I’ve been rummaging through the attic of my life for a media project I’m involved with. A cousin just found a picture of my father, smiling, handsome and so full of young promise, at age 23 in 1948. When my partner in this project asked who she could speak with about me in Israel, I naturally thought of Rabbi Joe Lukinsky. He’d been my teacher in 1969, when I attended the Camp Ramah program in Nyack, NY. Later, he’d been my teacher when I studied in Israel on a junior year abroad program at the Hebrew University.
With deep sadness, I discovered that Rabbi Lukinsky died of cancer in 2009 at age 78. In Jewish tradition, when such a man dies you say: zichron tzadik livracha (“may the memory of this righteous one be for a blessing”). Joe truly was a tzadik, a saint. Of course, that is a huge weight to place on anyone. But you could place it lightly on his shoulders because he was such a modest self-effacing man. He didn’t win you over by erudition or intellectual presence or spellbinding preacherly oratory. He won you over with a smile, with his charm, with his love of humanity.
Joe went through the 60s, the era of long-hair, psychedelia and relevance as the straightest of straight arrows. He sported a crew cut and always informally dressed in short sleeves, which revealed those muscular arms that could hit home runs over rooftops. He looked like a Marine Corps drill sergeant, albeit a very gentle one. I remember a twinkle in his eyes and a ready smile that at times turned into a hearty laugh.
I was a troubled 17-year-old from a dysfunctional family when I met him at Nyack in 1969. Back then, the world appeared to be coming to an end. The Vietnam war raged, campuses burned, Martin Luther King had died a few months earlier. I was a rebellious teenager who dared Judaism to be relevant to my world. I didn’t see how it could be.
Camp Ramah was known for its rigorous Judaic curriculum including courses on Tanach, Midrash, Jewish philosophy, and liturgy. Until this summer, frankly, I’d found these classes to be wanting. So when they laid out the Jewish curriculum for that summer and asked us to choose our classes, nothing inspired me. As I recall it, Joe was the educational director. He met with me and asked what I was choosing. I told him nothing appealed to me. I’m certain I was probably quite morose in the way only teenagers can be.
But Joe did something both brilliant and devious at the same time. He threw the question of what I would study back and me and said: “If you could study about any subject, what would it be?” I must’ve thought it was a trick question. How could I study any subject I wanted when I was seemingly bound by the courses offered which I’d already told him didn’t appeal to me?
Two years before, the 1967 War had happened. It had a big impact on many American Jews of the time. It must’ve disturbed me in some profound way because I told Joe that I’d study about Israel and the impact of the Six Day War on Zionism. He said: “Great. Why don’t you make your own course. I’ll work with you to develop a reading list, we’ll meet to discuss what you’re reading and you’ll write a paper at the end of the summer.” I probably thought the idea was a bit nuts at the time. How could I create my own course? But by God, that’s what we did. That’s how I first learned about Martin Buber, Judah Magnes and Brit Shalom. That’s when I first read Arthur Hertzberg‘s The Zionist Idea. That’s when I first became a thinking Zionist. By that I mean the critical Zionist I am today.
You have no idea what this did to the self-esteem of a troubled young boy. It taught me that I had ideas of value. It taught me how to take on a big topic, research it carefully, and come up with a coherent, articulate critique into which I could put all of my intellectual self. This was huge.
Joe knew far more about this subject than I, and he suggested that I send my final paper to Prof. Ernst Simon, one of the few surviving member of the original Brit Shalom circle. I was a 17-year-old pisher. What did I know? I thought it was an odd idea for me to be sending my work to an eminent 80-year-old retired professor who’d stood at the brink of the Zionist era. But that was the power and brilliance of Joe. He looked at you with that magnetic smile and chuckle of his and said: “Why not?”
I remember that my paper warned of the dangers that the Occupied Territories posed to Israel. I discussed the likelihood of Israel turning into an apartheid state. South Africa was in the air in those days and I compared Israel to that country’s systematic discrimination against its black majority. It was probably also a bit of chutzpah for this teenager to tell someone like Ernst Simon that Israel was like one of the world’s pariah states. I remember that Simon actually did me the favor of replying. As I remember it, his reply was gracious, revealing none of the sense of chutzpah that he might’ve felt for the sharpness of my ideas and expression.
