SPECIAL REPORT AND THE JEWS July 28th 2012

Alive and well

JUDAISM.indd 1 16/07/2012 15:35 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

Alive and well

Judaism is enjoying an unexpected revival, says David Landau. But there are deep religious and political divisions, mostly centred on JUDAISM IS FLOURISHING, both in Israel, where 43% of the world’s CONTENTS Jews now live, and throughout the Jewish diaspora. The Jews as a nation are ourishing too. Israelis, for all their problems, are the 14th-happiest 4 Judaism in the diaspora people in the world, happier than the British or the French, according to a A buet to suit all tastes recent global happiness report commissioned by the UN. In the diaspora Jewish life has never been so free, so prosperous, so unthreatened. 6 Hospitality abroad In America an observant Jew, Senator Joseph Lieberman, ran for An open invitation vice-president in 2000. With Al Gore as candidate for president, 7 Judaism in Israel he nearly made it. His Jewish faith Talmud and cheesecake was no drawback, he says; rather, it appealed to many Christian 8 Israeli politics voters who take their own reli- More Jewish than thou gion seriously. Mr Lieberman and his wife, Hadassah, were dream- 10 Ideological divisions ing of a large suka (a rustic hut Who is a Jew? covered with branches in which 12 Looking ahead Jews eat and entertain during the A Jewish spring? Sukot harvest festival) in the grounds of the vice-president’s residence. We felt we could be ourselves. Had he had gone on to run for the White House, as he hoped, I’d have been observant there, too. Jewish is cool in America, says J.J. Goldberg, a writer. Ce- lebrities used to change their names to hide their Jewish identi- ty. Now they talk on television about how they try to instil Jew- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ish identity into their half-Jewish children. Take [the actress] Gwyneth Many people provided generous help Paltrow. Her father is a descendant of rabbis; her mother is a Protestant in the preparation of this report. In from middle America. She writes in her food blog about her favourite ko- addition to those mentioned in the sher recipes for the seder [the family prayer-dinner celebrating the Pass- text, the author’s sincere thanks go over spring festival]. Seders are popular with non-Jewish people. Bar- to: Marc Baker, Jonathan Boyd, Micha Brumlik, James Carroll, mitzva [the coming-of-age-ceremony] has become stylish, too. Kids see it Maurice Dahan, Noach Dear, Motti on television; they see their friends having itand they want it as well. Friedman, Malcolm Hoenlein, Shahar In the smaller diaspora communities, too, Jews are prospering, Ilan, Howard Jacobson, Laura though there is nowhere quite that same sense of complete, seamless be- Janner-Klausner, Anthony Julius, Matt King, Leya Landau, Orna longing as in America. In Russia and Ukraine, where Judaism and Zion- Landau, Jeremy Leigh, Gideon ism were repressed in communist times, Jews are prominent in business. Licheld, Vernen Lieberman, Ruth Jewish philanthropy is rebuilding community life for those who opted to Liechtenstein, Michael Melchior, stay rather than emigrate to Israel or the West. Jeremy Newmark, Daniella Peled, George Rohr, Thierry Roos, Shmuel Israel and the Jewish diaspora, moreover, are in strong and loyal Rosner, Christian Schuler-Beigang, alignment. Diaspora Jews, broadly speaking, love and cherish Israel. Zalman Shmotkin, Barry Shrage, They support it against its enemies, real and perceived, they back its gov- Lindsay Simmonds, Iz Stein, Roz ernment and they resent its critics. Stein, Dov Waxman, Ra Zarum and Mort Zuckerman. Special thanks to None of this could have been predicted just a few decades ago. Hit- Assaf Uni. ler had wiped out one-third of the Jewish people. A thousand years of A list of sources is at Jewish civilisation in central and eastern Europe had been swept away. Economist.com/specialreports Fortunately for Jewish survival, the Nazis’ nal solution had been pre- An audio interview with ceded by a urry of pogroms across the then-tsarist empire that started the author is at 60 years earlier, sending waves of mass Jewish emigration westward. By Economist.com/audiovideo/ the time Hitler struck, some 6m Jews were safe in North and South Amer- 1 specialreports

2 The Economist July 28th 2012 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

NETHERLANDS 30,000

GERMANY* BRITAIN UKRAINE 119,000 Jewish 292,000 71,500 RUSSIA FRANCE 205,000 population UNITED STATES CANADA 483,500 5,275,000 375,000 By country, 2010 BELGIUM ISRAEL 30,300 ITALY 5,703,700 28,400 HUNGARY 13,580,000 MEXICO 48,600 39,400 World total BRAZIL 95,600 % of whom live in Israel 81 and the United States SOUTH CHILE ARGENTINA AFRICA 20,500 182,300 70,800 *Jews registered with AUSTRALIA *Jewish communities 107,500 By country or region, m 18 16 Israel Asia (Palestine before 1948) 14 North Africa 12 Western Europe South Africa 10 8 Eastern Europe Oceania and Balkans 6 Latin America 4 Former USSR North America 2 Source: ”Jewish Demographic Policies”, by Sergio 0 DellaPergola, The Jewish People Policy Institute 1900 1939 1948 1970 2010

2 ica and in Britain, with 3m more living in the Soviet Union. Holocaust to get President Roosevelt to rescue Jews. Traditional religious learning and observance had been on Sociologists say that Israeland fundraising and lobbying the defensive in central and eastern Europe for 150 years, since on its behalfbecame American Jewry’s secular religion. A political emancipation in parts of the region opened the gates of vocal grassroots campaign to free emigration for Soviet Jewry ghettoes and tradition in the shtetls (small Jewish communities) also attracted wide support, especially among younger Jews. was shaken up. Now the old life was annihilated, along with By the turn of the 21st century, moreover, post-modernism much of modern, liberal Jewish culture. The Sephardic commu- was cocking an unexpected snook both at dogmatic Israeli God- nities of north Africa and the Levant, long a minority within Jew- lessness and at diaspora assimilationism. Post-modernism has ry, gained new numerical signicance. Together with the pitiful- been kind to all religions, says Moshe Halbertal, a philosopher ly few survivors of Nazi-occupied Europe, they became the core living in . Reason was dethroned; there’s no large nar- population of the new state of Israel. rative out there any more. Hyphenated ethnicities and identi- ties encourage people to enjoy and display their diversities in- Ben-Gurion’s error stead of keeping them out of sight. Its founding fathers, socialist-Zionists in the main, thought Many diaspora Jews today still drift out of Judaism or out that the vestiges of the old religion would soon disappear. David of Jewishness, or choose to leave. But many others are con- Ben-Gurion, Israel’s rst prime minister, held that the 2,000 sciously deciding to stay in, choosing one of myriad new ways to years of diasporic Judaism were a deviation from the true full- express their commitment. Exactly what denes Jewishness re- ment of the Jewish ethos. The Talmud (Judaism’s ancient body mains a matter of much debate. This special report will concen- of law and lore) was too casuistic, he felt; the new state must hark trate on those who formally identify with the faith (see table 1, back to the Bible. But he agreed to exempt a few hundred Talmud next page, for the main denominations), but in Israel even the students from army service, condent they were a dying breed. non-religious are inuenced by Jewish culture and mores. Before the Holocaust, Zionism, the movement for Jewish Jewish Orthodoxy has come surging back. Early marriages independence in Palestine, had to struggle for Jewish popular and high birth rates have produced a demographic explosion support. Now it was vindicated, at least in its own eyes. But some among the ultra-Orthodox haredim (God-fearers). This has Jews, especially in America, were still not convinced. Israel, ght- pumped up their numbers, compensating for the steady outow ing for its survival, ooded by destitute immigrants, looked pre- from active Judaism caused by assimilation. The overall total of carious to them. In America assimilation was the watchword. At- Jews worldwide is somewhat higher than it was 40 years ago tenuated forms of religious practice that originated in 19th- (see chart above). By conservative estimates, one in ten Jews is century were embraced by the upwardly mobile now haredi. The modern-Orthodox account for another 10%. children and grandchildren of the immigrant generation. Many Israelis like to think of themselves as traditional. American Jews’ standoshness towards their Jewish na- But even the avowedly secular live Jewish lives, and indeed reli- tionhood shifted sharply after the six-day war in 1967. The collec- gious lives, in many subliminal ways; and Israel increasingly ra- tive experience of fear, and then relief and jubilation, produced diates its national, cultural and religious Jewishness into the an outpouring of solidarity with the beleaguered Jewish state. diaspora communities. Mixed in with these emotions was a sense of unease, even guilt, Following the collapse of the peace process with the Pales- over the ineectiveness of American Jewish lobbying during the tinians in 2000 and the violent intifada (uprising) that followed, 1

