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Two Big Questions moment asks 35 AMERICAN JEWS two big questions MEL BROOKS ELIE RUTH BADER WIESEL GINSBURG SHMULEY WHAT DOES IT MEAN BOTEACH SARNA JONATHAN TO BE A JEW TODAY? JOE LIEBERMAN ITZHAK PERLMAN WHAT DO JEWS BRING TO THE WORLD? RUTH LEONARDNIMOY tony kushner WISSE REBECCA NEWBERGER moment JEROME symposium 2010 GOLDSTEIN LIZ LERMAN GROOPMAN also featuring (in alphabetical order) THEODORE BIKEL.GERALDINE BROOKS.MICHAEL BROYDE. ALAN DERSHOWITZ. STEPHEN J. DUBNER .DIANNE FEINSTEIN. DA N GLICKMAN ARTHUR GREEN. BLU GREENBERG .ROYA HAKAKIAN .MICHAEL HAMMER SUSANNAH HESCHEL. MADELEINE MAY KUNIN. DANIEL LIBESKIND . YAVILAH MCCOY .RUTH MESSINGER .SHERWIN NULAND .JUDEA PEARL. JUDITH SHULEVITZ. GARY SHTEYNGART. ILAN STAVANS. LEON WIESELTIER plus READ 35 MORE THOUGHTFUL RESPONSEs online moment What does it mean to be a jew today? symposium 2010 what do jews bring to the world? Theodore Bikel I consider myself to be a Jew in the ver- tical and horizontal sense. Horizontal, because I feel myself to be kin, relative and family of every Jew who lives today, wherever he or she may be. Vertical, because I am son, grandson and descen- dant of all the Jews who came before me; I am also father, grandfather and ances- tor of all those who will come after me. Am I special because I am a Jew? Too often, people misunderstand the notion of Jewish specialness. Being the “chosen people” meant chosen for a task, not for privilege. That task was to bring the Word to a world that needed to hear it— still needs to hear it. Call it the Word of God, call it an ethical orientation, call it the knowledge of the difference between good and evil. We are not better than "we bring matzah brie to the world." mel brooks our neighbors, not nobler; we just carry a knapsack that is heavier with memory, with pain. We peddle the lessons of his- tory. As for survival in the face of mortal threats, we who have repeatedly stared "we can certainly offer matzoh brei" mel brooks into the jaws of death are better able to deal with the threats than those who face them for the first time. But when we tell have yet to correct it—is believing that Ju- a people for three millennia. We ought to the world about survival, we are talking daism is only for Jews. We are not a pros- share what we have learned with the rest about creative survival, not mere physi- elytizing faith, nor should we be, yet we of the world. cal survival. Everybody who is threat- have much to offer. Christianity and Islam Shmuley Boteach is a rabbi and the author ened with extinction fights for physical focus on macro-cosmic issues: Where do I of Kosher Sex. survival. Yet to survive as a moral people go when I’m going to die? What’s heaven is as important, maybe more important. like? How can I be saved? Judaism is fo- Far too often people forget this. Geraldine Brooks cused on micro-cosmic issues: How do I Theodore Bikel is an actor and folk singer. learn not to gossip? How do I learn to be When I announced my plans to marry spiritually fulfilled? How do I get an in- a Jew and convert to his religion, every- timate relationship with God? How do I one assumed I was doing it for my fian- Shmuley Boteach create a viable family structure and avoid cé. When I told friends that he greeted divorce? We have mastered certain tenets my decision with bemused indifference, American Jews are phenomenally proud of life that the modern world fails at. We they were baffled: “So if he doesn’t care, of the history and the modern contribu- know how to create passionate marriages. and you don’t believe in God, why on GETTY IMAGES tions of our people. But the biggest mis- We know so much about inspiring chil- earth would you do it?” God, I explained, take the Jews have ever made—and we dren. We have focused on these things as had nothing to do with it. It was about may/june 2010 / moment 37 wrote, I think, was, “You can’t keep Jews Alan Dershowitz moment in jail, they eat lox.” I’ve seen Jews come through an awful lot in my life, especially Being Jewish today includes both a symposium 2010 the Holocaust. In the Army, I suffered positive and a negative element. On a lot of anti-Semitism. Sometimes, I suf- the positive side, Jews have contributed fered a lot of curiosity from southerners: enormously to every aspect of life in the “Mel, what’s a Jew? What do you people world—literary, scientific, legal, medi- history. Since Judaism is passed through eat?” There’s much less stigma attached cal. We