Justice. - book reviews

Judaism, Wntr, 1997 by Lawrence W. Raphael

Reviewed by LAWRENCE W. RAPHAEL

In his recent book, Gerhard Falk notes that "Now, three generations after the Holocaust and five generations after the mass migrations from Eastern Europe, Judaism has reached the outer limits of secularization and therefore must return to tradition if it is to survive. It is the contention of this author that American Jews are doing just that now" (257).

Falk tries to make a convincing argument in terms of the sociological analysis of secularization and American religious life. When he analyzes the institutions of religious life, education, and the family, he makes a convincing case. Noting that secularization refers to the decline of religion as a coherent identifiable system of briefs and practices, Falk brings a considerable amount of evidence to bear on the decline of the impact of Judaism on most Americans today.

I am deeply moved by the passion of Falk as he attempts to catalogue the disastrous path on which universalist, secular liberalism has taken the American Jewish community. The wealth of statistical and qualitative data that he has collected to support his analysis of contemporary Jewry is most useful. Nevertheless, his critique of the B'nai Mitzvah phenomenon in synagogue life, for example, leaves me doubting his objectivity.

Even though I am a Reform rabbi, I am still not as convinced as Falk seems to be that Reform is the answer to secularization. Falk claims that: "this recognition [by Reform Jews of a return to Jewish traditions] may well be the saving grace of Judaism in the twenty-first century." Once this "trend has been well recognized and experienced by that great army of secular Jews who do not attend any synagogue ever, who do not participate in the life of the Jewish people in any way but who still see themselves as Jews because of their memories, that great number will yet return to Judaism and its ancestral roots" (357).

Falk does note in other places in this uneven volume that the problems are more complicated and the possible solutions to increased secularization more problematic. Indeed, the American Jewish population material collected and published several years ago by the Council of Jewish Federations makes it clear that the magnitude and diversity of the American Jewish community makes any single analysis of the problem quite difficult.

One complex example is the illustration of how the intermarriage pattern among American Jews has a great deal to do with the secularization of Judaism. As noted by Barry Kosman (Highlights of the CJF 1990 National Jewish Population Study, Council of Jewish Federations, 1991, p. 18) in 1990, 68 percent of all married Jews then in the United States were married to a non-Jew. Of the 32 percent married to Jews, four percent were married to a "Jew by choice." These statistics include persons of all ages. During the years beginning with 1985, however, Jews began to marry non-Jews in much greater numbers. Over fifty percent of all Jewish marriages since 1985 have been with a non-Jew and twice as many mixed couples have been created among American Jews. Furthermore, "those who are intermarried but remain within Judaism seldom opt for such stringent observances as synagogue participation, the holiday rituals, and the maintenance of the food laws [kashrut]. Instead, intermarried persons are more likely to assume Jewish ethnicity but not Jewish religiosity" (Falk, 233).

Most would agree with Falk's interpretation of the intermarriage statistics, claiming that secularization has led to family alienation, conflict, and disintegration of the Jewish family in America (Falk, 243). Others might argue that the enormous cultural changes that most families in America have undergone have been the cause and not the symptom of patterns of exogamy, dissolution of the extended family, and the diminution of the role of religion in contemporary life.

At the same time, the resurgence of modern orthodoxy in many parts of the country has suggested that the forces of secularization have influenced groups in different ways. While those traditional Jewish groups which practice their religion within the context of an open society can be distinguished from the extreme orthodox and Hasidim, their response to modernity has taken many forms. The role of women, the influence of secular education (especially college and university), work, and the response to changing social and political systems have all influenced this aspect of Jewish life.

The analyses of historians and social scientists demand the insights of the creative arts. High culture continues to receive the attention it deserves; nevertheless, the popular artist also has something to offer; popular fiction, especially the detective novel, is worth looking at for its insights. Here in the arena of one of the most popular genres of contemporary literature a revealing experience is being played out.

Mystery readers of any of the sub-genres (mysteries about sports, animals, foreign locales, British cozies, to name a few), as well as those who read any mysteries, know that this experience is not just escapist reading. If you want to learn about the expectations and the synagogue politics of the Jewish community, take a walk with one of the "Rabbis." If you are interested in the modern police departments, then you can squeeze into the unmarked cars with one of the Lieutenants. If you are interested in Jews in contemporary music and pop culture, then try to keep up with Kinky Friedman. If you want to spend time with a single Jewish female attorney who anguishes over her career, her love life, her search for decent Chinese food, her relationship with her mother and what the upper westside of Manhattan has become, then you want to hunt down murderers with Nina Fischman. If you are fascinated by the seductive pull of Jewish crime bosses, you must tag along with the journalist William Goldin.