The Economist July 28th 2012 3 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

Articles of faith 1 Main Jewish denominations Source of Authority of religious the Torah* law (halacha) Ritual and practice Zionism and Israel Definition of Jewishness Ultra-Orthodox Dictated by God All God-inspired Minutely regulated by halacha Originally opposed to Zionism Jewish mother, or converted by (haredi) to Moses and thus immutable and therefore unchanging, but most now accept Israel. ritual immersion, circumcision (males), though emphasis may shift Significant immigration to Israel accepting the mitzvot† Modern- As above As above but As above, but some scholars See Zionism as a divine manifestation As above, but accepting the mitzvot Orthodox interpreted are pushing for change, and Israel as religiously significant. interpreted more flexibly more flexibly especially regarding women Substantial immigration Conservative Inspired by God Binding but being Halacha significantly modernised; Support Zionism and Israel. As above, but mitzvot commitment but interpreted continuously developed women and gay rabbis; ritual Not much immigration interpreted much more flexibly by humans by rabbis non-discriminatory Reform As Conservative No longer binding, Early radical changes but Originally opposed to Zionism. Jewish mother or father. For converts, except for its recent restoration of some Reversed position in mid-20th some rabbis require immersion and ethical aspects rituals and practices century. Not much immigration circumcision but not mitzvot acceptance

Source: The Economist *First five books of the Old Testament †Religious precepts

2 Israeli political attitudes have palpably hardened. In theory, all icism to anti-Semitism, which is rising again. Israeli mainstream parties are committed to a two-state sol- Arthur Green, a scholar of Jewish mysticism and a profes- ution; in practice, the growing modern-Orthodox settler move- sor at a rabbinical school in Boston, blames Israel’s policy and ment in the West Bank spearheads a government policy of occu- American Jewry’s blanket support for it for the fact that lots and pation without end. To sustain and justify that policy, a stridently lots of thinking Jews are walking away. And then we say, well, nationalistic Zeitgeist is evolving. In the absence of progress to- they’re not committed Jews anyway, so who cares about them? wards peace, that may be inevitable. Perhaps it is inevitable, too, The accusation that Israeli hawkishness turns young dias- that it is winning the soul of diaspora Jewry. pora Jews o their Judaism and their Jewishness has been tren- chantly advanced by Peter Beinart, a journalist in Washington, Our kind of peace DC. It has caused huge controversy among American Jewry. But Doubtless most members of a non-Orthodox in many other experts deny the causal link. Jews, especially youn- suburban Connecticut, like most Israelis and diaspora Jews, ones, have been dropping out in large numbers for years, Mr would tell pollsters that they support peace and two states. The Eisen points out. As their attachment to Judaism weakens, so atmosphere there on a recent Sunday could hardly have been does their commitment to Israel. Those who criticise Israel and more civilised. Jews, Christians and Muslims munched hot dogs incur the community’s wrath care at least as much as those who and coleslaw together before setting out to clean up the neigh- try to silence them. Love has a voice, he insists. 7 bourhood park. The rabbi spoke words of appropriate interfaith inspiration. In the library the synagogue sta had spread carpets on the oor for the Muslims to pray. Judaism in the diaspora In the corridor outside this temporary mosque, two Mus- lim schoolboys read the Israeli declaration of independence: We extend our hand of peace and unity to all the neighbouring A buet to suit all states and their peoples. It was displayed alongside a map of the region. No Gaza, one noted. No West Bank either, his brother tastes added. A synagogue warden explained later that the map was biblical, not political. The prevailing political sentiment in Jewry today is of ag- But please don’t leave the restaurant gressive defensiveness, a curious amalgam of victimhood and intolerance. Dissent about Israel is discouraged and often gagged THE OLD DEMARCATION lines that have long dened Ju- outright. Among British Jewry, some 300,000 strong, a positive- daism are becoming obsolete. People rightly speak of today ly McCarthyite atmosphere has been created, says Jonathan as a golden age for Judaism in America, yet the two largest de- Freedland, a political columnist. People are frightened to say nominations, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism, both what they feel. In America honest discussion about Israel is relatively liberal, are shrinking. largely shut down, notes Arnold Eisen, a historian and chancel- The Conservatives, who accounted for more than half of lor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, a rabbinical school in all synagogue-aliated Jews only a few decades ago, do not New York. Some rabbis will speak their mindsbut people bother to deny it. An atmosphere of decline is palpable in some don’t want to ght and there is a disinclination to argue about Is- of their . The Reform, with some 1.1m fee-paying rael. The right says you’re giving aid and comfort to the enemy if members and another million-odd who they say identify them- you say anything critical about any Israeli policy. Given Israel’s selves as such, do deny it. They have tried hard to fudge the g- power and diaspora Jewry’s strength and inuence, that seems ures, changing the rules to accept those born of a Jewish father paradoxical. and a Gentile mother as full-edged Jews and welcoming mixed Resurgent religious faith is deeply caught up in this. Nation- Jewish-Gentile couples into their congregations. But Steven Co- alism, xenophobia and Judaism blur and merge. Jews nd them- hen, a professor of sociology at the Reform’s own Hebrew Un- selves out of step with most of world opinion, which heightens a ion College, thinks that both the big liberal movements are los- widespread sense of apprehensiveness. Iran’s threats and nuc- ing more than 1% of their members each year. lear pretensions provide a focus for these feelings. Diaspora Jew- Both had their roots in 19th-century Germany. In America ish leaders insist that Israel is misunderstood. They attribute crit- Conservatism became the bridge on which millions of immi- 1