tend to be overachievers, leaders the maternal line (a fact I admired for to being Jewish today than there used to and people who exert considerable influ- its hard-headed pragmatism as well as be. But it’s still an excuse for gathering ence on our communities. But this suc- its feminist implications), there was no hate and anti-Semitism. What can we cess continues to breed jealousy. To be way I was going to become the end of a offer the world? We can still offer what a Jew today means always being put on tradition that had made it through Ro- Maimonides and Moses laid down. We the defensive about something, whether man sackings, Babylonian exile, Spanish can offer the law of human behavior. We it’s Israel’s imperfections or the imper- Inquisition, Russian pogroms and the astonishingly were one of the first cul- fections of individual Jews. Being a Jew Shoah. And reciting the ancient He- tures to create this thing called law, what means never being bored, never being brew blessings encourages me to notice is right and what is wrong, based on the able to say that we are completely safe the small gifts of daily life—the dew on tenets of the Old Testament. And, if they and secure and never being able to for- the grass, the new moon, the swift grace want something tasty, we can certainly get the past. As Jews, we must offer the and subtle hues of sparrows. Slow down, offer matzoh brei. world a vision of moral clarity. There is take a minute, bless the bread and be Mel Brooks is a comedian, writer, actor, di- no clearer moral litmus test in the world grateful. This, I tell myself, is what Jews rector and producer. today than attitudes toward Israel. By do. This is who I am. What can we offer defending Israel while being critical of the world? I think of the poem: “Try to Michael Broyde some of its actions, we force the world praise the mutilated world.” The world to confront its bigotry, its imposition of is a tangle of the beautiful and the ugly, Jews have a particular model of think- a double standard on the Jewish state the cruel and the gentle, the funny and ing about the relationship between law and its refusal to confront the oldest of the tragic. We know from the Torah that and ethics from which there is much to prejudices in the newest of guises. it has always been this way and from the learn. Secular law is a white line—you Alan Dershowitz is an author, trial lawyer sages that it is our business to mend it. are either on the legal or the illegal side and professor at Harvard Law School. Geraldine Brooks is the winner of the 2006 of it. Jewish tradition is about shades Pulitzer Prize in fiction for March. of gray. In Judaism, something can be Stephen J. Dubner legal but discouraged, frowned upon Mel Brooks but not prohibited. Medical bioethics is Judaism provides a social, political, his- about shades of gray and is one area in torical and religious blueprint for the I’m part of the generation that changed which Jewish tradition has had an enor- way civilization has unfolded. That’s not their name so they’d get hired. I went mous impact on secular American law. because Judaism was necessarily the best from Kaminsky to Brooks. My mother’s For example, in sharp contrast to the or even the first, but because it is a very name was Brookman. But I couldn’t fit stance taken by the Catholic Church, robust religious tradition that taught the Brookman on the drums. I was a drum- all major Jewish denominations have world what civilization can and should mer. So I got as far as Brook and then put stood in favor of stem cell research, look like. It has informed the way people on an “s.” There was a lot of comedy when provided that it is carried out for medi- have thought for centuries about ven- I was a little kid, street corner comics. We cal or therapeutic purposes. As Jews we geance, guilt, punishment, law and order couldn’t own railroads, so prize fighting can continue to offer the world reason- and justice. Millions of Jews since then and comedy were open to us. We’re still able answers to complex biomedical have done a remarkable job of extending comedians. Maybe because Jews cried and other ethical questions in the name that religious tradition into political, so- for so long, it was time to laugh. Who of religion. cial and moral realms. Marx, Freud and knows? I started in the Borscht Belt Michael Broyde is a rabbi and law professor Einstein, three of the essential intellects with terrible jokes.
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