Lord is a man of war (Exodus 15:3).
• The Lord is a jealous and avenging God (Nahum 2:6).
• The Lord is a God who avenges (Psalms 94:1).
• He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations (Exodus 34:6–7).
• Thou hast slain, and thou hast not pitied (Lamentations 3:43).

There are many other biblical passages that feature harsh attributions to a vengeful God (who metes out punishment), passages that hardly coincide with the idealization of a loving God. A straightforward reading of the Bible may well instill within a child a hostile image of God. Indeed, some contemporary authors who take an unfettered look at scriptures have concluded that God, as he is represented in the Bible, is savage and sadistic (Armstrong, 1972). Moreover, there is a distinct Jewish liturgical theme accusing God of atrocities in Jewish liturgy dating back to the Book of Lamentations. While one might expect these discrepancies to be addressed directly in Bible classes, the fact is that students are often put into an untenable position that implicitly coaxes them to ignore any biblical passages that do not coincide with the selective portrayal of God as just and merciful.
It is fairly commonplace for a child in the traditional yeshiva system to be familiar with the entire Pentatuchal text at an early age. Contradiction and implausibility in biblical text are often “explained away” by commentators homiletically by interpreting some texts as being figurative. However, children are not used to allegories, making it likely that children, with their concrete tendencies, will have a hard time disregarding the literal meaning of scripture.
As the Bible was our main focus of study and reading, we were generally raised with the notion of a divine system with rules of fair play. Punishment for misdeed was part of this system, of course. Hence, the dictum we learned in Deuteronomy 24:16, “Fathers shall not be put to death for children, neither shall the children be put to death for fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin” made perfect sense. However, we were also taught about God’s reactions that did not conform to such standards. Take, for example, Exodus 20:5: “For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” Sadly, such discrepancies were never acknowledged, far less addressed, by our teachers.
Familiar with the Pentateuch in grade school, I remember being particularly struck by Moses’ admonition to the Jews of Egypt, to visibly mark their doors in anticipation of the plague of the slaying of the Egyptian first-borns, so that their children not get caught up in the destruction aimed at the Egyptians. This was explained to us using constructs that imply God’s loss of control over the fury he unleashes: “Once permission has been granted to the Destroyer, he does not distinguish between the righteous and wicked” (Talmud Baba Kama 60a).
The Talmud tells us that when Moses asked God, “Teach me your ways” (Exodus 33:13), he was actually formulating the age-old question: “Why do the righteous suffer?” Various talmudic narratives (e.g., Sanhedrin 27b, Kiddushin 39b) suggest alternate explanations. These include suggestions that wicked parents cause suffering of their righteous offspring, that suffering purifies the soul, and that suffering serves to remove the slightest of sin residues to enable increased rewards in the afterlife.
Another approach in the scared literature is to see God as functioning in two alternative modes: Judgment and Mercy. Rashi, the primary biblical commentator, applies this dichotomy to a dual approach in conceptualizing God’s management of the world: Elohim stands for the God of judgment who judges and punishes the evil of the world, while Jehovah symbolizes kindness and is the chief attribute that was extant at creation (Yitzhaki, 1090, Exodus 20:1). However, these explanations did not clarify my understanding of God nor his role during the Holocaust.

The Enigma of Providence: God as a Micromanager

There are divergent views within the Jewish literature about the degree of God’s involvement in the details of nature (Flavius Josephus, 75, 94). The scope of divine providence (hashgaha peratit in Hebrew; literally, “individual oversight”) ranges from a Personal God, who has detailed oversight of all human events (Talmud Hullin 7b), to the variable oversight of humans based on their level of righteousness (Maimonides, 1180), to the notion that there is oversight of the species but not of the individual (Nahmanides, 1230), to the disavowal of any divine control of human conduct, since it would negate free will (Ben Joseph, 925). The orientation accepted by contemporary mainstream Orthodoxy, however, favors the perspective of God’s detailed control of all human activity. Its essence is encapsulated in the following aphorism:

Know what is above you: an eye that sees and an ear that hears. All of your
activities are written in the book, and there is a reckoning for everything you do (Avot 2:1).

This is the view favored by the yeshiva system, and this is what was taught to the children of Holocaust survivors.
In his interpretation of providence during the Holocaust, Rabbi Soloveitchik views the Holocaust as a period when God actually removed himself from managing world events (Besdin, 1993). Labeled Hester Panim (literally, “Hiding the Face”), this theological maneuver does “explain” horrors of mass extermination, if one can accommodate a God who is absent from world events. [2]
Paralleling God’s judging role and merciful role, there is yet another persona of God in the hearts of Holocaust survivors that seems startling: one of capricious hostility. Analyzing the internal religious icons of survivors, we sometimes encounter a volatile figure with a bad temper—a mercurial God who can get “carried away” in his vengeance. This is a God who regrets his mistakes at times (Lawliss, 1994). Yet, during times of harsh judgment, He seems unapproachable. Consider the yearly liturgy recited by Jews for centuries during the Ashkenazic High Holiday service, depicting the torture and murder of Israel’s sages some 2,000 years ago. Addressing the complaints of Israeli leaders about His actions, God responds:

If I hear another sound, I will transform the universe to water, I will turn the earth to astonishing emptiness—this is a decree from My Presence! (Yom Kippur Prayer Book, p. 643).

The Holocaust, in particular, is easily construed by some survivors—as it surely was perceived by many of my cohort—as an instance where the destructive forces unleashed by God “simply got out of control.” As children, the notion that the Jews needed to protect themselves from God’s wrath which was directed at their Egyptian oppressors seemed ungodly, leaving us with the unspoken understanding that our benevolent God sometimes gets “carried away” and overreacts in an unfair fashion—hardly a God one would be inclined to trust.
As one means of reconciling perceived divine harshness with the image of the benevolent God, I have been stunned to hear survivors (when they let their guard down) referring to God as “crazy” for instigating horrors. I am reminded of the adaptive attribution I see in the family members of Alzheimer’s patients who become uncharacteristically violent toward loved ones. “This is not the husband I know,” I often hear. “He has changed into another person. It’s as if he were possessed!” The tenor of this “explanation” resonates starkly with the various “excuses” by family members of a molesting parent: “It wasn’t his fault;” “He was under horrible pressure;” “He was not himself;” “It’s the drugs that made him do it.”
It has been suggested that an inconsistent God may be easier for people to relate to than a God with strict standards. Interpreting Cain’s understanding that God favored his brother Abel inappropriately, Goldin (2007) elaborates:

The reality of a thinking God, who demands compliance to His will, is too frightening to [Cain]. It is easier to believe in a Deity Who chooses favorites
by whim than to deal with the burden of God’s true demands. (p. 20)

Perhaps, then, it is not surprising that children growing up in the shadow of the Holocaust, given no rationalization of the horrors while being exposed to inconsistent depictions of God in the daily biblical studies, might revert to viewing God as willful, capricious, or apt to lose control.
There is a poignant finale to the Selihot (forgiveness prayers) of Ne’ilah (the concluding Yom Kippur service):

May it be your will, You who hears the sound of weeping,
That you place our tears, in your vial permanently.

As a person for whom the Holocaust is alive and current in my conscience, I have—at times—felt that this prayer adds insult to injury, so to speak. In my mind, it evokes the following excerpt from the analytic protocol of a patient with a history of childhood emotional neglect:

I cried, and my Mother did not come to help. I thought it was because she was
an evil mother. Then I found out it was because she could not hear me. That felt better….I always explained away the fact that my father failed to protect me or rescue me when it all happened. I thought to myself: He probably does not know, he does not realize what is really going on. It’s like he was deaf, maybe even dead. But when I finally realize that he was there all along, hearing me cry, and he did nothing—that really hurts!

Coping with Divine Dissonance

Left with a subjectively palpable presence of a dissonant God, the child is forced to grapple with a perceived discrepant duality. The viable options are to try to reconcile them or to take the perspective that they are inherently irreconcilable and resign oneself to an unsettled stance.
De-synthesizing is common in early childhood (when the child has not yet learned to reconcile behaviors that seem incompatible). However, it is also utilized by older children and adults as a regressive defense mechanism when faced by betrayal or extreme interpersonal disappointment. Referred to clinically as splitting, it can engender a pathological condition when it manifests in adulthood and results in two different inconsistent relationship styles toward the same person, with no attempt to reconcile them.
Viewed logistically, splitting is the most expedient approach to deal with incompatible representations of God. Consider the similar circumstance in which a child finds himself at the mercy of an all-powerful parent who behaves inconsistently toward the child—at times kind and understanding, and at other times vicious and harsh. In cases where the child has not had an opportunity to experience this parent previously in a consistent manner, splitting will be invoked by the ego. The child essentially learns to relate to the parent as if there actually were two parent figures here—a good parent and a bad parent. This orientation frees the child from dealing with contradictions. The parent is thus experienced as “wholly” benevolent when he or she is behaving in a kind manner, and “wholly” terrible when behaving poorly. I propose that this is exactly how the Orthodox Jewish child of Holocaust survivors—and survivors themselves—first related to God.
Survivors split God into two antithetical motifs. The split, engendered by the introduction to God in their early Bible studies as two different personas, was originally synthesized by positing that God is vengeful toward those who violate his commands and merciful to those who heed his rules. Yet, various scriptures and prayer texts contradicted this simplistic explanation.
Children, especially those who recognize inconsistency despite apologetics, manage to relate to God by splitting Him into two entities. Especially from the perspective of Holocaust survivors and their families, the God who perpetrated the Holocaust is not the merciful God they have known since childhood (and still cling to as damaged adults). [4]
Along with others in my cohort of second-generation survivors, I interpreted these “god variants” in a literal sense—with a distinct polytheistic flavor. Our “working model” of theology resembled Greek mythology. God existed as a good force competing with negative God-forces, based on our literal readings of biblical citations in the Prayer Book, which describe God as being “above all gods” (Psalms 135:5) or as punishing other gods (Jeremiah 46:25). As I saw it, the god of horrors actually had a different persona—and even a different name—than my God. Our God needed to be distanced from the divine aberration that brought indiscriminate destruction upon our families.[5]
It is noteworthy that de-synthesis actually has been posited as an intrinsic Jewish solution to eternal suffering. Some scholars elaborate a dialectic perspective, suggesting that the splitting mode adopted by children to deal with parental discrepancies is the preferred Jewish response to cope with the chronic societal oppression. From an adaptive perspective, the oppressive conditions of Jews in various European communities gave rise to distinct brand of humor, which was predicated on the promotion of illogic as a means of dealing with circumstances that were objectively insurmountable. In their brand of adaptive humor, Jews “defend” their future and their hope of survival by renouncing logic; as such, they refuse to be over-powered by the implications of a harsh reality (Juni & Katz, 1988; Juni, Katz, & Hamburger, 1996; Juni, & Katz, 2001). And that is no joke!