4 The Economist July 28th 2012 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

2 grants and their children moved from the traditional Orthodoxy members. But Mr Cohen insists 2 of eastern Europe to forms of worship more in tune with their Be fruitful that those are the exceptions. new homeland. Men and women prayed together. Liturgy was Mean number of children He’s looking at the cream of judiciously revised. References to the biblical cult of animal sac- per woman aged 35-44 the crop. In fact, only 15-20% of Jews in New York, 2011 rices were excised. In the 1950s, with the great Jewish exodus to intermarried families ever join the suburbs, the Conservative rabbis ruled that it was permissi- By denomination, % a synagogue. And most of ble to drive to synagogue on the Sabbath, though nowhere else. 0246 them are less actively Jewish. They insisted, and still insist, that Conservatism is governed by Ultra- 22 The none category in- Orthodox halacha, the system of Jewish law based on the Talmud. But they cludes many who don’t care, Modern- 10 insist, too, that halacha must change with the times. Orthodox but also some who do. In the The Conservatives are particularly vulnerable because newly chic London suburb of Non-Orthodox 68 they’re middle-of-the-road, says Samuel Heilman of City Uni- Willesden, for instance, a group All Jewish 100 versity of New York, so they’re hit by trac from both direc- households of unaliated young Jews re- tions. Some Conservatives move to Reform or drop out alto- cently spent Friday night and Source: Jewish Community gether. Others move to Orthodoxy. Still others join alternative Study of New York, 2011 Saturday together in a Cre- (prayer groups), unaliated congregations oering re- ative Tela [prayer] . laxed and novel forms of worship and study. Mr Cohen speaks The venue was a Moishe of a most marvellous eervescence of Jewish innovative com- House, one of a network of such residential centres in America munities, led in large part by Conservative-trained rabbis. and Europe set up by an American philanthropist to encourage Reform was originally all for ditching halacha. Some of its nonconformist Jewish activism. The food was kosher, vegan and congregations even moved the Sabbath to Sunday to t in with entirely delectable. Worship was relaxed, participatory and orig- the Christian world around them. It cut out references to Zion inal. At one point a young man lay on his back on the oor, lan- and to Jewish nationhood. Zion was everywhererst in Ger- guidly kicking his legs in the air. He turned out to be both knowl- many, and later in America. Yet Reform has gone a long way back edgeable and committed, a trainee rabbi and professional on itself. After the Holocaust and the creation of Israel it em- educator. braced Zionism, which implied that the Jews were a nation after The two young women organisers of the event had taken a all. And in recent years traditional forms and practices have creative prayer course at a Conservative kibbutz in Israel. Next made their way back into Reform synagogues (or temples). morning, instead of the usual weekly Torah reading, they acted There is now so much bobbing and bowing before the Ark, out sections of the text in an entertaining but thought-provoking one old-school Reform rabbi wrote snily, and hugging and way. We’re living in an age of pick-and-choose, says Amichai kissing of the Scrolls of the Law to happy-clappy guitar accompa- Lau-Lavie, a young Israeli teacher and actor who devised this niment, that a casual visitor might imagine that he had wan- storytelling technique. The Orthodox say Judaism’s not a buf- dered by mistake into some transplanted Polish shtiebel [prayer fet. Well, guess what: Judaism is a buet. But most people are not room] from 200 years ago. informed enough consumers to make choices. My job as a guide Despite Conservative and Reform eorts to stop the slide, is to provide a really great buet. Then the next step is how to the largest religious denomination among American Jews today move from ‘I want to’ to ‘I feel obliged to’. Mr Lau-Lavie, who 1 is none, and it is getting larger. The same is true among Christians, Mr Cohen points out. The unchurched are growing; the religious surge has peaked. The winds of America are blowing in a more secular direction, especially in the blue [Demo- crat] states, where Jews live. Blue states are Jew states Marrying out Sociologists link the rise in non-al- iation among Jews to the steep increase in Jewish-Gentile intermarriage in recent de- cades. Intermarriage has changed the face of US Jewry, says Leonard Saxe, a professor of contemporary Jewish studies at Brandeis University, near Boston. Mr Cohen has shown that intermarried cou- ples are statistically less likely to bring up their children as Jews. In Reform congre- gations, half of families leave after their last child’s bar-mitzva, he says. Part of the reason is that a high proportion are in- termarried; their commitment to the syn- agogue is more tenuous. Rabbi Jonah Pesner, senior vice-pres- ident of America’s Union for Reform Ju- daism, says that some intermarried cou- ples are among a synagogue’s most active At home in New York

The Economist July 28th 2012 5 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

An open invitation

Chabad houses make Jews welcome wherever they go ON THE 19TH of Kislev in 1798, Rabbi ally hosts the biggest seder on Earth for Shneur Zalman of Liadi, a Hasidic leader, 2,000 young Jewish backpackers. was released from prison in St Petersburg. In America almost every city and He had been arrested on charges of trea- university campus has a Chabad house. The son, laid by Jews who opposed the nascent movement has become a powerful force in movement of Hasidism (a mystical variety Jewish life. Many people, Jews or Gentiles, of Orthodox Judaism) as a heresy. In who know little or nothing about Judaism Phnom Penh on the 19th of Kislev last year, have bumped into a Chabad emissary some- a dozen Jews celebrated the 214th Festi- where. They look haredi in their beards and val of Redemption at the home of Bent- black hats, and they claim to be haredi in zion and Mashie Butman, the shluchim their observance and beliefs. But Chabad is (emissaries) of Chabad in Cambodia. tolerant, whereas the hallmark of haredism Chabad is a Hebrew acronym for is intolerance towards non-observant Jews. wisdom, understanding and knowledge, Chabad preaches love for all, and practises attributes of the Divine upon which Rabbi what it preaches. Shneur Zalman constructed his Hasidic The shluchim urge people to follow the system of contemplation. His son and religious precepts but, crucially, they don’t successor moved his court to the village stop loving them if they don’t. These of Lubavitch. The seventh and last Luba- people have given my son a life, a (non- vitcher (spiritual leader), Menachem observant) Wall Street banker said of a Mendel Schneerson, died childless in New Chabad couple in his home town in Connect- York in 1994. Many of his followers thought icut who run a friendship circle for children he was the Messiah. The Butmans still do. with special needs. He’s got friends. He’s The Butmans’ colonial-style home going to have a bar-mitzva. doubles as the Phnom Penh Chabad Steven Cohen, the Reform-aliated housea synagogue, a restaurant, a sociologist, notes wryly that with its 3,200 library, a place where Jews can come and shluchim in America alone, and another socialise. There are Chabad houses wherev- 2,000 around the world, Chabad packs a er Jews live and, as in Phnom Penh, in more powerful evangelical punch than all places where they don’t live but might the members of all the non-Orthodox visit. In Katmandu in Nepal, Chabad annu- rabbinical associations combined.