In 1972, I finally got to Israel and studied in the Hebrew University’s special program for Jewish educators. It was my first academic year in Israel. My first experience studying in Hebrew. It was intense, it was challenging. Joe Lukinsky was himself on a sabbatical year from his teaching at the Jewish Theological Seminary and was one of the faculty for the Hebrew University program. I wrote another challenging paper for him that time as well. It was the first time I addressed the conflict between Israel and Diaspora under the terms of classical Zionism. I suggested that the standard approach of Zionist thought, which demeaned the galut and treated it as a phenomenon that would wither away as Israel assumed its rightful and primary place in Jewish life, was absolutely wrong.
Instead of Israel being primary and Diaspora being secondary, I suggest a co-equal relationship between the two: that the Diaspora would never die as long as Jews lived. I said that the Diaspora enriched Jewish identity as much as Israel did, and that the two should have a complementary relationship. This was the first time I grappled with the idea of Diasporism. In my paper, I also rejected the secularist notion that the Diaspora was primary to Jewish life, and that Israel was alien. I think it was all pretty radical for its day. But it was the beauty of Joe Lukinsky that he didn’t care where your ideas took you as long as you arrived at them honestly and with real intellectual rigor.
Joe Lukinsky was one of my Jewish mentors. He encouraged me to bring out of myself things I didn’t even know I had, things I didn’t even know I was capable of. This is a gift, a gift beyond measure. I wouldn’t be who or what I am today without him. Thank you, Joe.
Now a few words about his life. As a teenager, he was a powerful baseball player who could hit the ball a mile. He was offered a tryout with the Chicago Cubs and could’ve played minor-league ball. But he didn’t. When he married Betty in the 1950s they were struck by tragedy. Those were the days before genetic testing, when Tay Sachs was a dreaded word in Jewish families. They had at least one child who died of this fatal condition. I can remember someone telling me of the tragedy of having a healthy, beautiful newborn baby, who withered away before their very eyes after a few years. Two of their other children died at an early age. As an obituary I read, said about him: he led a Job-like life full of immense tragedy.
But you never felt that from Joe. He was all heart, all warmth, all soul. So my partner won’t get to meet one of the truly great American rabbis. Won’t get to interview him and hear stories of what I was like as a sullen teenager. What a loss. To her, to me, to us all. May his memory be for a blessing.
” I suggested that the standard approach of Zionist thought, which demeaned the galut and treated it as a phenomenon that would wither away as Israel assumed its rightful and primary place in Jewish life, was absolutely wrong.”
Since 2008 the largest concentration of Jews in the world live’s in Israel.
http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/Hebrew/Home/media/Press/2008/sep25.htm
Most Jews in the world, see Israel to date as the safest place on this planet (for Jews), despite all the threats. So your views though may fit you are still considered a minority, Just like the views / opinions of those who inspired you from Brit Shalom.
Personally, i think that the special relationship between Israel and the diaspora Jews are & should be limited to one aspect. You decided to live your life in the US, and your obligations as a US citizen are grater then your obligations to the state of Israel. That’s the way it should be. By saying that you want special consideration to the diaspora Jews voice, you are actually promoting racism in a way. I do think however that due to the very unique history of the Jewish world, Israel should provide a safe haven to every Jew who feels prosecuted and should welcome every Jewish immigrant who feels that he will be safer in Israel.
If Jews in the diaspora see it this way, and they would like to contribute funds, or political leverage to the cause, that’s their choice.
Israel should not get involved in the religious aspects of community life of Jews in the diaspora. However as a state Israel can decide that it prefers that it’s own religious aspects will be handled by the Orthodox and not by the Reforms.
as for Joe Lukinsky – יהי זיכרו ברוך
Most Jews living in the Diaspora choose to remain there. The rate of aliya is very small. This is a rejection of yr claim that most Jews find Israel the most safe,secure place in the world for Jews. If that were the case, the level of aliyah would be higher. It’s the reason I never made aliyah when I considered doing so when I was younger. IT’s the reason why so many young Israeli families seek employment abroad & become yordim (sorry for that rather negative term). They simply refuse to see their young children as future cannon fodder for the state.
As for my views being racist, you’re out of your mind & if you accuse me of racism on such flimsky, stupid evidence again you’ll be outa here.
Your claim that Israel has the right to recognize Orthodoxy as the exclusive representative of the Jewish religion inside Israel is especially noxious & will be an additional reason that Diaspora Jews will refuse to make aliyah. If you want a backwards state ruled by old rabbis & their political cronies you’re welcome to it.