Our God, Our Father: Parallels and Repercussions

God was a constant part of the daily life of the Orthodox European Jew for many centuries. Yiddish vocabulary is permeated by direct references to God as a familiar player in all events, from the mundane to the colossal. In the Yiddish of Orthodox Jews, statements about the future are always qualified by the phrase “If God wills it.” When responding to a question about one’s welfare, the usual response is an unelaborated “Thank God,” with an occasional variation of “Thank God, well.” [6]
Developmentally, young children have a difficult time dealing with a parent who must, by definition, assume supportive and disciplinary roles at different times. Lacking the sophistication of adult reasoning and contextualizing, the child sometimes deals with this perceived contradiction by utilizing the aforementioned defense mechanism of splitting (Klein, 1935); this entails the effective de-synthesizing the parent as having two irreconcilable personas: one supportive, the other hostile. Klein posits that unless (and until) the child learns to synthesize different aspects of a parent into a meaningful whole, his or her internal world literally contains two separate representations of the same individual—a good Mother and the bad Mother, for example. Though they are, in truth, part objects (i.e., different aspects of the same object), these “mothers” are seen as distinct entities. [7]
Only if the child is fortunate enough to have a secure and supportive childhood, can he or she learn to synthesize these part objects and come to relate to a parent as a single entity whose characteristics vary based on situational contexts. This process and its challenges form the crux of the child’s assimilation of a healthy and positive ability to relate to others. [8]
If we recognize the relationship to God as a developmental process, it is reasonable to assume that the template of child-parent relations is relevant here as well. [9] For the child who is raised with God as a real feature of daily life, notions of a compassionate God must seem inherently incompatible with those of a vengeful and destructive God. Clearly, the God the child idealizes is the omnipotent benevolent God. The vengeful and punishing God is the one who deals with evil-doers and sinners. But, can the child deal with these intuitive incompatibilities any better than he or she can deal with the incompatibilities of the good mother and bad mother?
Fostering the notion of God as a kind father may seem disingenuous at the rudimentary level. At the very least, it deserves elaboration and qualification. I wish my High School administrators and staff, who included eminent masters of Jewish philosophy, had been forthright enough to discuss this imagery with us at a basic and honest level. While the image of kind father might be reconciled with harsh punishment, it certainly is incompatible with vindictiveness.[10] The intent of vengeance is not to help the one who is being punished; instead it is designed for the motive of the punisher. Mercy implies that punishment is withheld precisely in instances where it would be warranted. Not punishing, when punishment is unwarranted is not kindness—it is fairness. From a Western perspective, punishing children is not a means for a father to vent his rage; rather it is intended “for the good of the child” (i.e., educating, a lesson for the future.) Although the Western orientation may not be totally applicable to traditional Jewish culture, it seems that we, as children of the Holocaust, certainly deserved an honest discussion of the incongruity that this imagery engendered within us. Furthermore, coupled with a weak father image who was unable to help his family, and was himself brutalized during the Holocaust, this image of God resulted in an unwholesome conceptualization of God as well.

The Educational Failure

What are the cognitive options for an individual who is faced by a seemingly unkind God? The most salient option is disbelief:

It seems obvious that an omnipotent, omniscient, moral God would not allow injustice. Upon witnessing inequity, it is therefore perfectly natural to doubt God’s existence. (Kelemen, 1990, p. 91)

I wish to take issue with Kelemen’s conceptual formulation of the predicament of dealing with an apparently unjust God. For the child who was raised with God as a virtual feature of his formative environment, doubting God’s existence is not an option.
One might suggest that, unlike parents who constitute an undeniable concrete feature of the child’s world, and unlike the blatant anti-Semitism that Jews slammed into repeatedly—God’s relevance to the world of the child is unobservable and therefore dispensable, particularly when the role of God becomes so problematic to the child. How much simpler would it be to simply negate the entire god construct, and be rid of philosophical quandaries and emotional misgivings? Alas, the child who has been raised in a household where religion is part of daily life has no freedom of religion—at the functional level. Belief in God is part of his or her developmental paradigm. For one who was raised in the social crucible of Orthodox Judaism who is faced by this dilemma, the belief in God is imprinted indelibly on his or her soul.
In families identifying as Orthodox Jews, the icon of God is fixed in early childhood. It is part of the emotional structure that is socialized into the child by his parents as agents of the Orthodox Jewish culture. Children raised in this environment can no more easily disbelieve in God than they can disbelieve in Mother. It certainly becomes a major portion of his relationship repertoire with significant others, as the child is taught that his actions always entail a virtual interaction with an ever-present God. While a child may isolate from others when necessary, one can never escape the presence of God.
Although the child will certainly have the option of deciding whether to follow the dictates of religion at the behavioral level, he or she can no easier excise his beliefs in God than he or she can excise other basic tenets of reality that were inculcated in his formative years. Belief in God is essentially an emotionally implanted construct. To posit a cognitive rationale that can be utilized in choosing not to believe in a God who has been part of one’s life in early childhood is an oxymoron. Religious belief is not exclusively a logical operation. Rather, it is an orientation toward the world that is closer to emotion than it is to cognition. As a rational human being, one can certainly liberate oneself from the behavioral repercussions or dictates of childhood religious beliefs. However, emancipation from behavioral dictates does not incur freedom from an ingrained religious mindset that features an omniscient deity. [11]

It is interesting to note, in this context, the cultural connotations of the apostate, as the construct is formulated in the traditional orthodox Jewish literature. The Talmud (e.g., Avoda Zara 6b) divides apostasy into two categories: Those who violate Jewish law because they are tempted (by greed or desire), and those who do so for spite (where the spite is directed against religious authority figures—and perhaps even at God!). A blatant omission here is the option of one who rejects the very belief in God.
This omission, we argue, entails a cultural testimony that such rejection was not at all a viable option for children who are raised with the God construct as a household reality.
For those who are unwilling (or unable) to react to perceived divine injustice by relinquishing their belief in God, Keleman (1990) encourages them to consider the likelihood that there exists an explanation that we cannot comprehend:

Any rational person will admit that, in theory, the ways of God could be so complex that they defy human understanding. Man might simply be incapable of comprehending and morally evaluating the behavior of an omniscient, omnipotent Being. Just as appropriate actions taken by a parent can sometimes seem unjustified to young children, God’s actions might sometimes strike us as indefensible, despite their absolute righteousness. Our occasional inability to discern God’s goodness is not a repudiation of His existence as much as a confession of our own intellectual finitude. (p. 95)

As plausible as this option may be, it is a fact that it generally gets a poor reception among survivor families whose hurt is scarcely ameliorated by such a non-specific formulation. The same can be said of the approach to interpret biblical text non-literally, as is often seen in theological justifications of divine wrath.
The yeshiva curriculum has traditionally focused on Hebrew language skills,[12] transitioning toward the mastery of biblical texts after grade 2 or 3, shifting toward talmudic text mastery as students progress from elementary school to high school. As a rule, mastery of Talmud was the ultimate purpose of the traditional yeshiva.[13] While some schools also incorporated character development into the curriculum during high school (and this has endured through current practices), theology is noticeably absent.[14] This was the rule, rather than the exception, and was definitely the norm until the late 1960s, which was the period when second-generation survivors were educated.[15] At the least, this absence yielded students unequipped to deal with religious challenges they might encounter. However, for students who faced profound questions and theological contradictions in their own lives, this lack was resounding and profound.
As second-generation survivors, we experienced acute dissonance in the ethics classes we endured in high school. Although theology was not addressed directly, a “proper” concept of God was clearly intended to be internalized in the course of our education.[16] Values were taught as a form of Godliness, in accordance with the principle of imitatio dei (the imitation of God), by citing verses that exemplified the positive characteristics of God. For years, it baffled me that none of my classmates ever challenged the selectivity of these characteristics. We were all well versed in the scriptures cited in the Standard Prayer Book, and could enumerate alternate divine attributes that surely would not be idealized as models for our behaviors and traits. Furthermore, as a second-generation survivor, my immediate associations veered toward the horrific abuse my family had suffered (as we were taught—it was by the ever-present hand of God), and a host of biblical citations in the Prayer Book that championed another side of God’s path.
Unfortunately, the standard of accepted theology in yeshiva tends toward a micromanaging God. While only a few philosophically minded students inevitably become troubled reconciling divine control with the postulate of free will, this radical interpretation of Providence induces acute distress in those who come from a heritage of horrors—Holocaust survivors and their families. If God is posited to micromanage all human history and events, then the Holocaust is clearly not only condoned—but actually perpetrated by God. One can question whether the educational decision of yeshivas to adopt this version of providence made sense when second-generation Holocaust survivor students were cornered into seeing God as actually having perpetrated the Holocaust. [17]

Summary

The yeshiva education system failed second-generation Holocaust survivors by failing to address the theological implications of the Holocaust and by its selective teaching of concepts that preempted religious understanding of the Holocaust by the students. An inadequacy of commission featured the unequivocal presentation of God’s providence manifesting total causality for all human actions, which inevitably engendered negativity toward God by some of these students. Remarkable was the consistent inattention to textual descriptions of God as vengeful and angry, which may have been useful to the students in their coming to grips with a Jewish perspective of the heritage of suffering and injustice they were born into. To a child who was raised in the shadow of the death camps, God’s role during the Holocaust resonated with the censored “unkind” references to God in the scriptures. Many second-generation Holocaust survivors thus emerged from their educational experience with de-synthesized views of God, which yielded unwholesome religious functioning.

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bowlby, J. (1991). An ethological approach to personality development. American Psychologist, 46, 331–341.

Bell, M. (1991). An Introduction to the Bell Object Relations and Reality Testing Inventory. Los Angeles, CA: Western Psychological Services.

Besdin, A. R. (1993). Reflections of the Rav. Hoboken, NJ: Ktav Pub. Co.

Bleich, B. (1992). Understanding Judaism: The Basics of Deed and Creed. Northvale NJ: Jason Aronson.

Borowitz , E. B. (2014). Rethinking God and Ethics. H. Tirosh-Samuelson and A. W. Hughes (Eds.) Boston: Brill. Quote in “The need for Jewish philosophy,” p. 43.

Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1954). An Object-Relations Theory of Personality. New York: Basic Books.

Freud, S. (1910). Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood. Standard Edition of the Complete Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol 11. J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.). London: Hogarth 1957, pp. 59–137.

Hall, T. W., & Edwards, K. J. (2002). The Spiritual Assessment Inventory: A theistic model and measure for assessing spiritual development. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41, 341–357.

Juni, S., Katz, B., & Hamburger, M. (1996). Identification with the aggressor vs. turning against the self: An empirical study of turn-of-the-century European Jewish humor. Current Psychology, 14, 313–327.

Juni, S., & Katz, B. (1998). Creative pseudo-reality as a defensive factor in Jewish wit: A dialectical perspective. Journal of Psychology and Judaism, 22, 289–300.

Juni, S., & Katz, B. (2001). Self-effacing wit as a response to oppression: Dynamics in ethnic humor. Journal of General Psychology, 128, 119–142.

Klein, M. (1935). A contribution to the psychogenesis of manic-depressive states. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 16:145–174.

Kernberg, O. F. (1976). Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis. New York: Jason Aronson.

Mahler, M. S. (1963). Thoughts about development and individualism. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 18, 307–324.

Modell, A. H. (1975). A narcissistic defense against affects and the illusion of self-sufficiency. International Journal of Psycho-analysis, 56, 275–282.

Piaget, J., & Inhendler, B. (1966). The Psychology of the Child. New York: Basic Books.

Yitzhaki, S. (1090). Rashi’s commentary on the Bible. In D. Bromberg (Ed. & Trans.), The Great Scriptures [Mikra’ot Gedolot] [Biblia Rabbinica]. Venice: Daniel Bromberg Press.

