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Jew Vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry
by Samuel G. Freedman
Simon and Schuster, N.Y, 2000
Reviewed by Rabbi Elyse Goldstein
Book Review
No one has to tell me that the Jewish community is fractured,
politicized, and torn. As president of the interdenominational
Toronto Board of Rabbis, I see it every day. Rabbis who won't
speak in the shuls of certain denominations. Rabbis who don't
accept conversions of other rabbis. Jews who won't let their kids
marry Jews of other denominations. Name calling. Insinuations
and outright slander. I've seen and heard it all.
That is why I came to Jew vs. Jew by Samuel G. Freedman with
such high hopes. At last a book that will both paint a realistic
picture and offer its antidote. A book that will not take sides,
but will help us see how the sides which now work against one
another can work together. Because here in Toronto, at least,
there are small pockets, quiet pockets of people of good will
who are hoping for an end to denominational mudslinging and a
beginning to dialogue. Such dialogue, however, is based on the
deep-seated conviction that we will agree to disagree, and that
no one in the end will either "lose" or "win."
I was so sorely disappointed. This best seller depresses. Nowhere
does the author speak of his own Jewish identity or commitment,
but one gets the feeling that the Judaism he doesn't practice
is Orthodox. He intimates in several different ways that liberal
Judaism is floundering, and that the most committed liberal Jews
eventually become Orthodox. Of all his stories of passionate,
articulate secular, Conservative, or reform Jews, they all "convert"
to Orthodoxy sooner or later.
In chapter one, Secular Judaism, in the form of Camp Kinderwelt
in New York, dies an agonizing death when the "next" generation
of camp graduates has a reunion in Manhattan and most of them
lament either their own and or their children's lack of Jewish
involvement.
In chapter two, The great "conversion experiment" in Denver fails
when the Orthodox rabbis feel compromised byt he low level of
true observance by their graduates.
In chapters three and four, love of Israel is no longer enough
for Jews in the diaspora as an identity factor.,
In the epilogue, Freedman presents his thesis clearly, "In the
struggle for the soul of American Jewry, the Orthodox model has
triumphed. To say this is not to say the Orthodox themselves have
prevailed, or that only the Orthodox denomination will survive
on these shores. But the portion of American Jewry that will flourish
in the future...is the portion that has accepted the central premise
that religion defines Jewish identity." This from a book which
promises on its jacket, "...even as it chronicles an embittered
and polarized community, it refuses to take sides to pass judgment."
EG
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