The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Secular

 by jonathan sarna

 the term “secular judaism” sounds like an promotes three main principles: the improvement oxymoron, a contradiction in terms. How can of this life by material means; the use of science one simultaneously subscribe to Judaism and for human betterment (“science is the available be secular? One is reminded of the perhaps Providence of man”), and doing good. “The good apocryphal story of the Communists in late of the present life is good,” Holyoake wrote, with Tsarist terms who would often meet in the bes some circularity, “and it is good to seek that good.” medrash, the house of study. One day they were Above all else, Holyoake and his followers focused studying Karl Marx and they got into a heavy squarely on this world as opposed to the “world debate over the existence of . They argued to come.” Indeed, the very term secular derives back and forth, as pro-Communist ex-Talmudists from a Latin form meaning “this world.”1 1 http://www. were wont to do, and finally put the question to a owed a great debt to the catholicity.com/ vote. On a close ballot, God lost. At that point the Enlightenment, and specifically to /s/ secularism.html; shammas (beadle), who had been waiting patiently, thinker , who was born in “Secularism,” The got up. “Raboysai (Gentlemen),” he said, “God Amsterdam in 1632. Spinoza’s views were seen as Compact Oxford English Dictionary or no God, it is time to daven , time to say radical and highly dangerous in his day, and it is (Clarendon Press, the evening .” According to the story they all not surprising that the leaders of the young 1991), 1696. hastened to comply. and highly insecure Jewish community of 2 Tractatus Theologico- This ambivalence toward secularism, and jokes Holland eventually excommunicated him. But Politicus, chapter 7:191 [(on p. 6 of surrounding its seeming contradictions, may stem his influence was enormous. “Since everyone Judaism in a Secular from its relative novelty in the world of ideas. The has a perfect right to think freely, even about Age: An Anthology of Secular Humanistic term itself is commonly attributed to George , and cannot conceivably surrender this Jewish Thought Jacob Holyoake (1817–1906), the ironically named right, everyone will also have a perfect right and (Ktav, 1995), Renee Englishman who literally wrote the early tracts on to judge freely about religion, and hence Kogel and Zev Katz 2 (eds.)]. the subject. According to Holyoake, secularism to explain and interpret it for himself,” he wrote.

 Spinoza’s emphasis on the right to “think Americans, including a former president of freely” eventually give rise to a movement known the Continental Congress, Elias Boudinot, as Free Thought, which in turn became popular in and a future president of the United States, Revolutionary-era America. ’s John Quincy Adams, became associated Virginia Act for Establishing Religious with an organization designed to convert (1786) promised “that all men shall be free to to (the so-called American profess, and by argument to maintain, their Society for Meliorating the Condition of opinion in matters of religion, and that the same the Jews, founded in 1820), a leading Free Thinker shall in nowise diminish, enlarge or affect their named George Houston joined Jews in working civil capacities.” ’s The Age of Reason, to oppose it. His pamphlet, Vindicated, published nine years later, attacked all major written under a pseudonym, employed Free , including Judaism. “Every national Thought arguments in defense of Jewish rights church or religion has established itself by and .4 pretending some special mission from God, Some Jews themselves became Free Thinkers 3 Jacoby, Susan. Freethinkers: A communicated to certain individuals,” Paine and even avowed atheists. In 1834, a British-born History of American declared. “Each of those churches accuses New York Jewish chemist with the unusual name Secularism the other of unbelief; and for my own part, of Charles Cleomenes Coleman Cohen wrote in (Metropolitan Books, 2004), p. 42. I disbelieve them all.” 3 a newspaper called The Free Enquire that “I can 4 Sarna, Jonathan D. While Free Thinkers did not necessarily attach no idea to the word God and cannot “The Freethinker, view Judaism sympathetically—Jefferson was consequently believe in him.” That very day an the Jews, and the : somewhat critical; Thomas Paine was highly explosion in his laboratory blew him to bits. This George Houston critical—Free Thought unquestionably advanced naturally made the headlines—some viewed his and the Mystery of religious for Jews, by opposing all forms death as Divine punishment—but at the same time, Israel Vindicated,” AJS Review, 5 (1980), of religious coercion. Indeed, when leading a newspaper sympathetic to Cohen noted that pp. 101-114.