Notes

[1] There are numerous similar references to God’s benevolence throughout Psalms; e.g., “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalms 34:18);
“Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you (Psalms 50: 15). When I recited these Psalms in the past, I sometimes sensed an inner voice that forced its way into my consciousness with a sardonic rejoinder: Why not tell it to the folks crying out for help in the crammed cattle cars on the way to Auschwitz?
[2] A crucial requisite to developing a trusting relationship with the caregiving parent is to realize that the parent continues to care for the child, and that the parent-child relationship can continue, even when the parent is absent. This reflects the principle of object permanence (Piaget & Inhendler, 1966) as it is accommodated within the general rubric of Attachment Theory (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). The construct of Hester Panim (Besdin, 1993), represented by “I will hide my face from them; I will see what their end will be…, Deuteronomy 32:20), disrupts the sense of object permanence and mitigates the development of secure attachment with God.
[3] It should be noted that splitting is adaptive in early childhood but becomes more problematic if it is not gradually abandoned in favor of a synthetic understanding of others. I offer the following familial illustration of de-synthesis in normal development: My wife and I were exploring with our boys (a third and fifth grader, respectively) how they felt when we used to leave them in earlier years in the care of au pairs while we were off at work. When I asked specifically about Jeanine (a young woman who had worked with us for a number of years), both children spoke up simultaneously, asking “Which one?” It emerged that this imaginative young lady apparently had an effective method of dealing with child discipline. When the children misbehaved, she would announce that she was leaving, and that Mean Jeanine would be coming instead; she would then say Goodbye and leave the house. Moments later, the bell would ring, and Mean Jeanine—wearing her cap backwards and speaking in a high pitched voice—would appear. The children remembered Mean Jeanine as a no-nonsense woman who was a strict disciplinarian. In fact, Jeanine (the kinder version) would often warn the children not to push limits, because she would only take “so much” before she would get Mean Jeanine to take over. It was fascinating to watch the amazement of these two, rather intelligent and usually insightful youngsters, as reality dawned upon them. “You mean to say that there was only one Jeanine?!” the eleven-year-old exclaimed? “Wow, she really had us fooled,” was the reaction of the nine-year-old.”
It is posited that in situations where the children were actively encouraged to view a caregiver as consisting of two different caregivers, de-synthesis would remain a feature of object relations for some time. If, for example, a mother would inadvisably “explain” to the child that there are actually two mothers—a good mother and a bad mother—and that their personalities are separate and distinct from each other, that the child would have a hard time synthesizing the two significantly beyond the age (where part objects are typically united into realistic object representations). Similarly, in terms of Theistic Object Relations, it is suggested that the “theological diet,” where two distinct God personas (a kind God vs. a vindictive God) are used differentially in daily lessons, prayer, and liturgy, militates against their synthesis into a unified object representation of God.
[4] Those of us who have a considerable patient population of Holocaust survivors have been referring informally to the stance of coming to terms with irreconcilable God aspects as Theological Schizophrenia.
[5] Splitting of God into kind and vicious entities was reinforced, for us, by the references
in scripture and prayers to Satan as a separate force. For example: the first two chapters of Job, for example, quote interchanges between God and Satan; in the quintessential prayer of the cantor on Yom Kippur (Hineni), there is a direct plea to God to banish Satan from impeding with the prayers.
[6] While the dynamic relationship with God is also emphasized in Fundamental Christianity, the author has found in his work with patients that the construct is far more entrenched in the formative psyche of individuals raised in the Orthodox Jewish milieu.
[7] This view of development is the basis of modern day conceptualization of interpersonal relationships. It conceptualization represents the confluence of Attachment Theory and Object Relations Theory (Bell, 1991; Bowlby, 1969; Fairbairn; 1954; Kernberg, 1976; Mahler, 1963; Modell, 1975).
[8] This reflects the general understanding of the development of interpersonal relations as formulated in Object Relations Theory.
[9] Developmental theorists have argued that—for religious people—an entire facet of the developing ego becomes devoted to a template of man-God relationship which is an intrinsic to personality structure as interpersonal (Hall and Edwards, 2002). In our work with religious patients who are conflicted about their relationships with God, we coined the term Theistic Object Relations to elaborate the contradictory valences of trust and fear that typify the developmental process of religious identity formation, as it parallels the development of secure interpersonal attachments in general Object Relations Theory.
[10] E.g., “God is jealous, and the Lord revenges; the Lord revenges, and is furious; the Lord will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserves wrath for his enemies (Nahum 1:2).
[11] I have met many survivors who became non-observant due to their Holocaust
experiences, but still showed strong beliefs in, and relationships with, God.
[12] See http://chinuchathome.info/index.php/Homeschool/Curriculum/Limudei-Kodesh- Curriculum.html.
[13] See http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/yeshiva/The_yeshiva_before_1800
[14] See, for example, the high school curriculum of a current American yeshiva high school that champions talmudic proficiency and personal ethics (http://ftiyeshiva.org/education/judiac-studies-curriculum/).
[15] Particularly egregious for second-generation survivors was the explicit sanction we often heard about some questions which may not be asked, where children’s requests for explanation were viewed as heretical and subversive in nature. Subsequently, however, some schools did begin to include opportunities for students to have discussions with staff about Hashkafah (a construct that can encompass theological ideas), as exemplified in http://www.ohryisrael.com/curriculum/.
[16] The crucial need for theological input in the religious education of second-generation survivors is particularly crucial from the perspective of Developmental Theory. Using this lens, children gradually transfer (with understandable modifications) aspects of their naive image of reliable all-powerful parents (or father, in traditional cultures) to a developing image of a reliable all-powerful God (Freud, 1910). Many children of survivors, however, attribute weakness and frailty—and often incompetence—to their parents, and certainly do not see them as supports to be relied upon under duress. The assimilation or internalization of God as a source of strength and stability in second-generation survivors is therefore totally dependent on the educational institution.
[17] It is suggested that dissonance may have been minimized had we been indoctrinated with the idea that God’s ways are mysterious and unfathomable. I would argue that such a position would have little traction for young adults who are intent on clear formulations of God’s role in negative world events rather than a seemingly vague deflection of God’s accountability (or even culpability).

Devil in Jerusalem
By Naomi Ragen

This is a very well-written, gripping, and suspenseful novel that is based on true horrendous events among Jews, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, and indeed all people. Although depressing, the story needs to be told to protect vulnerable and insecure people from falling into the grip of cult leaders who lead innocent victims into believing that the cult leader is a “messiah,” a “god-like” figure, a man or woman who knows the ultimate truth, who is in conversation with angels and God, who is defending his gullible flock from demons, and aiding them to climb to loftier heights, to become what he or she claims God desires them to become.

Some of these cult leaders milk their followers of their wealth or part of it, leaving them to live in harsh conditions that is “better for them,” which “helps clean them,” while the cult leaders live in huge mansions in luxury, even flying in multi-million dollar planes.

Many of these leaders are sick psychopaths who derive unnatural pleasure from being able to control and manipulate people. Some, as the “messiah” in this tale enjoy hurting their followers and getting others to hurt people as they watch, or, as an American cult figure did, he poisoned hundreds of his flock.

While this book does not address it, there are many, too many, “ultra-religious” leaders, who although not reaching the level of a cult leader, also take advantage of insecure, often insufficiently educated people leading them to think that what they are teaching is true religion, while what they are saying is untrue. They attract many followers, even well-educated men and women, and cash in on them by taking donations and ego-bursts. They demand the observance of practices that reasonable religious leaders consider absurd and demeaning, even demonic, behaviors that cut off their congregants from friends and neighbors.

Naomi Ragen’s tale of a Jewish cult leader in Jerusalem is based on some true events that occurred in Israel, but while Jewish it is an unfortunate universal tale. Irony is too weak a word to describe the striking similarities of the Jerusalem cult leader to what occurred in ancient times in Jerusalem’s Valley of Hinnom, called Gehinnom in Hebrew, which came to be the word for “hell,” where pagan priest were able to convince their followers to deliver their children to burn them as sacrifices to their god.

Ragen’s tale is the story of a loving couple, an educated woman and her loving husband who is not as educated as his wife, who is a well-meaning luftmensch, a man with his head in the clouds, who does not like to work. They are Americans from good families who moved to and settled in Israel because of their love of Judaism. He thinks that he should spend as much time as possible studying Talmud for he was told that this is what God wants. However, he soon becomes attracted to the study of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, which he really does not understand, and falls under the influence of the “messiah,” a charismatic, bearded, highly disturbed rabbi with a restricted group of followers who teaches practical Kabbalah. Although the husband spends time “studying,” he finds time to produce children. Soon, with half a dozen kids, and with little or no help from her husband, tired, feeling lost, and confused, she also falls under the “messiah’s” control.

What follows is bizarre, cruel, and unbelievable. She is led to do things no rational person would do. Brainwashed and convinced that what she is watching is good for her and her children, she looks on as her children are tortured, beaten, burned, forced to eat vomit and feces. She allows the “messiah” to do tormenting things to her and to her husband, and to cause her to afflict her husband, and he her.

This is a powerful tale, a story well-worth one’s time to read and enjoy, for Naomi Ragen is a superb writer. But it is also a reminder that there are many in society today, even in Israel, who take advantage of people, and we must beware and not passively and naively trust all that we hear and see even when the words and acts are spoken and performed by a black garbed saintly-appearing rabbi.

Jewish Holiday Companion
By Rabbi Hayyim Angel
Published originally by the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, and then by Kodesh Press

Rabbi Hayyim Angel has rightly earned a reputation as being one of the great teachers on Tanach in our time. He has authored a handful of books and hundreds of articles on biblical and religious themes, and has garnered a huge following based on his 17 years at Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue and 20 years at Yeshiva University, where he has even taught classes on how to teach Tanach. His new book, Jewish Holiday Companion, is a gem. In a time of year when we are pulled in every direction at once, Rabbi Angel offers guidance and clarity in how to approach the holidays, both intellectually and spiritually.

Jewish Holiday Companion is comprised of brief and insightful essays, each focusing on one specific religious issue. Rabbi Angel is known for his mastery of classical Jewish texts: the Tanach, Talmud, Midrashim, Rishonim and Achronim, but he also freely draws from diverse sources such as ancient Near Eastern literature and classic Chasidic writings. In each article, Rabbi Angel is able to zero in on one discussion at a time for a focused and deep exploration of the religious themes that permeate the different festivals.

One article explores the symbolism of the shofar. He quotes from Saadiah Gaon that “there are no fewer than 10 purposes of the shofar” (p. 20): coronating God as Creator, the Akeidah, the giving of the Torah, heeding the prophets (whose words are compared to a shofar), the wars that exiled the Jewish people, the messianic era, the future Day of Judgment, the resurrection of the dead, inspiring awe, and inspiring repentance. Rabbi Angel then explores, within the theme of the shofar, the presence of silence, and the importance of silence in the context of sounding the shofar. Abraham travelled three days to sacrifice his son Isaac. This journey must have been a time of introspection and quietude; there is no dialogue recorded between the two during their journey. It was said that the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk was a master at getting “in between the notes” and making the audience focus on the silence contained in the melody. The same is true of the shofar: we focus on what is absent as much as we focus on what is there. The tekiah represents fullness while the teru’ah symbolizes brokenness. Both elements are present on Rosh Hashanah.

Another discussion compares the concept of repentance in the thought of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. For these two great twentieth-century luminaries, teshuvah represents two different processes. For Rabbi Kook, teshuvah is a return to self. Each person is created as a tzelem Elokim, but loses himself in the snares of this world, and grows distant from the image of God within him, from his own soul, from his own Godliness. Thus teshuvah – which in Hebrew really means “return” – is when the individual restores himself to his own internal Godliness.

For Rabbi Solovetchik, however, teshuvah is about creation. Through the process of teshuvah, “we create ourselves and our relationship with God” (p. 29). Rabbi Soloveitchik’s thought has some strong existentialist tendencies in it, and this is a powerful example; can we harness the gift of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to recreate ourselves, not with our own divinity but our own humanity?

The Jewish Holiday Companion has articles for every Jewish holiday, and even contains entries for Yom HaShoah, Yom HaAtzma’ut, and Thanksgiving. It is a pleasure to have Rabbi Angel’s writings available for the Jewish holidays. His new work is sure to be a source of wisdom, guidance, and inspiration, for the coming year.

I began my Orthodox conversion process when I was 21 years old. I was a junior at New York University studying Jewish Studies and History and had just returned to Manhattan after a transformative semester abroad in Tel Aviv. But my journey with Judaism doesn’t begin there; it begins with my parents.

My parents, Mike and Tisha Thornhill, grew up, met, and were married in southern Oklahoma. Having grown up in the Bible belt, it’s no surprise that they were very active in their church, leading the youth group while my father was studying to be a minister and getting his master’s degree. Their church sent them to Israel on a 10-day trip in the late 1980s, during the First Intifada, to learn about Jesus and Christianity’s roots in the Holy Land. They discovered an authentic tradition, something they felt they’d been missing, in the places where the so-called “Old Testament” tales took place. They felt resentment toward the people and the movement that raised them to believe in Jesus, himself a Jew, without attributing any of his practice or their own to its Jewish roots. They were taken by the beauty of the land, fascinated by the people they encountered, and couldn’t wait to learn more.

