NEWS STORY: American Judaism Undergoing Religious Revival

c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) When leaders of the Reform wing of American Judaism gathered in Orlando, Fla., in December, the first item on the agenda was not the usual workshop on political lobbying or speech on anti-Semitism, but a primer on Hebrew. If that sounds like the start of a Borscht Belt rimshot, […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) When leaders of the Reform wing of American Judaism gathered in Orlando, Fla., in December, the first item on the agenda was not the usual workshop on political lobbying or speech on anti-Semitism, but a primer on Hebrew.

If that sounds like the start of a Borscht Belt rimshot, it is in fact the leading edge of a campaign that the most liberal branch of Judaism is taking very seriously: to restore traditional spirituality to a denomination whose adherents often see faith in terms of culture or social action, rather than worship of the divine.”We sense that our Judaism has been a bit too cold and domesticated; we yearn to sing to God, to let our souls fly free,”Rabbi Eric Yoffie of Westfield, N.J., told the 5,000 rabbis and lay people in a frank keynote address to the biennial meeting of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, the synagogue arm of the Reform movement that Yoffie heads.


Describing liberal Jews as”the least worshipful of peoples in North America,”Yoffie called for a”revolution in worship”and he backed up his words by starting each day of the conference with communal worship and workshops on prayer and Torah study.

Those sessions were packed, while meetings on social action and Israel went begging.

As remarkable as this turnaround is for Reform Judaism _ in 1885 the movement rejected traditional observance as “altogether foreign to our mental and spiritual state” _ experts say it is just one more manifestation of an incipient return to tradition across the spectrum of American Judaism.

“The question we have to answer now is: Why be Jewish?” said Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of The Jewish Week, based in New York. “It is not only about anti-Semitism; it is not only about Israel; it is not only about social justice. So what do you do now if you’re Jewish?”

The answers are everywhere as American Jews have taken to wearing skullcaps (yarmulkes) in public and prayer shawls (tallit) at synagogue, keeping kosher and studying Hebrew, Torah and the mystical rituals of kabbalah, an esoteric discipline that had lain fallow for centuries.

In one sense the move toward observance reflects a broad trend as Americans, led by the graying baby boomers, have begun rediscovering the beliefs they once shunned.

But the trend is more striking for Judaism given its history as a religion that defined itself as much by how one lived as by what one believed.

“Judaism has always been a way of life rather than a set of doctrines. Judaism has always been a set of rules,” said former Reagan administration official Elliott Abrams, a Conservative Jew, a conservative thinker at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and author of “Faith or Fear,” a 1997 book urging Jews to return to belief.


“When Jews came to America they stopped obeying these rules,” Abrams said. “Because there were no doctrines, no catechism to hold on to, the whole thing just fell apart.”

Indeed, surveys have consistently shown Jews are about half as likely as other Americans to say religion is very important to them. And while about four in 10 Americans go to weekly services, fewer than 10 percent of Jews attend synagogue that often.

In one national survey in 1997, more than seven in 10 Jews said “being part of the Jewish people” was most important to their Jewish identity, while just 13 percent cited “religious observance” as the keystone of their Jewishness.

In America, critics say, being Jewish can mean no more than supporting Israel and knowing where to find a good deli. “Eating bagels and watching Woody Allen movies,” as Michael Medved, the film critic and Jewish traditionalist, has put it.

Now that is changing, and it is not only conservatives like Medved and Abrams who are leading the charge.

In his 1998 book, “The Vanishing American Jew,” famed defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz lamented the loss of Jewish identity and applauded what he called the “reJewvenation” of Jewish spirituality in America. In the end, Dershowitz prescribes an ethical rather than a religious solution to this yearning so as not to alienate Jews who still lean to the secular side.


But not all liberal Jews are shying away from God talk.

Liz Cohen, president of Temple Beth-El in Somerville, N.J., told reporters at the Orlando convention she supports the emphasis on spiritual renewal “because the classical Reform (movement) was bereft of spirit. We threw away too much. Now we’re rediscovering the traditions, and it’s fresh.”

Experts say this religious renaissance is due to a confluence of factors.

The old saying that Jews are like other Americans, only more so, seems to be as true today as it ever was. Jews are on average older than the rest of the aging American population _ nothing like mortality to sharpen one’s sense of the sacred _ and they are on average more educated and have benefited more financially during the latest boom.

All of which has led many Jews to turn inward at the same time various external circumstances fostering Jewish identity and unity changed.

For example, Israel is less threatened today than at any time in its history, and the Jewish state has made it clear it is not dependent on the largess of American Jews to survive. “It is like the empty nest syndrome,” said Rosenblatt. “The kids leave and the parents say, `We need to redefine our roles.”’

There are also indications that Jews feel more secure in America than ever.

Earlier in the century the Jewish priority was assimilation, and Jewish immigrants naturally took as their religious model the highest social class _ white Episcopalians, Presbyterians and the like _ who were also among the least emotional worshipers. In addition, fervent Christianity had never proved friendly to Jews, either in the Old World or New.

“Those Christians who are most demonstrative _ Southern Baptists and Pentecostals _ were of a lower social class that was thought to be anti-Semitic,” said Abrams. “Both of these things turned Jews off to religiosity, so they adopted the restrained Yankee model.”


That suspicion seems to have softened in recent years, reinforced by the decline in reported incidents of anti-Semitism through much of the 1990s. At the same time, second- and third-generation Jews are much less concerned about “fitting in” than were their parents. These younger Jews were shocked by a famous 1990 study showing that 52 percent of American Jews are marrying outside the faith _ and they are not afraid to pray in Hebrew or wear yarmulkes or do whatever it takes to retain their religious identity.

“As we end the 20th century, 92 percent of the American Jewish population is American-born,” said sociologist Egon Mayer, who headed the 1990 study. “There isn’t any longer a feeling that we need to sound like Americans and not foreigners.”

DEA END RNS

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