2 lives in New York, is preparing to return to his homelandas Isra- many disciplines and their ignorance of Judaism. For the vast el’s rst openly gay rabbi. majority Jewish education is conned to a few hours a week and A huge and hugely successful pick-and-choose buet that ends at age 13, after bar-(or bat-, for girls) mitzva. has evolved in recent years is Limmud (literally: learning)study Orthodox (and certainly ultra-Orthodox) children almost seminars lasting a day, a weekend or a week for Jews of all de- all attend Jewish day schools, at least at the elementary level. nominations or none. The idea was conceived by young British These are expensive, but Orthodox families scrimp and sacrice, Jews 30 years ago. Today, more than 3,000 people pay to attend and their communities provide bursaries for children whose British Limmud’s annual winter seminar on a university campus families cannot aord the full fees. Many liberal Jews still see sec- in the Midlands. Dozens of lecturers y in from Israel and Ameri- tarian day schools as somehow un-American, and the relatively ca to bolster the local talent. Subjects range from traditional tex- few Conservative and non-denominational day schools have tual study to art, theatre, literature, Israeli politics, an- seen a drop in enrolment since the 2008 nancial crisis. But the cient Jewish music and Torah chanting. Britain’s Chief best ones are ourishing. Rabbinate, a sternly Orthodox body, frowns on Limmud because If intermarriage is the yardstick for measuring Jewish com- it hosts non-Orthodox rabbis. But Limmud has become British mitmentand for most sociologists it isthe impact of Jewish Jewry’s proudly celebrated contribution to modern post-de- day schools is undeniable. The National Jewish Population Sur- nominational Judaism, emulated in Jewish communities vey 2000-01, commissioned by the Jewish Federations of North around the world. America, the main umbrella organisation for the community, Another growth area of Jewish learning is the spread of found that 43% of Jews who had no Jewish education intermar- Jewish studies programmes in universities, particularly in Amer- ried. Among those who went to Sunday school, the proportion ica. Formerly conned to a handful of divinity schools, Jewish dropped to 29%, and among those who attended Jewish day studies are now part of almost every American university’s cur- school to 7%although part of the reason may be that the Ortho- riculum. Of some 350,000 Jewish students on American cam- dox, who almost all go to day schools, are the least likely to inter- puses, says Mr Saxe, a quarter or more take Jewish studies marry anyway because they still see marrying out as a sin. Still, courses at some point in their college careers. But these hardly in Australia and South Africa, where day schools are the norm in make for a learned or even literate laity. There is huge incongru- Jewish communities, intermarriage rates are signicantly lower ity between the sophistication of so many American Jews in so than in America. 7

6 The Economist July 28th 2012 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

Judaism in Israel a modern, pluralistic Israeli Judaism. Earlier this year a party of faculty and students from the He- brew University of Jerusalem’s ancient-history department Talmud and cheesecake toured the Peloponnese. Out of 35 people, only one person, a woman, was observant, reports Alex Yakobson, a senior lectur- er. Yet the entire group agreed without any argument to leave ancient Olympia, the most important place we visited, and get back to the hotel before sundown on Friday. And then this over- Israel is moving towards a more pluralistic Judaism whelmingly secular group decided that we wanted to have a ka- balat Shabbat [welcoming the Sabbath] service. At home we TO SEE JUST how well Judaism is doing in Israel, you could don’t do it, but abroad it seemed right somehow. The observant have strolled around the galleries of the Museum woman couldn’t lead the prayers, of course, in our chauvinistic of Art on May 26th this year, the festival of Shavuot (which com- religion. So we chose a male student to be our ‘rabbi’. He put on a memorates God’s gift of the Torah to the Jewish people). Be- hat and started reading the texts from his laptopSomeone had tween midnight and dawn hundreds of people, almost all of got wine, and there were sort of challot [plaited loaves] and them secular, milled about, programme in hand, choosing be- everyone sangOf course it wasn’t strictly traditional. But what tween lectures on ecology, mythology, modern Israeli literature, we were doing was part of our Israeli culture. Modern Hebrew art and photography. There were also a few talks on Talmud and culture and the Hebrew language itself are all Judaism, all Jew- one on God. The night ended with a piano recital. ishness. Religion and tradition are obviously a major part of the It was a far cry from the traditional Shavuot night service, culture. A culture can’t retroactively change its sources. And called tikkun, which is hundreds of years old. That involved recit- most Israelis don’t want it to. ing holy texts and studying Talmud all night, then praying at sun- Dr Yakobson’s insights are doubly signicant because he is rise on Shavuot to celebrate the handing down of the ten com- a prominent intellectual voice from within the Russian-Israeli mandments on Mount Sinai. community. My parents were the product of their parents’ as- A couple of miles down the road, in the all-haredi town of similation, he says. My grandmother claimed she’d forgotten Bnei Brak, ultra-Orthodox Israelismen onlywere doing the her Yiddish. But she never for a moment denied her Jewishness. Most of the Russian-Israeli commu- nity, now more than a million strong, ar- In a survey of religious beliefs and practices among rived in the 1990s, after the collapse of Jewish Israelis, 46% dened themselves as secular, but communism. From 1991to 1999 there was a certain decline in attachment to Jewish only 16% said they did not observe tradition at all tradition and religion, apparently under the impact of the mass immigration from tikkun in the old way. All around the country, groupsmostly va- the former Soviet Union, the 2009 survey notes. From 1999 to rious shades of Orthodox but some secular toogathered for the 2009 there was an increase in this attachment. nocturnal study session. In Jerusalem thousands streamed to The Russian immigrants are purposefully assimilating into the western wall at dawn. In Tel Aviv there were prayers on the Israeli society, says Dr Yakobson, and tradition-based behaviour beach. A few years ago no one apart from the ultra-Orthodox is part of that assimilation. That also applies, he maintains, to had even heard of tikkun. Shavuot for most Israelis was the festi- some 300,000 of them who are not recognised as Jewish under val when people eat cheesecake. Israeli law. The law is based on the Orthodox denition of a Jew Today there’s Jewishness on the television, on the radio, in as someone born of a Jewish mother or converted to Judaism. music, dance and theatre. There never used to be. That’s the mea- However, it enabled these people to immigrate and to acquire sure of our success, says Ruth Calderon, founder of Alma, the immediate Israeli citizenship if they were the children, grand- group that organises the learn-in at the museum and serves as a children or spouses of full-edged Jews. Some of the younger centre of Jewish studies in Tel Aviv all year round. Ms Calderon ones go through conversion during their army service. But most focuses on writers, artists and musicians. I believe in elites, she adults cannot convert, and do not want to, because the civilian says. Through them we’re reaching the mainstream. A PhD in Chief Rabbinate, a statutory body, insists that converts must 1 Talmud, she is determinedly secular. Israeli youngsters know their Bible, she says. But Ben-Gurion robbed us of the Talmud’s 3 wisdom. Growing up here I didn’t know my own culture. Now Faith in numbers people are more open, curious, ready to listen. Israeli Jews’ self-defined religiosity 1991 1999 2009 In a survey of religious beliefs and practices among Jewish and observance of tradition Israelis conducted in 2009, 46% dened themselves as secular, How would you define yourself from To what extent do you observe but only 16% said they did not observe tradition at all. Even that a religious perspective? % tradition? % gure was probably too high, the researchers found. Only 6% 01020304050 01020304050 said that circumcision was not important to them, and only 10% Ultra- Orthodox Meticulously had no time for the Passover seder. Around 70% of the respon- dents said they eat only kosher food. Most observe the Sabbath, Orthodox To a great extent though only a third of the total meticulously, and most do not Traditional favour imposing those restrictions on others. An amazing 20% To some Secular, not extent said they attended all-night study sessions on Shavuot. anti-religious All this could mean either that Israel is getting more reli- Secular, Not at all (totally secular) gious, beyond the demographic increase in the Orthodox and ul- anti-religious Source: The Guttman Centre for Surveys tra-Orthodox; or that the old dichotomy between the secular Data gallery Economist.com/guttmancharts and the religious is eroding as people pick and choose to develop : More from the Guttman report