Upon returning to Oklahoma, they left their church and my dad left his seminary. A year later, I was born. A year after that, my sister, Hannah, joined us, and we moved to Austin, Texas. My parents searched for conversion resources and only found a small Chabad that was not interested in helping them. But that didn’t stop my parents. They did their own learning and connected with like-minded folks in the area, people who felt like they connected more with Judaism than any other religious or spiritual tradition. They raised my siblings and me celebrating Jewish traditions and holidays, and we visited the Reform temple some years on Yom Kippur. I even missed school for haggim.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt a strong connection to Israel and begged my dad to take me with him when he took his second trip there in 1995. He didn’t, but he brought me back a painting, which hung on a wall in my bedroom until I moved to New York in 2007. I didn’t connect to Jewish life on campus at NYU for the first couple of years but not for lack of trying. I did attend one event at the Bronfman Center, the Hillel on campus and my current employer, during Welcome Week of my freshmen year but was discouraged and didn’t return for another two years. I looked for a community and found it in the dance team at NYU. Growing up, I was a classically trained dancer, and while I decided not to pursue dance as a career, I missed it a lot, so auditioning for the dance team seemed like a good substitute. I made wonderful friends while pursuing my passion for dance. Yet, I still felt like something was missing. Midway through my sophomore year, I applied to transfer to the University of Texas thinking that being close to my family again would help. But as the Yiddish saying goes, “man plans and God laughs,” and about that time, NYU announced that it was opening its campus in Tel Aviv the following autumn. They were offering travel stipends and scholarships to incentivize applicants. Since I had always wanted to go, I figured now was my chance. After submitting my application, it was as if the choice was made for me. I was supposed to go there.

I arrived in Tel Aviv at the end of August 2009 and instantly bonded with a Syrian Jew from Brooklyn who is still my best friend. In the days that followed, I learned a lot about the complexities of Israeli society, made valuable friendships that I still cherish and enjoy today, and began my love affair with Tel Aviv. I felt at home in a way that I never had in New York, and I couldn’t quite explain why. I knew that my affinity for Am Israel wasn’t a phase or simply a fascination. I belonged in Israel, and I was welcomed as such by every Israeli I came in contact with, no questions asked. I knew I had to convert in order to officially be able to participate fully in Jewish life in America and Israel, and while I didn’t know what that would take, I knew I was ready for it.

When I arrived back in New York, I made the decision to begin a conversion process. I was fortunate that one of my friends from NYU Tel Aviv was in the middle of an Orthodox conversion process through the Rabbinical Council of America. She connected me to Rabbi Dan Smokler, the then Senior Jewish Educator at the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at NYU. He graciously met me for coffee and outlined what the steps of the process would be and what my options were. He then connected me to Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, the then University Chaplain and Orthodox rabbi at the Bronfman Center (now my boss and the Executive Director there) who talked me through it further and suggested I read Rabbi Marc Angel’s book, Choosing to be Jewish: The Orthodox Road to Conversion. I decided to begin a process with the RCA, and shortly after that, I met with Rabbi Romm, the head of the Bet Din of New York. He recommended a couple more books to me, and I began my formal learning at the Bronfman Center.

Because I was a Jewish Studies major, Hebrew language courses were a requirement for my degree. Additionally, my time spent in Israel exposed me to Israeli and Jewish culture in a deep way. I enrolled in a class at the Bronfman Center and began learning one-on-one with an Orthodox Jewish student who not only taught me tefillah and berakhot but also took me with her to countless Shabbat meals and accompanied me to davening. The Orthodox community at NYU welcomed me with open arms. I could understand Hebrew (a little) and read (pretty well), which helped me keep up with services and gave me a lot of confidence. That summer, I returned to Israel to volunteer, intern, and take ulpan at Tel Aviv University. I lived in Tel Aviv with three of my friends from study abroad and journeyed nearly every Shabbat to Har Nof to spend Shabbat with an Orthodox family from America who treated me like one of their own family members.

I returned to campus for my senior year and applied to participate in two more formal classes, one with Chabad and one through the Bronfman Center, in addition to my undergraduate work in Jewish Studies. I also continued my one-on-one learning with an educator and peer of Rabbi Sarna’s who was working at the Bronfman Center at the time. We focused primarily on hilkhot shabbat and kashruth. He not only ensured that I had a firm grasp on halakhic concepts but he checked in with me and made sure that I was doing okay as a human being. Throughout my entire process I felt supported by educators and peers and by Rabbi Romm. I met with him once every four to five months and even spent a Shabbat evening with him and his family.

I engaged in formal Jewish education as well as informal and immersive experiences. Dr. Michelle Sarna welcomed me into her home every week not only as a babysitter but also to help her with weekly Shabbat prep on Fridays. I learned how to take hallah, recite berakhot over food with her then-toddlers, and was able to practice my learned knowledge of bishul b’shabbat and kashruth. Rabbi Dan and Dr. Erin Smokler invited me into their home for Shabbat and holiday celebrations, and I learned the holiness of hospitality and hakhnasat orhim, welcoming guests. I participated in Jewish service trips with the Joint and the American Jewish World Service, traveled to Israel, spent hours learning on the phone with a remote hevruta, kept kosher, kept Shabbat, built up a hevre who are still my good friends today. I graduated, moved to the Upper West Side, and took a job at an Orthodox Day School.

Finally, days before Rosh haShanah in 2011, I dunked in the mikveh. I was told on a Friday that my mikveh would be on the following Sunday. My mom bought a ticket immediately and flew up so that she could be there. My friend and then-roommate had her mikveh the same day and our families and close friends celebrated with us afterward at a kosher restaurant on the Upper West Side. Rabbi Dan was at the mikveh, too, and helped make us feel safe and cared for. While I had hoped for the mikveh to be a meaningful, spiritual experience, I remember thinking how much I couldn’t wait to get out of the water and just be accepted as a Jew already. Shortly thereafter, I began working at the Bronfman Center and am now the assistant director there. I have mentored and learned from hundreds of Jewish college students, nearly completed an MA in Jewish Education, started a young adult Jewish learning circle, and founded the Orthodox Converts Network.

My story isn’t unique. Many people decide to convert to Judaism and increasingly, young women are choosing to do so through Orthodox Batei Din. In October of last year, I was about to celebrate Sukkot in Florence, Italy when I learned about Barry Freundel’s despicable behavior. I struggled internally with the desire to just be a Jew, not drawing attention to the fact that I converted, and the feeling of responsibility that I had toward people like me, born with a yiddishe neshama but not coming from a Jewish womb. I knew I had to do something. I’m not capable of easing the pain of Freundel’s victims or anyone who has been harmed in this process. But I have an obligation to use my knowledge of what the process should and shouldn’t look like and to help others find their way along this journey.

Lack of clarity and exclusion of female leaders from the process led me to create the Orthodox Converts Network in December 2014. Through the network, we hope to make the process more accessible, transparent, and meaningful by:

1) Providing and publicizing resources
2) Mentoring conversion candidates
3) Working with communal leaders and existing infrastructure to create change and improve the process
4) Meeting regularly to activate a previously unheard but critically important voice
5) Empowering female Orthodox leadership to take on a more significant role in the process

Since our initial meeting in December, we’ve also activated a Facebook page, begun work on a website, and I’ve connected several people who feel stuck in their process to individuals who can help them through it. I’ve created a suggested curriculum using the RCA’s book list and based on my own process and learnings, and I continue to learn with conversion candidates. I work to welcome them into communities that are open to those going through the process and make them feel as comfortable as possible. I hope to take it even further by launching materials and programs that can be utilized in Day Schools and communities to educate young people and community members about conversion and de-stigmatize the process. I spoke on a panel with Rabbi Riskin, the chief rabbi of Efrat, and Rabbi Angel, founder and director of the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals, and was so encouraged by their passion for the issue and sense of urgency around improving things for and protecting conversion candidates. That we have leaders like this in our corner is a huge win.

In late October, the RCA formed a GPS Review Committee,[1] which conducted surveys and later convened focus groups to assess their Geirus Policies and Standards (GPS) procedure. Since then, much has happened in the Orthodox world: alternative Batei Din have been formed in Israel,[2] rabbis associated with the International Rabbinic Fellowship (IRF) are performing conversions, Yeshivat Maharat has ordained three classes of women,[3] and the RCA report[4] has been publicized.

The data from the report is fascinating, although not surprising to those of us intimately connected with the process. I want to highlight a few points, all taken from page 7 the report: [5]

? 78% of conversion participants in the RCA-Beth Din of America network are women.
? 45% of the sample entered the conversion process between the ages of 20 and 29 and 27% were 30–39. These two age groups encompass 70% of all conversion candidates.
? Most survey participants (80%) cited “spiritual-intellectual search” as the factor that prompted their interest in conversion.
? 45% of all respondents said they have “Jewish ancestry.”

Seventy-Eight percent of conversion participants in the RCA-Beth Din of America network are women, and most of these women are under 40 when they begin the process. I want us to sit with that for a moment. Conversion in the Orthodox community in America is a women’s issue. Yet we continue to uphold a system that not only prevents women from playing a leadership role but also allows for an unhealthy power dynamic between middle-aged men, seen as the gatekeepers of our tradition, and most often, young women in a state of increased vulnerability. The GPS Review Committee, in their recommendations to the RCA, “encourage[s] Sponsoring Rabbis to facilitate relationships between female conversion candidates and female teachers, mentors, or scholars to assist them in the conversion process in the hope that such relationships will assist the conversion candidate to face the many challenges faced by observant Jewish women.” [6] While it goes on to address the power dynamic by making important recommendations that will help conversion candidates feel affirmed in their experience and perhaps more comfortable, none of these recommendations explicitly call for women to be included beyond certain “rare” conversations around “issues of a personal nature.”[7] I would argue that including learned, observant, female women in the learning process is a wonderful start. I would like us to take it a step further and insist that female conversion candidates need a yoetzet halakha or other pious, female community leader to

? be present for all meetings with the Bet Din,
? be included in all decisions and discussions as they relate to the candidate,
? be the only person (aside from the mikveh attendant) anywhere near the mikveh at the time of immersion, and
? continue as a spiritual guide for the candidate post-immersion.

There are hundreds of knowledgeable women in our communities who must be given the
opportunity to take on a leadership role within this process, both within the RCA and outside of it.

Conversion is also very clearly an issue facing emerging adults. What happens during emerging adulthood? We begin making important life decisions, decisions that will indeed have a huge impact on the direction we take our adult existence: career, higher education, and perhaps most importantly, marriage. Converts have told me that the time it takes to convert (sometimes the unreasonable length and sometimes the uncertainty of the timeline) make forming relationships, romantic or otherwise, nearly impossible. We must enable conversion candidates to go through the process within a reasonable period of time so that they may be fully integrated into our communities and begin making lives and families of their own. There are many challenges Jews by choice face socially; we must educate our communities about conversion so that integration into communities is seamless. And we must do our part by destigmatizing conversion and encouraging our youth to date and marry those who have chosen to join us.

