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| Wesleyan University president Michael Roth |
Although in some — perhaps many — cases they may still
identify as Jewish, it doesn’t help that the Reform Movement now considers
patrilineal descent a legitimate definition of Jewish identity. When a
denomination whose very genesis came about by rejecting the foundational
document that created the Jewish people that defines us, it hardly lends credence
to their definitional pronouncements. It only makes matters worse by confusing
the rest of the world about who is and isn’t a Jew.
Besides, as most secular Jews will tell you, what difference
does it make anyway how a person identifies? To most secular Jews, Judaism is a
culture derived from traditions accumulated over time — traditions they later
accept or reject as their cultural values evolve.
How we got here is a complicated issue that I have addressed
many times. What I will say is that the vast majority of American Jews fall
into a category called Tinok Shenishba — literally, ‘a child taken
captive’. In this context, it refers to Jews born and raised in an environment
that included no substantive Jewish education. Their parents were mostly
non-observant, many of whom ran away from the ‘old world’ image of the
uneducated, uncultured European Jew in order to assimilate and pursue the
American dream. Children raised with those values could hardly be expected to
understand what Judaism is about. At best, they will embrace cultural values
like social justice and call it the quintessential Jewish value.
Conservative rabbis have only encouraged this attitude and
focus little — if at all — on the mitzvos of the Torah. To the extent
that they do, their congregants mostly observe those mitzvos in the
breach, if they pay attention to them at all.
Even these rabbis are not entirely at fault — this is what
they were taught. Reform Jews refer to mitzvah observance as a nice
thing to do but ultimately voluntary, while Conservative rabbis do little to
convince their congregants to observe the mitzvos they themselves
consider mandatory. Which is probably rooted in the way they were educated to
relate to their congregants. Both resulting in a willful disregard for the
obligatory nature of halacha.
Although this is a situation not of my making, it does not
make me feel any less sad. The consequences of either a lack of authentic
Jewish education or its distortion by heterodox clergy upon their members have
recently shocked me. This has become especially evident since the war in Gaza
began and with the exponential rise of antisemitism in this country — most
visibly on college campuses, especially the more prominent ones.
The pro-Palestinian voices have been coming almost
exclusively from the left — the only politically correct position to take on
those campuses. There is also a strong presence of students from the Middle
East who are entirely sympathetic to the Palestinian cause while completely
rejecting the Israeli point of view. They are joined in solidarity by their
American counterparts, by DEI hires — some from the Middle East themselves,
often Palestinians or deeply sympathetic to them — and by far-left progressive
faculty members, many of whom are Jewish. It should be no surprise that
organizations like “Jews for Justice in Palestine” exist and parrot the Hamas
narrative at rallies, some of which are blatantly antisemitic and even call for
the genocide of Jews in Israel.
The Trump administration has gone out of its way to clamp
down on campus antisemitism, including deporting Middle Eastern students who
shout such rhetoric. So when a Tinok Shenishba like Michael Roth —
Wesleyan’s Jewish president — defends that rhetoric on the basis of freedom of
speech, and then makes a point of emphasizing how Jewish he is, that is the
saddest thing of all.
Yes, he is Jewish. And yes, he is proud of it. But what
exactly is he proud of? Because his status as a Tinok Shenishba makes
him unqualified to define what it means to be proud of Judaism. I do not
believe he is observant. Without observance — the most essential defining
characteristic of being a Jew — his definition is missing Judaism’s most vital
component. It’s like a Ferrari owner proudly declaring ownership even though
the car is missing its engine.
Yet he has been one of the most vocal critics of the Trump
administration’s efforts to clamp down on campus antisemitism, claiming they
are merely an excuse to advance a conservative DEI agenda. The thing is, if DEI
policies on campus have contributed to the massive wave of antisemitic protests
we’ve seen, then looking at DEI as part of the problem is a step in the right
direction. So, with all due respect to Mr. Roth, I reject his framing of the
Trump administration’s antisemitism policy as a cynical political tool — and
his use of his Jewish identity to bolster that argument.
That the vast majority of Orthodox Jews approve of Trump’s
antisemitism policies surely indicates that Jews who understand what truly
makes someone Jewish recognize that these policies align far more closely with
authentic Jewish values than those of cultural Jews whose values shift with the
winds of time. It should not go unnoticed that Jewish college students — and
even the ADL — approve of the administration’s approach.
The question then becomes: why isn’t the most exponentially growing right-wing segment of Orthodox Jewry doing more about this? The right wing has largely failed to reach out to the Tinok Shenishba. While there are many fine organizations that do — such as Chabad, NCSY, and Aish, to name just a few — they are nevertheless a drop in the bucket, representing only a small fraction of the Orthodox world.
The last time a right-wing rabbi (Rabbi Yosef Reinman) tried
to do something of significance like this — well over a decade ago — he was
shot down almost before he started. And there has been no serious attempt
since. That is how we get the Michael Roths of the world, who publicly speak as
Jews when their Judaism is at best cultural — if that.
The right-wing Orthodox world has become so self-focused
that they barely acknowledge the problem. They seem interested only in
perpetuating themselves, and they are doing a pretty good job of it. The rest
of the Jewish world? In their minds, it is a lost cause — best ignored.
But is this what God really wants? Does God want us to write
off 90% of American Jewry? I don’t think so. The results of that attitude have
so far not been favorable.
Comments to this post can be made at Emes Ve-Emunah II where it is cross-posted