The Economist July 28th 2012 7 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

2 henceforth adopt an Orthodox lifestyle. Israeli politics But they, too, want to be successfully absorbed in Israeli society, says Dr Yakobson. They are prevented from marrying full-edged Jews in Israel, because the rabbinate has a monopoly More Jewish than thou over marriages. So what do they do? They hop over to Cyprus for a civil marriage, and that’s legally acceptable. And they hate the rabbis. But hating the rabbis is an integral part of Israeli Jewish culture. Lots of young Israelis, full-edged Jews, hate the rabbis too, and get married in Cyprus too. Hating the rabbinate is part of The political and the religious right are making these people’s assimilation into Israeli society and culture. The biggest reason by far for hating rabbis, though, is the common cause draft. The 400 Talmud students whom Ben-Gurion exempted AN ICONIC MOMENT in Israeli politics, captured by the from army service have grown to 110,000 able-bodied haredi TV cameras in October 1997, showed Binyamin Netanyahu, men who have served neither in the regular army nor in the re- then in his rst term as prime minister, leaning towards Yitzhak serves. Each year another 6,000-odd haredi yeshiva (Talmudic Keddouri, a venerable kabbalistic sage (both pictured below) seminary) students reach the age of 18 and join the ranks of the and speaking into his ear. The microphones could not quite draft-dodgers. That gure already represents 13% of the Jewish make out his words, but an alert reporter lip-read them: The left- male age group (Arab-Israelis are also exempt from the draft) and ists have forgotten what it means to be Jewish. The aged rabbi is set to grow fast: among Jewish schoolchildren, 26% of rst- seemed to smile in assent. graders are haredi. Their schools focus on religious learning: even Rabbi Keddouri has since died and Mr Netanyahu is back as basic subjects such as maths and English get short shrift. prime minister, much chastened and matured. He now avoids Under the present law, draft-dodging becomes a way of life giving gratuitous oence and shields his mouth when whisper- because the dodger must remain full-time in his yeshiva and is ing in people’s ears. But his political prole remains the same: he not allowed to work. Unemployment among haredi men ex- presides over a rightist-religious coalition. ceeds 60%. The rest of the population shoulders the tax burden Following in the footsteps of Menachem Begin, the rst Li- of supporting the increasingly impoverished haredi community. kud party prime minister (1977-83), Mr Netanyahu has welded an But perhaps not for much longer. The High Court of Justice alliance of three distinct ideological groups: his own Revisionist- has ruled that the draft discrimination is unconstitutional and Zionist party, together with the rightist Russian immigrant party, has given the government until the end of this month to bring in Yisrael Beitenu; the Orthodox-Zionists, who have spawned the new, more equitable legislation. A parliamentary committee, settler movement on the West Bank; and the haredim, or ultra- boycotted by the haredi parties, has drawn up proposals for new Orthodox, the fastest-growing sector in Israeli society. legislation under which only the best Talmud studentsto be se- Mr Netanyahu calls his tripartite alliance the national lected by the yeshiva deanswould continue to receive generous camp and implies that it is not only more patriotic than the 1 state support and remain exempt. Goodbye to the life of contemplation For Mr Netanyahu, anxious not to forfeit his long-time alli- ance with the haredim, that plan is too radical. He wants a gen- tler, more gradual process of haredi enlistment, spread over a de- cade. Last week that lost him the support of Kadima, the largest opposition party, which had joined his government only in May and stormed out again on July 17th, accusing him of kowtowing to the haredim. Whatever the precise timing, some form of haredi draft is on its way. The army already runs special haredi-friendly units for the small but growing number who choose to leave the yeshi- vas and enlist. Ultra-kosher food is served and no women sol- diers are in sight. An all-haredi computer unit in the air force en- ables Talmudic whizz-kids to show high-tech potential. For the yeshivas, some of which are lucrative family busi- nesses, the reform would eventually mean drastic downsizing. But behind the haredi outrage there is grudging recognition that the society of learners cannot continue to grow indenitely. A community of 850,000-900,000 people must pull its own eco- nomic weight. A credible reform of the haredi draft would be a big step to- wards breaking down the secular-religious division in Israeli society. Even today, both camps are slowly moving towards greater mutual tolerance. Until recently the day of rest was often a day of battle as haredim sought to impose their rigid form of Sabbath-observance on the rest of the population, closing roads and stoning cinemas. Now they have all-haredi towns of their own and large, homogenous suburbs, so they have less reason to interfere with other people’s way of life. Conversely, there are now so many haredim that the rest can no longer ignore them. 7 A word in your ear