Along these lines, we know that Jews do not live in a bubble and as a result, may end up dating outside of the Jewish community. When this happens, rather than cutting these people out, we should work with them to determine the best method by which their significant other can join the Jewish people. It is important to note, however, that the majority of conversion candidates through the RCA do not cite marriage or relationship with a Jew as their main reason for choosing to convert to Judaism through an Orthodox Bet Din. This is a common misconception in the Orthodox community and one that I want to fight to change. Conversion candidates undergo tremendous scrutiny throughout the process. I can cite from my own experience and from others that we feel our integrity is called into question by many strangers for the most ambiguous reasons. We do not need community members to enforce what they believe are proper ways to treat a convert or conversion candidate by treating us with skepticism, questioning our reasons for converting, and wondering if we will continue to be Jewish or observant beyond our immersion in the mikveh. First, it’s none of their business. Second, after immersion, converts are to be treated like any other Jew with the exception of their ability to marry a kohen. We have a long way to go in educating communities around the halakha of conversion. In the meantime, we should all do our best to welcome people into our communities with kindness and openness as a rule. After all, Pirkei Avot tells us to judge others favorably,[8] which can be interpreted as giving others the benefit of the doubt.

While “conversion for marriage” is not the main reason RCA conversion candidates choose to convert, I think it’s important to celebrate those who do convert to Judaism so that they may enjoy a halakhically Jewish life with their Jewish spouse. It is halakhically acceptable to convert to Judaism if you are in a relationship with a Jew. It is a practice in many communities to discourage this and frown upon it. Knowing many people who deal with this, I feel comfortable saying that they do not “convert for marriage” only. They have found meaning enough in the Jewish tradition that they want to make it a central part of their lives, with their Jewish spouse. It is not black and white. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks reminds us often that Jews are a tiny people by quoting Milton Himmelfarb, “The number of Jews in the world is smaller than a small statistical error in the Chinese census.”[9] It is not in our interest to alienate members of our community. Rather than shunning those who “convert for marriage,” we must guide them through the conversion process and celebrate their desire to join the Jewish people.

The GPS Review Committee’s report highlights several areas that require examination by the RCA and makes suggestions for improvement in these areas. I feel that most of the suggested changes are very much in line with feedback I have heard from Jews by choice and conversion candidates. In my conversations with conversion candidates and based on my own experience, people simply want to be treated with dignity and respect.

They want the expectations to be clearly outlined for them. They want to know about how long the process will take and exactly what they should learn and with what frequency. They want to be able to trust that the leaders who are guiding them through the process and the members of the Bet Din will have their best interest in mind and treat the process with a certain level of seriousness and reverence. I remember feeling so many different things during my process. I remember just starting out and wondering, “Who do I learn with? And what do I learn?” And when I immersed myself in studying Hebrew, tefillah, Jewish history, kashruth, Shabbat, I remember thinking “Okay, so when do I know it’s enough to go to the mikveh?” I remember feeling like I had no control; that the most important decision of my life was in the hands of three men who didn’t know me at all, and all I had was 45 minutes to convince them that I was ready to be a Jew. That I was 21 and like all of my Modern Orthodox friends on the Upper West Side, I really wanted to start dating, hosting meals on Shabbat, putting roots down in a community, and to just be treated like everyone else.

I am encouraged by the GPS Review Committee’s recommendations and hopeful that the RCA will be receptive. I am thrilled that rabbis like Rabbi Angel, Rabbi Riskin, Rabbi David Stav, and Rabbi Nahum Rabinovitch are working hard to improve the Orthodox conversion process; and I am the first to say there are wonderful aspects to the process, too. I also believe that it will only improve if converts and conversion candidates are consulted and helping to lead this charge. I appreciate the allies and friends that I and the OCN have made along the way: We need you. And we need also to know that our testimony is being taken seriously. It is in our interest to make the Orthodox conversion process better and more user-friendly. That does not mean compromising on halakhic observance and standards nor does it mean compromising justice and morality. The Rambam, at the same time that he admits that converts are a challenge for the Jewish people, acknowledges that conversion will happen and so we must both be careful not to be too stringent and to love the convert. Conversion has always been a part of the Jewish communal landscape. We must, as our ancestors did, accept this and celebrate it. After all, we believe that Judaism is a compelling way to live one’s life—why should we be skeptical or discouraging of someone who wants to take that on?

I’ve learned so much not only from my own conversion process but from the women and men I’ve met through the Orthodox Converts Network and in my own learning with conversion candidates. Many are greeted with openness and encouragement and therefore thrive in the process and fit seamlessly into a community once they complete it. Others find it less welcoming and unclear and describe the process as painful and unnecessarily difficult. The way that each person experiences conversion is and should continue to be different. But that does not mean that each process should be different. At the most basic level, each process should be straightforward, accessible, encouraging, affirming, meaningful, and positively life-changing. Every conversion candidate should engage with rabbis, teachers, mentors, and community members who help facilitate that type of experience. And after immersion, all Jews by choice should find a community they genuinely feel they can call home.

[1] http://www.rabbis.org/news/article.cfm?id=105810
[2] http://www.timesofisrael.com/defying-rabbinate-rabbis-set-up-alternative-jewish-conversion-court/
[3] http://www.yeshivatmaharat.org/about-our-scholars/
[4] http://rcarabbis.org/pdf/GPSFINALREPORT_FINAL_June28.pdf
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., p. 18.
[7] Ibid., p. 18.
[8] Pirkei Avot 1:6.
[9] http://www.rabbisacks.org/emor-5774-afraid-greatness/

Racism is an ugly feature of human life, the source of profound misery to untold millions of people. Racism posits that a particular group is inherently superior to other groups. This kind of thinking leads to discrimination—and often to violence--against the victimized groups.

Hate groups throughout the world thrive on racist ideologies. Whether they are white supremacists or black supremacists; whether they foster racial, religious, ethnic or national hatred—such people are a danger to society. Racist ideology inevitably leads to dehumanizing those who are not part of the “in-group.” Even when no actual violence transpires, the ideology itself fosters mistrust, hatred, fear and societal malaise.

Jews have suffered as victims of bigotry, racism, and dehumanization throughout history and in many lands. We know firsthand about the evils of one group claiming innate superiority over others. We know that the arrogance of the haters poisons minds and hearts; and we know that this poison is destructive.

We have all learned from our earliest youth that the Torah teaches that humanity was created in God’s image. The Mishna reminds us that each human life is of inestimable value and is irreplaceable. It would seem to be a foundational principle of Torah Judaism that all human beings are equally created by and beloved by God. Racist attitudes or discriminatory behavior would seem to be antithetical to the core teachings and values of Judaism.

Yet, even though Jewish experience and Jewish teachings are so clearly opposed to racist ideology, the fact is that there is a stream of Jewish tradition that fosters the notion of innate Jewish superiority to non-Jews. This notion is found in the writings of Rabbi Yehuda Halevy and in Kabbalistic literature; and it has found expression in the writings and teachings of contemporary Orthodox rabbis.

Professor Menachem Kellner, who taught Jewish philosophy at Haifa University for many years and who now teaches at Shalem College in Jerusalem, has recently published a book (in Hebrew, Bar Ilan University Press), Gam Hem Keruyim Adam: haNokhri beEinei haRambam (They too are called human: Maimonides’ views on non-Jews). He makes it amply clear that Maimonides rejected the notion that Jews are ontologically different from and superior to non-Jews. The Rambam maintains the classic Jewish teachings that stress the common humanity of all people. Differences among human beings arise not due to innate metaphysical otherness, but due to cultural and sociological factors. In essence, Jews are the same as all other human beings. Jews differ from others (as others differ from Jews) based on beliefs, religious traditions, communal values etc.

Dr. Kellner’s book is a fine and important academic study. But it is also an alarming wake up call to contemporary religious Jews. It points out how deeply the Jewish supremacist views have taken hold among many otherwise pious Jews. It underscores the critical need to reclaim Rambam’s insights not only because they are true to our Torah tradition, but because they can purge contemporary Torah Judaism from highly negative and dangerous attitudes.

Dr. Kellner begins his discussion by citing examples of rabbinic teachers who have articulated supremacist views. Most egregiously, a book was published several years ago entitled Torat haMelekh. Authored by Orthodox rabbis and published by an Orthodox yeshiva, it asserts that non-Jews are not quite human in the same sense that Jews are human. Non-Jews, therefore, are not entitled to the same rights as Jews. This attitude provides justification for discriminatory policies against non-Jews, not excluding acts of violence. Torat haMelekh evoked tremendous negative reaction within Israeli society, and various modern Orthodox and religious Zionist rabbis criticized it soundly. However, other Orthodox rabbis either agreed with the authors of Torat haMelekh, or argued that the authors had the right to express their views even if those views could be construed as incitement to violence.

Dr. Kellner cites the more “moderate” position of a well-known and highly popular religious Zionist rabbi. This rabbi has written: “We are a chosen people not because we have received the Torah; but we received the Torah because we are a chosen people. The Torah is so very appropriate to our inner nature. Our nation has a distinctive nature, character, communal psychology, a unique Godly character….Some argue against us that we are ‘racist.’ Our answer is…if racism is defined in that we are different and more elevated than other nations and therefore we bring blessing to other nations—then, we admit that we are different from all nations, not by color of skin, but by the nature of our souls; and the Torah is the description of our inner content.” According to this view, the Jewish people has a unique spiritual nature, superior to that of other nations. We received the Torah because of our innate spiritual receptivity. Non-Jewish souls are different—and less holy—than Jewish souls.

Dr. Kellner refers to a leading Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva University who admits that all humans are created in the image of God, but that Jews are more in the image of God than non-Jews. Although this statement is not at all identical with the views of Torat haMelekh, it shares the underlying notion of Jewish supremacy. Stated simply, Jews are intrinsically holier and closer to God than non-Jews.

Dr. Kellner demonstrates with admirable clarity that the supremacist views of the above-mentioned rabbis are soundly rejected by Rambam. Anyone who recognizes the Oneness of God is considered to be a follower of Abraham our Father. Rambam’s universalism recognized that all people—regardless of ethnic background—could rise to the highest spiritual levels. (p. 57).

Rambam equated the “image of God” with human intellectual capacity. This “image of God” is a latent quality within each person from birth; yet only by actualizing one’s intellect does one achieve the crown of being an “image of God.” Dr. Kellner notes: “According to Rambam, a good non-Jewish philosopher—i.e. a good person who has developed beyond moral perfection to intellectual perfection—is on a higher level than a righteous Talmid Hakham who is ignorant of the sciences. Moreover, the non-Jewish philosopher will merit greater Divine providence than the righteous Torah scholar, and his [the non-Jew’s] portion in the world to come will be greater [than that of a Talmid Hakham unversed in the sciences, and it is questionable] whether such a Talmid Hakham will merit it at all.” (pp. 78-79).

In Rambam’s introduction to his commentary on Pirkei Avot, he writes that he has drawn on the teachings of our rabbinic sages, and also from the words of the non-Jewish philosophers: one must “hear the truth from whoever states it.” The wisdom of our sages and the wisdom of the philosophers aim at ultimate truth, albeit from different vantage points. In the introduction to his commentary on the Mishna, Rambam states that wisdom is present not only in the words of our prophets, but also in the teachings of the non-Jewish philosophers. Our goal is to be wise and good: this goal can be attained by Jews and non-Jews alike. (p. 137) For Rambam, Aristotle was a prime example of a non-Jewish philosopher who attained great wisdom and moral virtue. (141).

In his Hilkhot Shemitah veYovel (13:10) Rambam explicitly states that ultimate knowledge of God is possible for every human being: Each person among all humanity (mikol ba’ei olam), if properly dedicated to wisdom and righteousness, can become the “holy of holies.” While some rabbinic interpreters claim that “kol ba’ei olam” refers only to Torah-observant Jews, this is far from what Rambam in fact has taught. This is an example of how supremacists attempt to re-interpret statements of Rambam that posit a universalist view. (156).

Dr. Kellner reviews various statements of Rambam, drawn from Talmudic and Midrashic sources, in which Jews are described in laudable terms. Jews are said to be modest and compassionate, kind and forgiving. Non-Jews are characterized as having violent and argumentative qualities. We know, though, from personal experience that there are Jews who have negative personal qualities and there are non-Jews who have fine personal qualities. The ancient rabbinic statements in praise of Jews might best be understood as being prescriptive rather than descriptive. In any case, the moral qualities and deficiencies attributed to Jews and non-Jews need not be understood as innate, unchangeable qualities, but rather as the result of environmental and cultural factors. (p. 202).

