Jewish Polity and American Civil Society

Jewish Polity and American Civil Society Communal Agencies and Religious Movements in the American Public Sphere EDITED BY ALANMITTLEMAN, JONATHAND. SARNA, AND ROBERT LICHT ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham •Boulder •New York• Oxford ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706 This volume is dedicated to the memory of www.rowmanlittlefield.com Professor Daniel J. ElazaI; 12 Hid's Copse Road Cumnor Hill, Oxford OX2 9JJ, England founding president of the Center for Jewish Community Studies Copyright© 2002 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval scholaI; and friend. system, or transmitted in any fonn or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior pennission of the publisher. This project began under his inspiration and guidance. British Library Cataloguing in Publication lnfonnation Available May his memory be a blessing. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jewish polity and American civil society : communal agencies and religious movements in the American public sphere I edited by Alan Mittleman, Robert Licht, and Jonathan D. Sarna. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7425-2121-4 (alk. paper)-0-7425-2122-2 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Jews-United States-Politics and government-20th century. 2. Jews United States-Societies, etc. 3. Judaism and politics-United States. I. Mittleman, Alan. JI. Licht, Robert A. Ill. Sarna, Jonathan D. El 84.36.P64 J44 2002 305.892'4073-dc21 2002003364 Printed in the United States of America eTN The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for lnfonnation Sciences-Pennanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-l 992. Managing Editor: Mark Ami-El Typesetting: Ami-El Applications viii Contents II. Religious Movements 5 The Conservative Movement and the Public Square 235 Gordon M Freeman 6 Reform Judaism, Minority Rights, and the Separation of Church and State 261 Lance J. Sussman 7 Mainstream Orthodoxy and the American Public Square 283 Preface Lawrence Grossman 8 Haredim and the Public Square: Alan Mittleman The Nature of the Social Contract 311 Samuel C. Hej]man 9 Reconstructionism and the Public Square: Recent American social and political thought has been much con A Multicultural Approach to Judaism in America 337 cerned with civil society. Civil society is the hard-to-define realm Davjd A. Teutsch situated between the government and the marketplace. It straddles the public and the private. It is a sphere of associations, of voluntary groups and of primordial connections without which neither demo 10 Jewish Renewal 363 cratic life nor personal life can flourish. 1 As concern over the state Allan Arkush of American democracy has grown, many theorists look to civil so ciety as a source of democratic renewal. Two centuries ago Alexis Afterword - Alan Mjttleman 389 de Tocqueville found that a rich network of voluntary associations animated American civil society. He thought that the American tra Index 391 dition of voluntary association could offset the powerful centrifugal forces of unrestrained individualism, a lurking danger for the About the Contributors 419 American experiment. Communal associations could channel self interest to serve public purposes. Ever since Tocqueville, the health of associational life and the vitality of democracy have been paired. At the dawn of the new century, there are important reasons to worry about the health of American associational life. The debate has been focused by Harvard scholar Robert Putnam, whose contro versial article (and subsequent book), Bowling Alone, charts a pre cipitous decline in membership of many of the organizations that organized civil society in the twentieth century. Groups such as the PTA, service clubs such as the Lions, Elks, Kiwanis, and Masons, bowling leagues and sport clubs, religious fraternal organizations such as Knights of Columbus, and women's groups such as the League of Women Voters have lost their centrality in civic life. ix x Preface Preface xi Baby boomers and their children no longer look to these kind of and white Evangelicals, religious congregations are robust and cen 6 groups, whose membership peaked in the postwar period and began tral features of communal Iife. to decline in the 1960s, as places to meet neighbors, serve commu Religious congregations remain important for American Jews. nities, advance socially, and find satisfaction. Putnam fears a loss of Although Jews affiliate less with religiously based groups than do "social capital," of the accrued advantages of helping networks and other Americans, more Jews join synagogues than other types of helpful people that flow from the culture of voluntary associations.2 communal institutions. Indeed, a recent survey shows that American 7 Other observers, such as Robert Wuthnow and Nancy Ammer Jews feel increasingly remote from non-synagogue institutions. The man, are somewhat less pes·simistic. Although agreeing with Putnam extent and quality of Jewish voluntarism is an object of increasing that the organizations of the early and mid-twentieth century are communal concern. Observers such as Steven Cohen and Arnold withering, Wuthnow believes that Americans continue to join Eisen note that American Jews, like their non-Jewish neighbors, are groups. The nature of these groups has changed, however. With less turning to an ever more subjective, self-oriented understanding of time for leisure, more demanding jobs, two-career households, and religion. The "sovereign self," searching for spiritual meaning, more loosely defined social institutions (consider how porous and rather than the ethnically identified, communally committed self is untraditional the American family, for example, has become), fast becoming the dominant Jewish type. This turn toward the pri Americans tend to join groups that ask for relatively little but seem vate, the subjective, and the personal on the part of Jews mirrors the to provide something clear and direct. Rather than work up the lad larger trend away from intensive commitment to voluntary associa der of a comprehensive fraternal service club, someone might vol tions and toward "loose connections." It may bode ill for the main unteer an hour a month at a literacy center. While a woman in the tenance of the American Jewish communal infrastructure let alone 1950s might have gathered over coffee with neighbors to share for international Jewish solidarity, concern for Israel, and' so on. life's cares and joys, a contemporary might join a support group. The increasing "disconnect" between American Jews and their Wuthnow is not entirely convinced that the new culture of associa non-synagogue organizations may be an inadvertent by-product of tions provides the bounty of social capital that was available in the the organizational realm itself. Ever since the 1990 National Jewish older culture, but he does not see an apocalypse of civil society on Population Study yielded the arresting (albeit disputed) figure of a 52 percent rate of intermarriage, the community has been thrown the horizon. 3 Similarly, Nancy Ammerman observes that although some tradi into profound concern about its own survival. Jewish priorities be tional religious denominations and their congregations have lost gan to shift from aid to Israel and distressed or threatened Jewries strength, other religious groups have adapted and gained. Religious abroad to "continuity" programming at home. The decade of the communities remain robust, providing the added leverage of "moral 1990s witnessed a new emphasis on Jewish education, culture, and and spiritual capital" to the social capital of other voluntary organi religiosity. American Jews showed remarkable creativity in con fronting the long developing and largely ignored "continuity crisis." zations.4 Thus all observers agree that religious groups remain an impor Modeling the pattern observed by Wuthnow, Jews innovated new tant, if not the most important, repository of social capital.5 Reli organizational structures to meet new social challenges. Older or gious congregations are more than places to worship: They are the ganizations also struggled to adapt to a shifting communal agenda. most vital voluntary associations in American civil society. In addi The new priority of enriching the religious and cultural content of tion to worship, educational, and cultural activities, religious groups Jewish identity has rendered problematic the older communal orien are often on the front lines of social service provision in the cities. tation toward rescue, defense, and "sacred survival." Nonetheless, President George W. Bush's establishment of the White House Of for the foreseeable future both communal organizations and rel i fice on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives recognized this fact. gious denominations will continue to be major actors on the Jewish The Bush White House sought to enhance the role of religious public stage. groups in civil society by removing obstacles to government fund How to describe this organizational realm of which religious groups are parts but by no means the whole? The late Daniel J. ing for the welfare services that

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