8 The Economist July 28th 2012 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

2 peace camp (meaning mainly those in opposition) but also impacts my identity as a Jew 4 somehow more Jewish. He has deftly subsumed into his politi- Scary and I am diminished by that. cal message not just Jewish nationalism but Judaism itself. His % of those surveyed agreeing For Menachem Lorber- settler allies, moreover, have developed a messianic theology with anti-Semitic stereotypes baum, chair of the Graduate based on a fundamentalist reading of the Bible which sets the 2009 2012 School of Philosophy at Tel conquest and settlement of the land above all else and promises 020406080 Aviv University, Israel’s victim- direct divine succour to achieve them. These teachings have Hungary hood politics is the very an- subtly penetrated and inuenced much broader swathes of Isra- tithesis of Zionism and also el’s politics and culture. Spain profoundly un-Jewish. Nei- The conation of hawkishness and Jewishness is in evi- Poland ther Bibi [Mr Netanyahu] nor dence in the diaspora, too, where it blurs criticism of Israel’s oc- Austria Barak [Ehud Barak, the defence cupation policy with anti-Semitism. If anti-Israel equals anti- minister] know anything Semitic (ie, anti-Jewish), then Israel, and specically the occupa- France about Judaism, and I don’t see tion policy being criticised, equals Jewish. QED. Germany them as spokespeople for what The strong point of this argument is that anti-Semitism, vi- Britain Judaism is or ought to beThe cious and irrational, is rising once more, especially in Europe (see state of Israel doesn’t own Ju- chart 4). In Hungary it has become particularly virulent; Jews United States * daismIsrael is the greatest there fear for their physical safety. Anti-Semitism comes in neo- Source: Anti-Defamation League *2011 opportunity to exercise sover- Nazi and hard-left varieties, and of late it has been embraced by eignty for the purpose of creat- Muslim groups too. Anti-Semites are usually anti-Israel; many ing a viable and sustainable oppose Israel’s very existence. Jewish society. But it’s also the greatest seductionthe seduction Moreover, Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to dene Jewish as a political categoryOf course being the vic- both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic, and a Holocaust denier to boot. tim gives you lots of points. ‘They’re out to destroy us’ is a knock- His government is working hard to obtain the means to imple- down argument. But what it does is to legitimise unbridled use ment his threats to annihilate the Jewish state. of power. For the Israeli right, and for many Jewish communal lead- Tal Becker, an Israeli diplomat and scholar, worries that Is- ers in the diaspora, an undierentiated axis of evil extends from raeli policiesboth peace policy and domestic policy which re- the Iranians to the Palestinians and on to anti-Semitic thugs on jects non-Orthodox Judaismare leading to schism within Jew- European streets. Rising anti-Semitism is lumped together with ry. Among Jews whose Jewishness is important to them, the growing criticism of Israeli policy and hyped by Mr Netanyahu’s fault line is between those for whom being Jewish is about the government into what it calls a campaign for the delegitima- survival of Israel and for whom Orthodoxy is the authentic form tion of Israel. of Judaism, and those who have a very diverse, pluralistic ex- The advantage of this tactic is that any critic, whether Jew pression of their Judaism. The preoccupation of so many Israeli or Gentile, can be dismissed as a delegitimiser and hence an anti- Jews with survival, and not with the reasons why survival is im- Semite. The much deeper disadvantage is that it fosters paranoia portant, has alienated them from Jews who feel our survival is towards the Palestinians, with whom Isra- el needs to come to terms if it is to survive as a Jewish and democratic state. In right- For the Israeli right, an undi erentiated axis of evil ist-religious circles, even to point out this extends from the Iranians to the Palestinians and on to drawback is beginning to be dubbed anti- Jewish and anti-God. anti-Semitic thugs on European streets One Jewish voice that has been heard questioning the dominant Zeitgeist is that of Mick Davis, not at risk, who feel disenchanted with IsraelFor many Jews the long-time chief executive of Xstrata, an international mining the tension between supporting Israel and having liberal values giant. Born in South Africa, he serves as chairman of the Jewish is becoming less sustainable. Leadership Council, a British-Jewish umbrella organisation, and This fusion of Orthodoxy with what Mr Becker calls controversially gave warning in late 2010 that Israel risked be- death-narrative nationalism is the underpinning of Mr Netan- coming an apartheid state unless it negotiated peace with the yahu’s political success. Mr Becker voices the conventional liber- Palestinians. He has since bowed to pressure to pipe down in al wisdom when he accepts that they constitute a package deal public (though he denies having done so), conning himself to instead of prising them apart. Arguably, this refusal of the liberal encouraging peacenik Jewish dissidents not to turn their backs left to distinguish between the two very dierent strains within on the mainstream community. Orthodoxy is tragically short-sighted. If the prime minister of Israel wants to speak for the Jew- ish people, he says, then he must articulate the values of the The fear of God Jewish people, and he doesn’t do that. Settlements can’t possibly As long as haredism was small and weak, in Israel and in be the values of the Jewish people. The Jewish people place great the diaspora, it could be dismissed as irrelevant. Reluctant to co- emphasis on life, on how they interact with their fellow men. operate with pollsters for fear of the evil eye, haredim have How can building settlements willy-nilly be Jewish values sim- been undercounted for decades. But last month a new report ply because you say there’s a mitzva [religious precept] to occupy commissioned by the UJA-Federation of New York, the leading the land? communal philanthropic organisation, showed that of the esti- But are his Jewish values not diasporic values? Then Israel mated 1.5m Jews in greater New York, including Nassau, Suolk is just a state for Israelis, he retorts. Israel is as much our project and Westchester, 22% are haredi and 10% modern-Orthodox. Giv- as it’s the project of Israelis. The whole history of the Jews has en the haredi birth rateat least three times that associated with been a constant struggle to meet the values that we think are im- non-Orthodox New Yorkersthe haredi proportion is growing mutableWhen Israel doesn’t struggle to meet them, then that rapidly. The report suggests that perhaps not enough poor hare- 1

The Economist July 28th 2012 9 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