Rambam’s universalist vision recognizes that although all humanity can achieve great spiritual heights, Jews have a unique blessing in that God gave us the Torah and mitzvoth. The commandments aim at making us finer, wiser, and more virtuous people. But non-Jews of all ethnic backgrounds may convert to Judaism and become part of the Jewish people. There is no intrinsic barrier that would bar a non-Jew from becoming Jewish.

For the supremacists, though, Jewish souls are essentially different from non-Jewish souls. In the words of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook: “The difference between the Jewish soul, its self, its inner desires, aspirations, character and status, and that of all nations, at all their levels, is greater and deeper than the difference between the human soul and the animal soul; between the latter there is merely a quantitative distinction, but between the former an essential qualitative distinction pertains." (Orot, Jerusalem, 5745, p. 156). This attitude makes it highly difficult for a non-Jew to convert to Judaism. Conversion would involve a sort of “soul transplant” through which the non-Jew attains the intrinsically superior Jewish soul.

Why did the supremacist view emerge in the first place, and why has it gained adherents in our own time? Why haven’t the views of Rambam consistently prevailed throughout Jewish history and into the contemporary era? Dr. Kellner reminds us that the supremacist view was popularized by Rabbi Yehuda Halevy’s Kuzari, which was written as a defense of a despised people. (p. 215). The Muslim and Christian communities were vastly larger and more powerful than the Jews. Indeed, Jews suffered humiliation, violence and expulsion at the hands of the Muslims and Christians. The Kuzari was—and is—a phenomenal Jewish morale booster. In head to head competition with a philosopher, Muslim and Christian, the Jewish sage emerges victorious and convinces the King of the Khazars of the superior truth of Judaism. Although the world despises the Jews, God loves us! We are His chosen people. We are the only ones who have the unique spiritual and Godly nature that connects us with God.

This attitude has an obvious appeal to persecuted Jews. Even though we are being oppressed, we are superior to our oppressors! This was true in the days of Rabbi Yehuda Halevy, and it continues to be true today. Jews who feel threatened by the non-Jewish world feel bolstered by their belief in their own superiority to non-Jews. The supremacist view thrives when Jews lack self-confidence, when they are afraid of the outside world, when they allow their emotions to prevail over their reason.

Dr. Kellner recommends “theological humility,” the ability to accept that other people also have truths and spiritual insights from which we can learn. He calls for Jewish self-confidence in the style of Rambam. He asks that we reclaim the universalist impulse that recognizes the essential humanity of all people, that deplores racist and supremacist views that diminish the humanity of others.

It is truly remarkable that Rambam, who lived in the Middle Ages, should provide a religious worldview that is so modern…and even post-modern. How wonderful it would be if our community could overcome supremacist tendencies, and become spiritually self-confident, intellectually vibrant, compassionate and wise.

The Chief Rabbinate has had a monopoly on many aspects of the religious life of the State of Israel. It controls marriages, divorces and conversions to Judaism; it regulates public kashrut as well as offering kosher supervision to private establishments. It operates a network of rabbinic courts. It has a visible, public platform for teaching the ideas and ideals of Judaism to Israeli society, and for serving as a religious beacon of inspiration to world Jewry. One would think that after these many years, then, the Chief Rabbinate would be one of the most beloved and revered institutions in Israeli society. The rabbis have had daily opportunity to interact with all Israelis - religious and otherwise - and to show them the beauty of Judaism, the kindness of Torah, the pleasantness of the Orthodox message.

Yet, amazingly and tragically, the Chief Rabbinate seems to be one of the least beloved and revered institutions in Israeli society. It has little or no authority in the hareidi community; it generates little or no enthusiasm among religious Zionists; it is of little positive significance to the remainder of Israelis. Although the Chief Rabbinate and its many functionaries include some fine, sincere and wonderful people, the overall image - and reality - of the rabbinate appears to be negative.

In the field of kashrut, the supervision of the Chief Rabbinate is disdained by the hareidi community, which has set up its own kosher supervision system (the Badatz). Apparently, the Badatz has achieved - in many circles - a higher level of trust for its supervision than has the Chief Rabbinate. Indeed, in all areas of Jewish law the hareidi community turns to its own authorities, and not to the Chief Rabbinate.

In the area of marriages, stories are legion of couples, especially non-Orthodox ones, who have had unpleasant experiences with rabbinic functionaries. The growing demand for civil marriage in Israel is an indication of dissatisfaction with the rabbinic marriage bureaucracy. In the area of divorce, the Chief Rabbinate has been notoriously unsuccessful in addressing the aguna problem, allowing a situation to fester where husbands refuse to grant a divorce unless they are paid off. I myself have been involved in several cases where Israeli rabbis have actually encouraged the husband to demand payment and various other rights before granting a divorce. The Chief Rabbinate finally felt compelled to convene a conference to deal with the issue, but then cancelled it at the last moment - apparently under pressure from hareidi elements. It seems increasingly clear that a solution to the aguna problem will not emerge from the Chief Rabbinate, but will have to be found in the civil courts.

In the area of conversion, the Chief Rabbinate raises obstacles to prevent non-Jews from entering the Jewish fold. It has adopted a hareidi position that conversion is available only to those agreeing to observe Torah and mitzvot in full. This position is a radical break from the Talmud, Rambam (Maimonides) and the Shulhan Arukh; it is capitulating to an extreme hareidi position that took root only in the 19th century. The Chief Rabbinate not only enforces this position for the State of Israel, but has now disqualified the conversions of Orthodox rabbis in the Diaspora unless those rabbis are clearly under the rabbinate's thumb. The Rabbinical Council of America has essentially bowed to the authority of the Chief Rabbinate, since the latter has the power to decide who is Jewish and who is not Jewish in the State of Israel. If the Chief Rabbinate rejects the validity of a conversion - even if performed entirely according to Halakha - the convert and his/her children will face problems if they decide to move to Israel. The Chief Rabbinate seems intent on demonstrating its "power," and on showing that it can be as extreme as the hareidim.

How far has this institution moved from the wise, compassionate and loving attitude of the late Sephardi chief rabbi Benzion Uziel (who died in 1953)! Rabbi Uziel well understood that the role of the rabbinate was not to drive people away from Judaism, but to find every possible way of bringing them into the fold for the sake of Jewish families and the Jewish nation. When Israel was founded, Orthodox Jews placed much hope in the Chief Rabbinate. They truly hoped that it would enhance the Jewish nature of the state and win the hearts of Israel's citizens to a deeper appreciation of the Torah traditions. Regrettably, these hopes have not been fulfilled.

The Chief Rabbinate functions as though it were leading a cult rather than a world religion with a grand, universal message. It adopts extreme hareidi positions and attitudes because it seems to view the hareidi community as the only constituency that matters. Should the State and people of Israel continue to grant power to this sort of chief rabbinate? Shouldn't there, rather, be a complete review of the rabbinate's role and functions, a top-level government commission to evaluate its successes and failures, to recommend changes in policies and procedures, to overhaul the rabbinic bureaucracy, to clarify the rabbinate's mission - its responsibilities as well as its limitations?

Establishing such a commission will surely engender fierce opposition and political infighting. Yet unless an impartial panel carries out a serious evaluation of the Chief Rabbinate and makes necessary recommendations, the damage to the State of Israel, to Judaism and to the Jewish people will be immense.

All Israelis and all Jews have a stake in an honest, compassionate, competent and courageous Chief Rabbinate, one that serves as a unifying force. The sooner the rabbinate is reconstituted, the sooner will we be able to say with a full heart: "For out of Zion comes forth the Torah, and the word of God from Jerusalem."

A Braver New World?

Back when I was a principal at the Yeshivah of Flatbush, I had several bookcases that held a set of Talmud, Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, and assorted other titles on one side of my office. Across, on the opposite side, stood a six-foot tall cardboard stand-alone Batman figure that I begged from one of the parents who operated a video store. On my desk, centered between the bookcase and the cardboard Dark Knight, was a mason jar filled with Laffy Taffy. My associate principal, faculty colleagues, and I turned many kids on to Torah and poetry in that little office, and I can honestly laughingly suggest that I'm not sure which had the greater influence at any given time, the Talmud Bavli, Poe’s “Raven,” or Batman (the hashpa’ah, influence, of the banana taffy was indisputable).

Nowadays, however, in addition to such invaluable educational tools of the trade as a sefer, a story, a master teacher, a life-size superhero cutout, and a candy wrapped in a cute riddle, Jewish educators have to manage a burgeoning array of digital resources. Today's technologies—incorporating both traditional texts and hypertexts, computer simulations, virtual-reality time travel, educational game platforms, and multimedia interactivities—promise to provide unique and engaging experiences to our younger generations of Orthodoxy and to impact an audience larger in numbers than that at ma'amad Har Sinai many times over. It’s up to us, as responsible and responsive Jewish educators, through foresight, insight, and intentionality, to balance and blend these newer technologies with more traditional texts and practices, and to inspire our younger generations to navigate this “braver” new world with thoughtfulness, ironic distance, and critical intelligence. Tacking toward the tradigital could conceivably spark untold opportunities to influence the future course of Jewish education in both Torah and General Studies, and, thereby, to influence as well the future course of Orthodox Jewish thought, culture, and continuity.

The question is: How should we be doing this?

Reading Between the Subject Lines

“WHAT WILL EDUCATION LOOK LIKE IN A MORE OPEN FUTURE? … TECHNOLOGY AND RAPIDLY EVOLVING STUDENT NEEDS…THE GLARING PROBLEM OF OUR OUTDATED EDUCATION… GROUNDBREAKING TECHNOLOGY TRENDS FOR THE YEAR AHEAD… TIME TO IMPLEMENT DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION!” This is just a small sampling of the often-melodramatic subject lines that appear daily in my office email. True, once in a while someone throws out a reminder regarding measurement of skills and assessment of knowledge. Still, it’s troublesome that some major educational concerns of broad general import are noticeably absent from the blaring headlines.

With all the emphasis on ever new means and methods, where is there shown a similar level of concern for subject matter itself? Where is the hot-button item asking “What content will encourage our younger generations to build a life extraordinaire (and in our case, a Jewish life), and why we should be teaching it?” What “groundbreaking” moral values are we urging our educators to model and extol in their daily conversations and explorations in our classrooms, and why? What “innovative” (a word to be used cautiously, if not skeptically) opportunities for inventiveness, imagination, creativity, and sheer joy and excitement are we embedding in our course of studies and in our ways of learning in our Jewish educational institutions … and why not?

Do Not Confine Your Children to Your Own Learning

These are not meant to be the wide-eyed queries of a naïf, the rants of a curmudgeon, or the proposed articles of a Luddite convention platform. As should be obvious from sentiments expressed earlier, we ought never turn our backs on new technologies and better methodologies; rather, as educators we must pledge to embrace these advanced and advancing tools, to exploit them, experiment, distinguish among them and, finally, to borrow Chazal’s metaphor of the model student in Pirkei Avot, like a human sieve to judiciously separate the fine flour from the coarse.

“Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.” So goes an ancient Hebrew proverb I’d once come across. Or is it talmudic, or Arabic, or Chinese? The all-knowing internet is uncertain and I’ve yet to find a classical Jewish source that mirrors these exact words. Still, the spirit is certainly recognizable in Jewish tradition, while it clearly reflects a universal sentiment as well. Indeed, who would deny the otherness, the “other-timeness” of each generation? What teacher would not acknowledge that the vernacular of the day, the sefat haRekhov so to speak, is a resource of first resort for meaningful discourse with students? That the cultural signposts of the day offer quick reference points and easy analogy? That the technology tools of the day are indispensible for compatible communication and hooking students’ attention?

