4 thoughts on “American Jewry: Dead or Dying? – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Moribund or expired, American Jewry has declined, not due to a failure of leadership, but because of individual Jews choices to assimilate, intermarry and raise small families.

    P.S. Our fair planet goes ‘teats up’ in twelve years.

    1. @ Li Hung So Low:

      American Jewry has declined, not due to a failure of leadership, but because of individual Jews choices to assimilate, intermarry and raise small families.

      Nonsense. And this is precisely why I wrote my post carefully so no kchinyuk like you could come along and make such an empty argument. It is not American Jewry that has declined, but our mandarins who have declined. One might argue that American Jews are somewhat at fault for permitting these nonentities to take control of our Jewish institutions. But that’s a different debate.

      Your claim is classical Zionism personified and wrong. Classical Zionism itself is increasingly irrelevant as Netanyahu and his forces undermine it with a new form of Judeo-fascist racialism.

      At any rate, assimilation is a hoary old notion trotted out for rabbis and communal leaders to bitch and moan about, and also justify their increasingly large salaries. The same for intermarriage. Once again, this is a similar theory to the one motivating Birthright: have Jewish sex, make Jewish babies, make strong ties to Israel. I can’t think of anything more ridiculous.

      And even if Jews are marrying out and dissociating from the community, a good part of the reason is the obsession with Israel, which drives many as far away from the Jewish community as they can get.

      Please don’t pontificate on subjects about which you know nothing, American Jewry being one.

  2. If American Jewry died then it is because Zionism killed it. Zionism overpowered previous Jewish thought and even languages like Yiddish and replaced it with something that struggles to be an identity instead of a concoction by racist intellectuals in the 1800s.

  3. American Jewry may be dead or dying but it certainly has changed and cannot even be considered under one term: Jewry, the views are so divergent and oppositional within. I have personal experience with this in my own extended family. When I have a discussion despite vows to stay away from “the subject” ( of Israel) we come to blows and end in a very bad place. I am astonished at what I am hearing! Were it not for the underlying love we would not engage at all about anything ever. Aggravating though it is, the horn-locking is useful for me. I am too idealistic and naive. I am surprised to find that within what is being called “mainstream Jewry” those who support BDS. JVP and the like are even being labeled not Jewish. Include those who are secular (non-observant) and those who have intermarried. The circle does seem to be getting smaller and tighter for those Jews..Jewish humanist, values, living them, seems to morph, take second placer get rationalized away. Fidelity to the group think is what counts.. We have similar in the larger population here in the U.S, this tribalism. We have sorted out.
    So don’t let THEM delegitimize you as they are hell bent on doing! Thank you Richard for holding the line as the ground beneath is has shifted.

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