2 dim take advantage of the services the UJA-Federation oers. Ha- daughters of Our Patriarch Abraham, redi activists have long claimed that their community does not the term traditionally used to describe get its fair share of welfare services. Most New York haredim, un- converts to Judaism. Naomi’s mother died like most Israeli ones, work for their living, but only 11% of them when the family was still in Russia, and contribute to the UJA-Federation. her Jewish ancestry was unclear. The ye- A century ago the haredi rabbis of Poland and Russia took a shiva rabbis required the bride to undergo generally jaundiced view of Zionism, which was then just start- a conversion ceremony, which involves ing up. They thought God would restore his people to the Holy immersion in a ritual bath and a solemn Land in his own good time. But as the Zionist enterprise in Pales- commitment to accept the yoke of mitz- tine began to grow, so did a pragmatic streak within haredism vot [religious precepts]. that wanted to join in. A haredi minister served in Ben-Gurion’s Almost everybody in the Beit Zion rst government. Hard-core recalcitrants continue to see Israel as community is Russian, as are most of the sinfully presumptuous, but the majority have come to terms 200,000-odd Jews in Germany today. with it. Unlike the modern-Orthodox, though, the haredim have After further study, Naftali will become a not become messianic. They still have theological misgivings rabbi in a German provincial town. He about Zionism, and certainly about Zionist expansionism. and his wife will be the only observant Hence, they pointedly do not settle deep in the Palestinian Jews in the town, says Rabbi Joshua Spin- territories. Two large haredi settlements, Ilit and Modi’in ner, Beit Zion’s director. Ilit, are situated, by order of the rabbis, just over the 1967 border, The original Rabbinerseminar zu on land that would probably be annexed to Israel in a negotiated Berlin was founded by Rabbi Esriel Hil- peace with the Palestinians. They ought to be part of the peace desheimer in 1873. It was intended as be- camp, alongside the Israeli doves and the diaspora Jewish liber- leaguered German Orthodoxy’s answer als. They are not there, mainly, because the liberals’ pluralism to the Jüdisch-Theologische Seminar in stops when it comes to the haredim. They are seen as fundamen- Breslau (now Wroclaw, in Poland), the cru- talist, fanatical, misogynist and determined to impose their cul- cible of Conservative Judaism, and the Hochschule für die Wis- ture and values upon the majority. senschaft des Judentums, the Reform rabbinical seminary, also The haredim do their bit to fan these prejudices. They prefer in Berlin. Rabbi Hildesheimer’s seminary ordained modern-Or- to live apart, and for the most part they show contempt for the thodox rabbis who served communities throughout Europe. Its less Orthodox and loathing for the avowedly non-Orthodox. It is basic outlook was that although Jewish law, the halacha, was im- the anti-haredi prejudices on the left that help sustain Mr Netan- mutable, it had to be couched in contemporary language. yahu’s coalition of all the Orthodox with the hardline right. Two Today the reconstituted Rabbinerseminar walks the same centuries after the breakdown of traditional religious authority, delicate path between haredism and modernity. The funding Jews are still ercely ghting for each other’s hearts and minds. comes mainly from the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, which has Only now the prize is not a rabbinical appointment in some helped to bring about a modest renaissance of Jewish life in Ger- shtetl but the political direction of a powerful sovereign state. many and central and eastern Europe. An early practitioner of Thanks to liberal arrogance and haredi disdain, the settlers’ mes- post-denominational Judaism, the foundation supports every sianic nationalism is increasingly setting the tone. 7 kind of Jewish education. For their part, the newcomers have breathed new life into once-great Jewish communities. We are not Orthodox, says Ideological divisions Beatrisa Kirschner, a young Jewish immigrant from Moldova who lives with her extended family in Mainz. But we are tradi- tional. The religion was repressed in the Soviet Union. Now the Who is a Jew? old people like my grandad want to have it again. Ms Kirschner’s 98-year-old grandfather likes to spend his days in the striking new synagogue in Mainz, which replaced one built a century ago and destroyed by the Nazis. The prayer books are in Hebrew with Russian translation. Ms Kirschner’s mother, a nurse, is on the synagogue council, and her young son will at- It’s less obvious than you might think tend the religion classes. The synagogue’s president, Stella Schin- ON THE SECOND day of the month of Nissan in the year dler-Sigereich, grew up in nearby Worms. Who would have 5772 according to the manner in which we count here in the thought I’d be a synagogue president? Community of Berlin, the bridegroom, Naftali son of Aaron, said Speyer, Worms and Mainz, the Shum communities in the to Naomi daughter of Our Patriarch Abraham, ‘Be my wife ac- Hebrew acronym, were an important centre of medieval Jewish cording to the law of Moses and Israel, and I will work, honour, scholarship. In Speyer visitors can see a perfectly preserved 12th- feed and support thee in the custom of Jewish men who work, century Jewish ritual bath in the grounds of the restored Jewish honour, feed and support their wives faithfully’ quarter, in the shadow of the huge Romanesque cathedral. In the The ancient Aramaic formula of the Jewish wedding con- centre of Worms, unaccountably intact, lies a large Jewish cem- tract (ketuba) rang out across the agstones of the old east Berlin etery. The Hebrew gravestones, clearly legible, go back to the 11th courtyard on a Sunday afternoon in March. The little congrega- century. The state of Rhineland-Palatinate is applying to UNES- tion, the men in hats or skullcaps, the women in modest head- CO to have the three ancient Jewish communities recognised as covers, looked on lovingly. Two of their own were tying the knot: a World Heritage Site. Naftali a student at the Rabbinerseminar zu Berlin, Naomi a stu- The revival of Jewish life among some of the Russian Jews dent at the Women’s Midrasha, both of them members of the in Germany has been an important corrective for thinking Israe- learning community of Yeshivat Beit Zion. lis. In the 1980s and 1990s, when Jews streamed out of the Soviet Among the wedding party were several other sons and Union, their exit visas all citing Israel as their destination, Israel 1

10 The Economist July 28th 2012 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

ry’s interdenominational warfare. Non- Many of Orthodox leaders in America are apt to today’s warn Israeli prime ministers that pander- ing to the Orthodox will dismay millions Jews, and of American Jews. Mr Netanyahu, who probably spent his formative years in America, is sensitive to such admonitions. many more There are two big complications. of The rst is a yawning divide between the Conservative and the Reform movements tomorrow’s, on the question of who is a Jew. Reform are Judaism, in 1983, recognised patrilineal Jewsthose born of a Jewish father but a reaching Gentile motheras full Jews, provided out beyond they chose to live Jewish lives. Conserva- tive Judaism has stuck with the tradition- the old al, matrilineal criterion. Hundreds of divides thousands of Americans who are accept- ed as Jews by Reform synagogues are not considered Jewish by Conservative rab- bis. Reform’s position also contradicts Is- raeli law, which takes matrilinealism as the criterion for Jewish descent. And most Conservative rabbis would not recognise 2 fought foreign governments and diaspora Jewish organisations most Reform rabbis’ conversions on halachic grounds, says Rab- to stop them dropping o on the way. They were not refugees, bi Joel Roth, a professor at the Conservatives’ Jewish Theological the Israeli government and the World Zionist Organisation con- Seminary and a small-c conservative. tended. They had a homeland: Israel. Outside Israel their Jewish The second, more troublesome complication is that the turf identity would die. war waged by the two non-Orthodox movements against Israeli This has not happened in Germany, nor in America, where Orthodoxy has prejudiced the prospects of Russian-Israelis qui- the mixture of assimilation, religiosity and ethnic identity etly being converted. Earlier this year Avigdor Lieberman’s Rus- among the hundreds of thousands of ex-Soviet Jews who live sian immigrant party, Yisrael Beitenu, reached a deal with the ha- there is similar to that of the broader Jewish community. All this redi parties that would have enabled more moderate, suggests that diasporas are more resilient than dogmas of Zionist modern-Orthodox rabbis to sit on conversion courts. As a quid primacy admit. pro quo, the new law would have cemented the Orthodox mo- Most German Jewish communities restrict their member- nopoly over conversion. But the Conservative and Reform lead- ship to halachic Jews only; that is, those born of a Jewish mother erships in America persuaded Mr Netanyahu to undo the deal. or converted to Judaism in accordance with the halacha. Many of Rabbi David Ellenson, president of the (Reform) Hebrew the Russian immigrants do not qualify for membership. Some of Union College, staunchly defends the non-Orthodox case. them undergo conversion; most do not, leaving them in a sort of There have to be other ways, he says. Why should I be asked Jewish limbo. to commit suicide? He grew up Orthodox in a close-knit com- In this respect, German Jewry resembles Israel’s. There, this munity in Newport News, Virginia, and recalls his class at day question of who is a Jew presents the Jewish state and its state school reciting each morning: First of all we must know that the religion, Orthodox Judaism, with a challenge. Halachic prece- entire Torah, both the Written Law and the Oral Law, was given dents over the centuries provide ample basis for a lenient ap- by the Holy One himself, Blessed Be He, to Moses our Teacher, of proach to accepting the yoke of mitzvot in the conversion pro- blessed memory, at Mount Sinai. It is impossible to change even cess. But the increasingly powerful haredi rabbis insist that the tiniest jot or tittle But he stopped believing in that, and converts pledge to become Orthodox. notes that most modern Jews don’t, either. I see all the de- nominations as attempting to provide a response to the same Flashpoint conversion question. We are all on a continuum. For him, Reform is the Conversion is the point where religious rigidity, Israeli poli- most authentic. tics and diaspora denominationalism clash. The Conservative Remarkably, Rabbi Ellenson has devoted his career as a his- and Reform movements in America have long fought Ortho- torian to the study of Orthodox responses to modernity. His 1990 doxy’s monopoly on Judaism in Israel. Earlier this year, facing a biography of Rabbi Hildesheimer, the founder of the Berlin Rab- High Court action brought by an Israeli Reform rabbi, the Israeli binerseminar, was a classic. Most recently, he co-authored an im- government announced that it will fund a small number of non- portant study of 19th- and 20th-century Orthodox rabbinical Orthodox rabbis around the country. But they will still have no views on conversion. He claims he can be at once the dispassion- power to conduct marriages or conversions. The non-Orthodox ate analyst in his books and the passionate polemicist in his rab- movements nevertheless hailed the decision as a breakthrough. binical role, and he pretty much pulls it o. But on a deeper level, They claim that it is ocial discrimination that has kept them this highly regarded denominational leader seems to embody marginal in Israeli society. As Americans, they are uncomfort- the post-denominational future of Judaism. Many of today’s able with the notion of a state religion. As Jews, they reject the Jews, and probably many more of tomorrow’s, are on the contin- idea that Israel’s state religion is Orthodox Judaism, rather than uum he describes, consciously or not. They are reaching out be- just Judaism. yond the old divides of Israeli religiousness and secularism, Israel, then, is the transferred battleeld for American Jew- diasporic Orthodoxy, Conservatism and Reform. 7