You are claiming that Jews should have a say in the way the state of Israel handle it’s affairs because of no other reason then them being Jews, this argument is based on race. You preach for a one single state with equal rights to everybody living in Israel, why should you who doesn’t live here should have any say in my future, when you don’t live here ?
You are mixing apples and bananas regarding Yordim, most of them do that to look for a better financial future for themselves and their families. I’ts easier to live in the US then to pay 62% taxes (Income Tax + SS + Health Benefits), still at the sight of first trouble, All of them will hurry back to Israel.
Israel has the right to decide which strand of the Jewish religion should have the religious power in Israel. it doesn’t limit you. you live in the USA. The laws in Israel are not based on Halacha, they have maybe some vague correlation to halacha, but they are based on Ottoman and British law’s, everytime there is a conflict between civil rights and religious law’s, supreme court has the final say.
I don’t know what “having a say” means. If you mean voting or creating a political party, that would be wrong. My views are largely exhortatory, not prescriptive. As Diaspora Zionists have for over a century, I have a vision of an Israel of which all Jews might be proud. I have no vote, don’t support a candidate or party.
You also forget that without Diaspora Zionists there would be no Israel. Who was Herzl but a Diaspora Zionist (who never made aliyah btw).
As for “preaching one single state” I have no idea what this means. If you’re attempting to call me a one stater that’s wrong because like JVP I believe that’s the responsibility of the parties, not me, to work out. I focus on Israel itself.
You’d do well to listen to the views of Diaspora Jews because you’re making a right mess of Israel & running it into the ground. That includes allowing the Haredim to be arbiters of Judaism for the nation. You can’t stand on your own feet & without the military & diplomatic support of my government you’d be in the toilet. You can’t fight a war without resupply from us. You can’t stave off UN security council resolutions without our veto. That’s why.
“You can’t stand on your own feet & without the military & diplomatic support of my government you’d be in the toilet. You can’t fight a war without resupply from us. You can’t stave off UN security council resolutions without our veto. That’s why.”
You do realize that Israel did all that, during 3 different wars without the US support. and besides that does the US support have to do with Diaspora Jews ?
as for you Vision, have you ever asked yourself why you as an american even have a vision of what Israel should be ?
i can’t figure it out, i don’t care enough about the US or any other place in the world to write a blog about, what do you care ? i am asking a serious question i am not trying to belittle your contribution in any way. You don’t live here, from what i understand you will not come to our aid in time of war, what do you care ?
I think that answer has to do with Israel being a safe haven for all Jews but that is just my guess.
In 1973, the Sinai front would’ve been overrun without airlifts of U.S. weaponry & firepower which allowed it to resupply. In 2006, the U.S. also resupplied critical armaments Israel needed and supplied the bunker buster bombs that failed to kill Hassan Nasrallah. Whose planes do you think allow Israel to rule the skies? Whose Patriot missile batteries will defend you if yr leaders are stupid enough to attack Iran? Whose bunker busters will you use to attack those nuclear facilities?
Do you think half that support fr the U.S. would be forthcoming without your trusty lapdogs of the Israel lobby slaving away to secure it?
I care because I unlike you believe in clal Yisrael. As for a “safe haven for Jews,” you think Israel is a safe haven for Jews? Think again. Israel SHOULD be a safe haven for Jews but it isn’t.
Sounds like theocracy-in-the-making, alas!
Assimilation, low birth rate and intermarriage amongst secular Jews living in the Diaspora is very high. I believe secular Diaspora Jews are heading the way of the dinosaur.
Actually, many of us believe Israel on it’s present course is heading the way of the dinosaur. Over time, secular Jews with specialized careers & expertise will leave, Haredim & poor Mizrahim will predominate & leave a pariah State that is poor & theocratic.
There are no credible statistics that show the demise of the Diaspora. Other than yr own classical Zionist prejudices.
There is some data available from Hebrew U which was reveled in one of the Knesset committees meetings. according to which assimilation rate within the US Jewish communities is about 55%. According to Prof’ Sergio DellaPergola
Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at Hebrew U assimilation rate for world Jewry was above 40% at the year 2000 he predicts it is a larger percent now.
http://portal.knesset.gov.il/Com27alia/he-IL/Messages/151110.htm
It’s of course in the interest of Israeli academics following the Zionist line to argue the imminent demise of American Judaism. I’m afraid we’ll be around at least as long as Israel is, if not longer.
To begin with, I am a New York secular Jew and I’ve seen with my own eyes, over fifty years, the effects of assimilation, low birth rate and intermarriage amongst secular Jews. But enough of me.