Not long ago, a medical surgeon posted this on his blog:

Without acknowledging that new generations learn differently from previous generations, we will never be able to “transform” education so that it is fit for purpose in the future…

If one of my teachers had asked me about the supraspinatus muscle, it would have elicited a cascade of learning…. I would have gone to the library or to one of the standard textbooks... visited the dissection room… sought further knowledge [from] an anatomy demonstrator… . [Instead, while] writing this blog, I have googled “supraspinatus.” In 0.12 seconds… I have access to 858,000 pages of information, 137,000 images and 34,000 videos of this muscle.

And more recently, David Leonhardt of The New York Times described a similar rejiggering in the field of journalism:

One of the main lessons we’ve learned is that journalists have not been fully using all of the tools that are now available to us. For decades, the traditional article … has dominated newspaper and magazine journalism…. But … [i]t’s no accident that many of the most-read New York Times articles of the last few years have been complex takes on serious subjects in a form other than a traditional article: an explainer of the Ebola crisis, a photo essay on aging, a video on ISIS… the rent-vs.-buy calculator, a graphic on nonemployed men, a map on poverty and an interactive on generational politics.

Leonhardt makes an articulate, convincing argument that we might do well to echo in our own field of Jewish education. Still, let’s add the necessary caveat: Tools for their own sake, rather than as the product of mindful, well-analyzed, and well-argued strategies for the future, are of dubious pedagogical effectiveness. To merely toss technology into classwork like so many chickpeas into a salad, to have students click and play and cut and paste, is not the sine qua non for attending school. A live Jewish Day School classroom is a sacred place to inhabit, an environment within which to benefit and grow, a unique and inimitable communal gathering of diverse critical minds and personalities, with its give and take of human discourse rich in ideas and emotions and activities.

But what gives this coming together of participating students and teachers, staff, and administrators, its grand purpose and shape?

It’s the Curriculum, Stupid!

In addressing the topic of Jewish education for our younger generations, it is imperative—even before one student has an iPad in her hand, even before a single teacher powers on his wall-hung Smart Board—to direct the spotlight on the curriculum that underlies it all. I define curriculum in this context as the central nexus of a school, the overarching course of studies that represents the integrity and ethos of Jewish education, the proud purpose of which is to explore the infinite interconnections between all its activities and teachings. While every class lesson in such a curriculum possesses its own integrity by subject and grade, it is situated at the same time responsibly, even inevitably, within the school’s entire course of studies and, it is hoped, ultimately within the whole lifetime of an individual or group’s Jewish and General education.

In such a curriculum, it's not the technology that drives the success of our educational endeavors but the content—the chosen stories, explorations, and shared values and experiences that are delivered via that technology, be they in the form of multimedia blasts across the internet, broadcast to mobile devices, or beamed down to smart wristwatches and eyeglasses. As the politicians (and, unfortunately, many educators) often fail to note, "It's the curriculum, stupid."

What We Talk about When We Talk about Jewish Education

A yeshiva Day School, with its dual-curriculum of Torah Studies and General Studies, has a special responsibility.

A yeshiva Day School is not a Talmud Torah grafted onto a public school with two distinct realms of study meant to compete for the time and attention of teacher and student alike. It is certainly not a language-themed Hebrew charter school, where the emphasis on contemporary Israeli life, language, and culture is both devoid of religious devotion, tradition, and Jewish practice, and constrained within legitimate legal guidelines that mandate a strict separation of church and state.

Rather, the ideal Jewish Day School is an organic unity within whose walls our younger generations learn to live as whole beings whose Jewish identity is evidenced by familiarity with Torah texts that span centuries, by facility in classical biblical, mishnaic, and contemporary Hebrew languages (and, it is hoped, acquaintance with medieval, enlightenment, modernit, and meduberet versions of Hebrew, not to mention awareness of Ladino, Yevanic, Yiddish, and other polyglottal variants in between), and by informed participation in the religious practices of a vibrant Jewish community. Within these walls they learn to live as whole beings whose Jewish identity is at the same time intrinsically bound up with their intellectual, spiritual, and social-emotional growth, with their studies in the liberal arts and sciences, and with their positive participation in society at large.

A modern yeshiva Day School has every obligation to exploit technology but, uniquely, the very spirit of traditional Torah training and the halakhic parameters of Shabbat and the mo’adim that are at the heart of such an education demand that our children develop a comfortable facility in ancient methods of text study and acquire learning skills that are not dependent on access to electronic technology and digital resources. Such “Sabbath skills” are invaluable in the 24/7 hustle bustle of today’s world—they foster conversation, contemplation, introspection, and mindfulness, and they transfer seamlessly to General Studies classes and activities with enormous benefit.

Of course, “Jewish learning,” in this discussion, encompasses Jewish and General education, and it is never imparted in completely separate silos. In their roles as Jewish, American, and global citizens, our younger generations must engage on a daily basis not only with the interconnectedness of Jewish and General texts (some use the term “secular,” which is too often intended and/or perceived pejoratively), but with the world itself as “text.” If we need a model for this approach, let us turn to Heaven, where, as the Gemara in Avodah Zarah describes it, God spends one quarter of every day teaching Torah to schoolchildren and playing with the majestic whale-like creature Livyatan at the same time. A free interpretation: Here we see God both teaching the children Torah text and taking them on an experiential fieldtrip to the aquarium to visit Livyatan; here we confirm the words of Sefer Tehilim, “”Lashem Ha’aretz U’mlo’ah,” the profusion of delights in this world is the Creation of God, and the most magnificent of all is the biological phenomenon of the Livyatan. God teaches the schoolchildren a wonderful lesson in Torah and a wondrous lesson in science interconnected and all wrapped in one.

“All forms of knowledge are interrelated and interdependent, and we are put on earth to know and to make known the correspondences between them all,” affirmed the non-Orthodox art historian Meyer Schapiro, a truth that could have been uttered by any of his Orthodox talmudic scholar forebears. It is a wise axiom to guide our curricular thinking.

In addition, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., the arc of a modern Jewish curriculum is long and should bend its participants toward lives of character and hessed, critical intelligence and kindness, personal virtue and keen awareness of the world around them. Twenty-first-century Jewish Orthodox education owes our younger generations a curriculum framework that moves beyond facts, factoids, and information. True learning is learning that grows into know-how, knowledge, self-knowledge, understanding, and, ultimately, “the search for self-transcendence, the enterprise of trying to become a different or a better or a nobler or more moral person,” as writer Susan Sontag, a passionate teacher herself, noted. All of this must be built upon an immutable foundation, the dictum of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch (a great gaon and a paragon of pedagogy) that the learning of Torah is the very soul of Judaism.

Nor should we neglect, in creating successful and cutting-edge curriculum in the twenty-first century, to acknowledge that the daily world we immediately inhabit, the aggressively fast-paced world of popular culture and mobile device, is alluringly attractive and all-encompassing. That is why principals and teachers responsible for curriculum experiences should, in designing units of study, find ways to incorporate age-appropriate, grade-appropriate, and Jewish values-appropriate classic films, best-selling children’s books, popular music, internet trends, and a host of elements from pop and academic cultures. Such elements elicit instant recognition, trigger lively discussion, and serve as thematic touchstones in subject areas of all sorts. Comic books and Ben & Jerry’s, Swatch Watches and Radio City Music Hall, Twitter, TV commercials, and Six Flags Great Adventure all have something important to say about our society and our selves. How can we as educators afford not to guide our younger generations in understanding and critiquing the society they inhabit?

Youth, as Rav J. B. Soloveitchik has characterized it, is full of “simple faith and fiery enthusiasm,” and only children, he adds, “can breach the boundaries that segregate the finite from the infinite.” We must, thus, speak to the hearts and minds of our younger generations of learners, and provide them inviolate non-judgmental breathing space for individual wrestling with questions of identity, religious belief and practice, and spiritual growth. We must deliver them both the means and reasons to sustain a continued visceral, religious, and intellectual connection to Jewish learning and observance and the means to be competitive with the best in the world- at- large.

We must impart to our Orthodox younger generations a desire to go on learning, as philosopher John Dewey advocated. We must inspire them to rise from their Torah learning and, as the Ramban writes in his celebrated Iggeret, to immediately translate that learning into action. We must exhort them to act in the spirit of Rabbi Abraham Kook’s exuberant lyric, “Ani ohev et haKol,” “How I love all things!” so that they grow to appreciate and celebrate the varieties of Jewish experience, to practice Torah and mitzvoth meaningfully in their daily lives, to use the liberal arts and sciences as a means to understand the nature of humankind and the world it inhabits, and to recognize their roles and responsibilities as global citizens.

Permit me, finally, to tweak the proverb quoted above, from which this essay derives its title, and give it a decidedly Orthodox Jewish slant, its ambiguous origin notwithstanding. “Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.” The Gemara in Shavuot and the Midrash Tanhuma tell us that all Jews were present at the Revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai and that the souls of all as yet unborn future generations of Jews joined in attendance with the Israelites of the Exodus at that moment. So, when we speak of our Jewish students as being “born in another time,” we are not only referring to them as the younger generation that succeeds us but as our compeers at Mattan Torah, our fellow standard bearers in tradition.

Dor holekh ve’dor ba, always a next generation, intones the ancient Megillat Kohelet, a conceit that finds a modern counterpart in lines from the poet T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, “For last year’s words belong to last year’s language / And next year’s words await another voice…”. Another voice. Another time. “Another time” in Judaism is always a glance backward more than 5,000 years to our origins and a glance ever forward towards an ideal world to come. That is what a tradigital curriculum is meant to honor, preserve, and anticipate. As Ben Franklin expressed it back in 1786, "We are, I think, in the right road of improvement, for we are making experiments.

Close to a million Israelis live in countries other than Israel. The majority have settled in the United States and Canada for the long run, teaching at universities, running business, and becoming entrepreneurs. Most identify as secular and send their children to public schools. Although they maintain a vague Israeli identity, most of the children call their current country of residence home. Far removed from Israel, which provided them Jewish identity by osmosis, these children’s Jewish life, identity, and culture is tenuous and vulnerable in the Diaspora.

Instead of absorbing Hanukkah in the streets as their parents did in Israel, they are, to their parent’s naive surprise, bombarded by Christmas. Instead of Kiddush on Friday night and a national ambiance of Sabbath on Shabbat, they have soccer practice and the myriad extracurricular activities of the average American child and teen. When the High Holy Days come, whereas in Israel their families might have stepped into a synagogue or community center for prayer, they now must contend with the notion of buying tickets for the first time, something those who had grown up in the Israeli zeitgeist find bizarre, as strange and foreign as paying for synagogue membership.

Diaspora Jews, no matter their denomination, for the most part retain their Jewish identity by forming religious communities around synagogues. Synagogues provide Diaspora Jews with a religious connection, communal identity and association, rudimentary education, and a vital sense of Jewish peoplehood. Most secular Israelis did not attend synagogues in Israel and may never have been in a synagogue. They were acculturated to see religion as dangerous, political, and coercive. They do not easily connect to non-Orthodox synagogues, because, as the cliché goes, for secular Israelis, the synagogue they do not attend is Orthodox. They, and especially their children, are left Jewishly unmoored.

The story of Israelis in America at this moment is foreboding. It tells of a population that is so connected in some ways to its Jewish roots and memories, but whose children are assimilating into American culture more quickly than the children of immigrants a century ago, who at least had their European parents, synagogues, and Jewish institutions to keep them connected. Secular Israelis in the Diaspora retain some of their cultural heritage through social connections with fellow Israelis and by gathering for events such as Israel Independence Day. They hope their children will avoid intermarrying and assimilating, but in reality Israeli culture alone is a thin string with which to maintain the next generation’s Jewish connection, and will not act as a bulwark against assimilation.

