Jewish studies and Jewish identity: some implications of secularizing Torah - A Success Story

Judaism, Spring, 1993 by Bernard D. Cooperman

The Ambivalence of Jewish Studies Professionals

Another, possibly unexpected, result of the rise of Jewish Studies has been the emergence of a cadre of academically based professional intellectuals who, in many sectors of our community, have supplanted the traditional Jewish intellectual leadership. In many circles it is the university professor -- and not the rabbi -- who is now regarded as the expert on Jewish law and lore, on Jewish history and Israeli politics, on the Jewish community and its future.

The prominence of this new group of academic intellectuals is not, per se, a bad thing. I am far from echoing the sentiments of those like Russell Jacoby who bemoan the institutionalization of American intellectual life generally.(6) Quite to the contrary, I believe that for the Jews, at least, "professionalization" has led to raised standards and a far more sophisticated discussion of Jewish cultural issues. Those well-known writers, literary critics and social thinkers who, because they were Jewish and had established themselves in other fields, were once sought out as interpreters of the Jewish present and predictors of the Jewish fate, have been, for better or worse, largely displaced by expert scholars who are -- one hopes -- less likely to inflate personal ignorance into specious arguments for links between Judaism and the alienation of modern man.

And yet, for all the raising of standards, we may wonder about the promotion of this new group of Jewish academics into positions of influence within our community. Though they are the major contact that most of our young people will have with Jewish thought and history on a sophisticated level, these academics owe neither institutional nor intellectual loyalty to any part of the Jewish community. Indeed, at least some of them are not even practicing Jews. I well remember a recent case in which Jewish money had funded a new chair in Jewish Studies and the university offered the position to two well-known scholars, both of Jewish parentage, one of whom had been for a time, and one of whom still was, a practicing Christian! Please understand me: I do not believe that Jewish Studies at the university level can, or should, be taught only by Jews. Quite to the contrary, I am delighted whenever I see the field opening up and attracting new students of whatever faith or persuasion. My purpose now, however, is to discuss the ambiguities of the relation between academic Jewish Studies and the Jewish community. On this level, it seems obvious that it is in the interests of the Jewish community to ensure that its children are educated by people committed to Jewish group survival. The community, therefore, must question the value of Jewish Studies courses in achieving that aim.

Of course, the vast majority of Jewish Studies teachers are, indeed, personally committed to Jewish life and Jewish continuity in one way or another. Granted the tremendous amount of background training required for most areas of Jewish scholarship, it could almost not be otherwise. Only those with deep personal concern for the issues involved are likely even to think of entering such a demanding field.(7) The very high number of hovshei kippah among the members of the Association for Jewish Studies is a good indication of the true state of the field. But self-selection can guarantee only so much. Professor Gershon Hundert of McGill University has recently suggested that a number of structural factors actually lead the Jewish academic -- no matter what his or her personal orientation -- to be uninvolved or only minimally involved with parochial Jewish concerns on campus.(8) Hundert suggests, in fact, that Jewish Studies professors were paradoxically "in the academy precisely in order to avoid becoming engaged."