From David Goldman’s How Civilizations Die,
“Nowhere is the fertility gap between religious and non-religious more extreme than among American Jews. As a group, American Jews show the lowest fertility of any ethnic group in the country. That is a matter of great anguish for Jewish community leaders. According to sociologist Steven Cohen, “We are now in the midst of a non-Orthodox Jewish population meltdown. … Among Jews in their 50s, for every 100 Orthodox adults, we have 192 Orthodox children. And for the non-Orthodox, for every 100 adults, we have merely 55 such children.”
According to the last National Jewish Population Survey in 2000, the ultra-Orthodox in the U.S. have an average of 7 children per family and the Modern Orthodox 3.4, while Reform Jews have only 1.34 and secular Jews only 1.2. Jonathan Sarna observed in the Dec. 2 Wall Street Journal that the Jewish organizations have undertaken no new census of American Jews in more than a decade. One wonders if they are afraid of what they might find today.
Half of the non-Orthodox children, moreover, marry non-Jews, and very few children of mixed marriages will remain Jewish. As Reform Rabbi Lance J. Sussman wrote in 2010, “With the exception of a number of Orthodox communities and a few other bright spots in or just off the mainstream of Jewish religious life, American Judaism is in precipitous decline … the Reform movement has probably contracted by a full third in the last ten years!”
BTW. I am married to an Israeli and I live among many Israelis and Israeli-Americans here in New York and I don’t see any evidence of a brain drain from Israel to New York.
You’ve never heard of the small surviving remnant hav you? Likely because you’re a secular Jew & haven’t read much Isaiah. You should. Or how about Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai who abandoned besieged Jerusalem to found a school in Yavneh that trained the next generations of leaders after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. You talk statistics & I talk values. You have no values except Israel, and Israel is not a value, it’s a country, and a deeply flawed one at that.
If American Jews die ou it will bebbause they sold out their rich Diaspora culture for a bowl of Israeli porridge. Israel without the Diaspora means barreness.
Your anecdotal experience is not scientifically valid. Read Prof Ian Lustick’s research on the outflow of Israel’s most technically skilled young people to the Diaspora. Btw if you live among Israelis in NY & don’t see a brain drain fr Israel, you’re implying that those Israeli among whom you live here in galut are among those who emigrated fr Israel leaving their brains behind.
Loving remembrances of a truly great man.
I dislike seeing such seemingly precise data discussed. Actually, reliable comparative statistics on assimilation, birthrates and intermarriage are notoriously difficult to assemble in the United States, which does not ask about “religion” in its national census. Instead, we have data based on a sample of Jews affiliated with temples that choose to respond to a given survey. Direct marketers in the USA looking for “Jewish births” and “Jewish weddings” come up with consistently higher numbers than the surveys cited — in part because there is error in “Jewish surname” and “Jewish neighborhood” matching and in part because so many women now keep their own names. However, an old post-censal survey in 1988 (latest available in complete form) also suggests more optimistic outlooks for the various non-orthodox Jewish communities. JJ Goldberg discussed a lot of this in several Forward articles a decade ago. Can’t put my finger on them at the moment.
I just want to go on the record as saying how touched I am by this.
The kind of Jewish thought that you learned, and the conclusions you came to, are comforting in light of my very different exposure. Bless you for being part of the solution.
And also: I’m incredibly impressed that you could study those things and come to that conclusion, that early. So few 17-year-olds would even be able to separate out the emotional tone of the times from the intellectual consideration. Well done, young Richard – and well mentored, Rabbi Lukinsky.
Richard, this is a moving tribute and a great reflection of you and your long-running passion and care for Israel. It’s nice to read such a human document. May your memories of Rabbi Lukinsky always bring you blessings.
If your partner is looking for Israeli connections, I would be glad to be of assistance.
A very moving a personal story – thank you for sharing it.
Dear Richard:
I am a long time friend and colleague of Joe Lukinsky from our years at Roosevelt University through our service on faculty at the Jewish Theological Seminary and beyond. My son accidentally came across your posting about Joe on the Internet. I remain in contact with his widow Betty (joeluk_2001 at yahoo.com) and sent her a copy of your wonderful depiction (sort of a eulogy) of Joe. She lives in Yerushalayim. I am retired from the Seminary and live in suburban Lawrence NY. Kol tuv,
Burt Cohen
Thanks so much, Burt. I believe I know you, at least by name as we were around the Seminary about the same time. I will contact Betty and thanks for her e mail.