In America, it is religious community and institutional connections that help one retain Jewish life. The American Jewish community, with few exceptions, has not begun to address this population’s Jewish needs, and for the most part is not sure how to do so. Several years ago an Israeli came to my synagogue, Bais Abraham Congregation in St. Louis, Missouri, and told us that there was something even secular Israelis wanted from the Jewish community: a school to teach their children to read and write the Hebrew language. Realizing this was an opportunity to engage secular Israelis on their own terms, and perhaps eventually to engage them in the Jewish community and religious life, we opened a synagogue-based religious school specifically for the children of secular Israelis. We staffed the school with experienced Israeli language teachers and used opportunities such as Jewish holidays to teach this population about Jewish life, which, to their parents’ chagrin, they know almost nothing.

Over the first few years, family after family recounted that they had never expected to feel at home in a synagogue with religious people. They expected coercion, derision, and alienation. Instead, they were surprised to feel embraced and at home in a Jewish religious environment. Indeed, Bais Abraham is particularly suited for them, as an Orthodox congregation that has consciously removed as many barriers to entry as possible. It boasts a most diverse congregational makeup of religious from birth, Jews raised secular, converts, intermarrieds, and people on a spiritual journey.

Two years into the school’s existence, the Israeli families began to trust us and to realize the importance of some Jewish education, to the extent that they asked for an extra hour of study each week for their children to learn about Judaism. I saw this as the school’s true raison d’être. The “Shelanu” Hebrew School now acts as a foundation upon which we provide holiday parties, free High Holy Day seats, Shabbat meals, classes, and connection for Israeli families.

Opening up Jewish Community Centers and other culturally Jewish institutions to Israelis will never be enough to retain Israelis abroad as part of the Jewish people. It will take congregations that are open and welcoming in nature, learning about Israeli culture and the subtleties of engaging this population and meeting their needs, and working to retain their children as part of the Jewish people and engage them in Jewish life. It requires Israeli shelihim, who both understand secular Israeli culture and appreciate a synagogue's religious life, to serve as a bridge to local Israelis. Time is running out. We now face not much more than a 20-year window before the children of these Jews assimilate en masse. It happens as they finish high school and go to college in America with almost no Jewish religious knowledge, identity, or practice. There is little except the desire of their parents and a fuzzy connection to a land across the ocean to stop them from marrying the non-Jew they have met on campus. They have less to hold them back than their Reform or Conservative American-born, synagogue-connected counterparts. We can make a big difference in retaining these Jews and their children as part of the Jewish people and Jewish religion.

It is, in some ways, much easier than engaging a secular American Jew in that Israelis all have much stronger Jewish identities and memories. If we do not wake up quickly and put resources toward this challenge, equipping synagogues across the country to engage Israelis and to understand their unique culture and needs, it will soon be too late for the next generation.

What is it like on campus to be Jewish and a lover of Israel, as a student, as a faculty member? When one reads reports in many Jewish media sources it sounds grim. How bad is it? Is it really bad? I here offer reflections as a long-term faculty member at a number of institutions across the country and at a branch of the University of California since 1989.

I came to the philosophy at the University of California, Riverside, in 1989 from the University of Notre Dame. My wife and I live in Los Angeles, as do our adult son and daughter and her family. My daughter lived in Jerusalem for some years, studied at Pardes, and married her chavrutah. My wife and I are members of Bnai David Judea, a Modern Orthodox congregation. For some 20 years, I’ve spent most of June in Jerusalem, learning at the Chafetz Chaim Yeshiva and attending philosophy conferences at the Hartman Institute.

A few years after joining the UCR faculty, I was approached by the then faculty advisor to Hillel and asked if I would take over as advisor. Given my interests and background, I was eager to do so. Around that time, Dr. Raymond Orbach, an eminent UCLA physicist and administrator took the post of Chancellor of UCR. Orbach was Jewish and wanted to build up the Jewish population of UCR. He was successful in many things but not that one. UCR has always had a relatively small Jewish representation among the students; a much larger representation among the faculty. At the time, UCR was a commuter school, recruiting largely from the local inland areas. More recently, the highly diverse population is from across the state. But it’s certainly not Orthodox-friendly in terms of kosher food or a comfortable Shabbat atmosphere. (I once attempted to make inroads in the kosher food problem, but to no avail.)

Dr. Orbach and I did some fundraising in the Palm Springs area, trying to raise money for Hillel. And to encourage this, I taught a few adult education courses in the Palm Springs area. For two years or so, we received enough support to hire a Hillel Director, a rabbi or lay leader. I would interview the candidates and meet with Dr. Orbach who gratefully had a hands-on approach. At one point we hired an Orthodox lay leader who worked extremely well with the students and quickly became my chavrutah.

The support of the Palm Springs Federation was regular but generally (other than a two or three year period) insufficient to hire a Director. I argued for funding to do more serious Jewish education on campus, but the real stimulus to Federation funding was the occasional threat of anti-Semitism. This seemed to me upside down: Creative programming seemed like a much better way to insure solidity of the campus Jewish presence. Nor was there serious anti-Semitism to worry about. There were occasional issues, but the administration--Orbach and those who followed him--were on top of such things.

The other source of personal frustration was student attitudes to the political/security situation in Israel. Some years back, an Israeli organization--strongly leftist in orientation--sent two speakers to campus, a Palestinian Women’s Studies Professor from BirZeit University and a Jewish Professor of Geography from Ben Gurion University. I was asked to be on a response panel of UCR faculty, a woman from Religious Studies, and two Palestinian-American faculty members from Engineering. I was supposed to speak in between the two Palestinian-Americans. The first one said pretty outrageously wrong things about Israeli policy and attitudes. The Protestant minister who was running the program instantly rearranged it so that I could speak last and respond to both Palestinian-Americans. The second spoke in even harsher terms. This gave me the opportunity to say what I believe, that harsh overstatement and wild condemnation accomplishes nothing, that the moral imperative is to listen to the other side, that the two main speakers, Israeli and Palestinian, represent one opinion among others, one that I disagreed with. One can disagree strongly, but we need to hear one another. Talking points are all too easy; they trade on oversimplification; and they accomplish nothing. I sat down feeling grateful for the opportunity to (I hoped) raise the level of the debate.

Next the students--Hillel students and sympathizers with the Palestinian-Americans--got to ask questions and make comments. Without exception, all we heard were talking points. The pro-Israel students rightly saw the pro-Palestinian remarks as self-serving, and vice versa. Talking points are not going to help mutual understanding, nor are they going to move the sides toward any sort of agreement. My frustration with students on both sides of the divide was a product of my inability to share nuance with them.

Nevertheless, I have had considerable success talking about Israel to campus audiences. On one occasion, the UCR Ethnic Studies program put on its website an inappropriate pro-Palestinian announcement. Our administration was upset and asked me to help organize an evening devoted to the issues. Five faculty members spoke, representing a variety of points of view. My own talk began with my connections to and love for Israel, the time I spend there regularly, as well as my misgivings about Israeli policy. People listened; what they were hearing was a faculty member who clearly had allegiances but who spoke openly, in human terms; not talking points. In fact, the Palestinian students approached me afterward about speaking to their group. Not much came of this after I asked them if they were okay with a Zionist speaker. In any case, they were respectful, a far cry from what we have read about.

One of the campuses of the UC that has a terrible reputation in the Jewish community is UC Irvine, also an hour from Los Angeles, halfway to San Diego. UCI is the campus at which the pro-Palestinian students were arrested subsequent to their unruly and rude protest at a talk given by Israeli ambassador, Michael Oren. I was invited by the UCI Religious Studies Program to give the annual guest lecture. My topic was my work in the philosophy of religion, but as with my book on the subject, The Significance of Religious Experience, I told of my religious struggles and commitments, my love for learning Talmud, and the extensive time I spend in Israel. I spoke about the latter at some length, not sure what to expect.

My talk was well-received and a number of people stayed afterward to pursue the discussion. One of them was an Orthodox Muslim woman; like the rest of the audience she was interested in matters of substance. It was a very pleasant occasion. I have a friend and former chavrutah, closely identified with Israel, who is on the UCI faculty. He reports that the atmosphere on the UCI campus is similar to UCR, that the campus is, in his words, “largely apolitical.” However, in the LA Orthodox community as well as in Israel, I continue to hear that UCI is a hotbed of Palestinian activism, an unfriendly place to Jewish concerns.

A word about my teaching: I teach a variety of courses from very large (300+) service courses (for example, “Evil,” “Introduction to Philosophy”) to small seminars, undergraduate and graduate. A great deal of my teaching concerns philosophy of religion. My style in teaching emphasizes discussion, and it’s quite personal, full of stories and examples from life, literature, film. Since Judaism is the religion I know best, many examples come from Jewish sources: Midrash, Tanakh, Talmud. And the experiences I relate include a great deal about Israel. Especially since my students are largely not Jewish and many not religious at all, I encourage them to bring in their own stories, texts, experiences, and perspectives and they are eager to do so. At no point, in all these years of teaching, have I experienced any ill feeling either about my religious perspective or about Israel. On the contrary, the responses are often warm and welcoming; always respectful both to me and to others in the classes.

My experience with the campuses with which I am familiar, in the UC system and across the country, yields the sense that there is a great deal of exaggeration in the frequently heard media reports these campuses are unfriendly to Jewish/Israeli concerns. That is not to deny that there are professors who confuse education with propaganda. Nor is to deny extremely uncomfortable times when SJP students confront Hillel students. I mentioned the UCR Ethnic Studies website above and I could tell other stories. But these are the exceptions, not the rule, and atmosphere on campus is not unfriendly to Jewish concerns.

The UCR Humanities Center seeks topics of academic concern and holds sessions on these issues. This past fall, a session was held on the proposed academic and cultural boycott of Israeli institutions. Three of us were on the panel: Professor Muhammad Ali, a Muslim from the Religious Studies Department; Professor Brownwyn Lebow, a Jewish (unaffiliated) Professor of Political Science, and me. A few years ago, Professor Ali and I taught a course together on Israel-Palestine; more on that below. All three of us thought that this proposal did not make sense. The audience, some 35 faculty and graduate students, agreed. There were only two advocates for the proposal, the people (I assumed) who brought the proposal to the Humanities Center.

Professor Ali and I taught a course in which we watched films, read history, and talked through issues about Israel and the Palestinians. The atmosphere was again entirely congenial. It was an Honors seminar, with only about a dozen students. One student was a radical leftist, the others just people interested in learning about the region and its history. At one point I assigned a Ha’aretz piece that spoke of injustices to which a group of Palestinians had been subjected. The leftist student came prepared; she argued that this sort of thing is typical, the sort of injustice about which she had been speaking all term. I pointed out that our knowledge of this was a product of an Israeli newspaper, illustrating the sort of freedom of the press and self-criticism characteristic of democracies at their best. The point was not lost on the students.

Anti-semitism, especially in Europe and the Arab world, has resurfaced as a genuine threat. And even where it’s not as much noted, things are not as one would like. I have friends who spent time in Berlin, very enjoyably. But further discussion revealed that one dare not wear a kippah on the streets. And the support for Israel among fundamentalist Christians in the United States always seems to me very thin; I fear that it would not take that much for it to turn. In light of our history and these and other current issues, vigilance makes sense.

At the same time, it’s easy to confuse genuine criticism of Israeli policy for anti-Semitism. We are blessed that the State of Israel is a world power. Such international actors are regularly criticized. Indeed, such criticism helps to keep the world from falling into a worse place than it is. Some are focused on what they see as the unfair standards by which Israel is judged. There is surely something to this. But the same can be said of criticism the United States. While anti-Semitism may get into the mix, there is surely more here than simple prejudice.

When one turns to the situation on campus, one similarly wants to be alert to anti-Semitism without confusing it with legitimate differences of perspective. Part of what we--I--feel about Israel is something like family-feeling. And others belong to other families. As mentioned, there are from time to time campus incidents that cry out for our attention. At the same time we need to question the reports we read, especially when authored by those with strong commitments on the issue in question.