The Economist July 28th 2012 11 SPECIAL REPORT JUDAISM AND THE JEWS

Looking ahead Is Israel’s left justied in Offer to readers suspecting that the diaspora leaders’ eorts to strengthen Reprints of this special report are available. A Jewish spring? A minimum order of five copies is required. Jewish identity are coloured by Please contact: Jill Kaletha at Foster Printing the country’s rightist-religious Tel +00(1) 219 879 9144 Zeitgeist? If so, they will always e-mail: [email protected] exclude Jewish liberals. Worse, Corporate offer they will shore up an aggressive There are reasons to hope for a more temperate kind Corporate orders of 100 copies or more are pro-Israel loyalism that denies available. We also offer a customisation of Jewish nationhood the only feasible future for a service. Please contact us to discuss your APATHY, ALIENATION, ASSIMILATIONall these traits of Jewish, democratic Israel: shar- requirements. an open society naturally weaken Jewish solidarity in the ing the land with a Palestinian Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8148 e-mail: [email protected] diaspora and threaten what community leaders call Jewish state. Israel needs to recover its For more information on how to order special continuity. Those leaders think they have found at least a par- pragmatic Zionism. It cannot af- reports, reprints or any copyright queries tial answer. Every Jewish young person in America, and in other ford a governing ethos infused you may have, please contact: diaspora countries too, is oered a ten-day trip to Israel, free of by a religious fundamentalism The Rights and Syndication Department charge. Last year some 35,000 went from North America alone, concerned chiey with settle- 26 Red Lion Square and the numbers are rising. ment, conquest and conict. London WC1R 4HQ The project is called Birthright Israel. It was originally con- Judaism itself, which the Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8148 Fax +44 (0)20 7576 8492 ceived by Yossi Beilin, a left-wing Israeli politician, and is largely Israeli governing camp has tried e-mail: [email protected] paid for by philanthropists such as Sheldon Adelson, an Ameri- to harness to its policies, needs www.economist.com/rights can billionaire casino owner and prominent Republican Party to quell this dangerous strand of Future special reports supporter. It seems to be workingat least judged by that crude zealotry within it. During 2,000 India September 29th but cogent criterion, intermarriage. According to Leonard Saxe, years of exile without a state, The world economy October 13th who has tracked Birthright alumni over 12 years, they are 50% the Jews developed a sophisti- Information technology and more likely to in-marry than comparable youngsters who did cated, sublimated reading of the geography October 27th not go on Birthright. That is a very big deal. Bible that is still embraced by France November 10th The Israeli government, as well as diaspora philanthropies, the haredim. It would serve the Previous special reports and a list of forthcoming ones can be found online: also provide longer study courses in Israel for diaspora young- faith better than the fundamen- economist.com/specialreports sters, along with gap-year programmes and semesters for high- talism of settler rabbis. school students. These at- tract thousands every year, Open wide and thousands more study The haredim, perhaps incongruously, could oer hope for a at Israeli yeshivas. It has ex- more temperate, less obdurate ethos of Jewish nationhood. ploded in the past decade, They have enjoyed a remarkable renaissance. Demographically says Ted Sasson, a sociologist they are racing ahead. Politically they are still exing their mus- at Brandeis University. cles. Diaspora communities seem to view them with distaste More than half of young and trepidation. When haredim come up in conversation, dias- American Jews will have pora leaders automatically shift from the rst person plural to had an Israel experience be- the third. That needs to change. fore the age of 30. Israeli leaders, too, especially moderate ones, would be How exactly Israel wise to draw the haredim into the mainstream of national life. works on them is hard to ex- Haredism, for all its religious extremism, is the natural enemy of plain. Just to be on a bus, nationalist extremism. Impending changes to the army draft for and everyone’s Jewish haredim oer hope for more integration in the future. The plethora of religious innova- Every Jewish young person in America, and in other tion, both in Israel and in the diaspora, is hopeful, too, reecting Judaism’s diverse diaspora countries too, is o ered a ten-day trip to eorts to reconcile modernity and faith. Israel, free of charge Granted, the haredim are not currently part of that ferment, but nor are they obli- vious to it. The issuesthe soul of the Jew- that’s very comforting, says Rose, a sophomore at Tufts Univer- ish state, the spirit of its supporters abroad, the Jewishness of its sity just back from a trip. I had zero desire or need to come to Hil- immigrant citizensare too important to be left to rabbis and pol- lel [the Jewish student club] before, says Lia, another student iticians still ghting old factional wars. from the same university. Now I’m connected to the Jewish For now, haredi Orthodoxy is in the ascendant. But that as- community at Tufts. I can come alone and sit at a Friday night cendancy might be its own salvation, because with it comes re- dinner and feel welcome. sponsibility. The last word should go to Moshe Halbertal, the One reason for Birthright’s success it that it transcends de- philosopher, in conversation with an unnamed haredi on an El nominational divides among visitors and hosts alike. And it tries Al (Israel’s national airline) ight. Why, the professor asked, to keep away from politics. The programme leaves out the Pales- are you blithely defying the pilot’s instruction to buckle your tinians on the West Bank and generally soft-pedals the conict, seat belt? The haredi explained aably that for him the pilot was which draws re from the Israeli left. Still, the students at Tufts in- the poritz, Yiddish for the autocratic Polish squire who lorded it sisted they were not brainwashed. They know perfectly well over the Jewish shtetl. One day soon, Mr Halbertal replied, that there is an occupation. you’ll understand that you’re the poritz now. 7

12 The Economist July 28th 2012