 there were in the United States some half a dozen longed to write “a complete history of the Jews”; other Jews—“most intelligent men…well-educated he associated and corresponded heavily with in the Jewish ”—who had become “professed Jews; and he clearly thought a great deal about and fearless Atheists.” what being Jewish meant. In New York, a group Nor was confined just to men. The of Jews unconnected with formed, pioneering 19th century Jewish feminist Ernestine in 1841, what they called the “New Israelite Rose, daughter of a Polish and one of the Sick-Benefit and Burial Society,” reputedly foremost women orators and “the first overtly secular Jewish philanthropy activists of the middle decades of the nineteenth in the United States.” The society may have century, was also an avowed atheist. “Agitate, provided a “secular” alternative to - agitate” was her memorable slogan. Though she based burial rites, but as its name indicates, it was always known as a and defended Jews was very much concerned with “” and who faced oppression, Ernestine Rose identified their needs.7 herself as an “infidel” and actually published Nationwide, this critical postulate of secular A Defence of Atheism.5 Judaism—the idea that the bonds of peoplehood, Most 19th century , of course, rather than faith, can preserve Jewish life—found were not atheists. The mid-19th century witnessed its most important institutional expression in the immigration of over 150,000 Jewish the Jewish fraternal organization B’nai B’rith immigrants from Central , particularly (literally, “sons of the covenant”). Established and Poland, and these Jews covered a in 1843 with the motto “Benevolence, Brotherly 5 Suhl, Yuri. Ernestine wide religious spectrum. As a contemporary poet Love, and Harmony,” the preamble to the order’s Rose and the Battle put it in 1848: “Some are reformed and wisdom original constitution carefully avoided any for Human Rights 6 (Reynal, 1959); boast/Some orthodox/indifferent most.” Indeed, mention of God, commandments, , Jacoby, Freethinkers, as many as half of all American Jews in 1850 or religious faith, but stressed instead the pp. 96-101; Ernestine L. Rose, belonged to no synagogue whatsoever. importance of Jewish unity. The organization was A Defence of These so-called “indifferent” Jews—large by no means anti-religious. Some of its members Atheism, Being a Lecture Delivered in number, far-removed from the synagogue, belonged to synagogues, and even played active in Mercantile Hall, and seemingly uninterested in the practice of roles within them. Yet the organization’s Boston, April 10, Judaism—continued, for the most part, to identify “emphatic” policy—codified in 1859—was neither 1861 (Boston 1881). as Jews, and at least some of them turn out upon “to interfere with nor to influence” religious 6 Sarna, Jonathan D. American Judaism: close examination to have been anything but opinions. (And in fact, “questions of purely A History (Yale indifferent to the fate of the Jewish people. Joseph religious character” were offcially banned University Press, 2004), p. 88. Lyons of Columbia, South Carolina, for example, from the order for fear that they would produce 7 Sarna, American stayed home on Kippur and described “serious trouble and disastrous effects.”) While Judaism, pp. 88-89. himself in his diary as “almost an atheist.” Yet he synagogues divided Jews and alienated some of

 them altogether, B’nai B’rith argued that fraternal time, a traditional tree. Like most German Jews ties—the covenant (b’rith) that bound Jews one to of their type, they would have considered theirs another regardless of religious ideology—could a thoroughly secular : a Christmas bring about “union and harmony” in Jewish life. without Christ.9 A parallel organization called the “United Order What kept Brandeis Jewish was a deep of True Sisters” sought (with considerably less personal sense of , a wide network success) to organize Jewish women on the same of Jewish kin, and a late-burgeoning (in his fifties) secular communal basis.8 commitment to , which linked him to We can a more intimate sense of this Jewish people worldwide as well as to Jewish world of secular Jews of Central European origin aspirations. And yet—significantly—he found this by examining the case of Louis Brandeis, one of hard to transmit to his children. His daughter, America’s best known and most distinguished Elizabeth, intermarried and ended up sharing Without ever entering a synagogue, secular East European Jews in America felt intensely Jewish. secular Jews. Brandeis was born in Louisville none of her father’s Jewish or Zionistic interests. around 150 years ago, in 1856. His grandfather and Elizabeth’s husband, Paul Rauschenbush, was great-grandfather in Prague had been leaders in the son of the well-known liberal Protestant an antinomian Jewish cult movement known as theologian, Walter Rauschenbush. Brandeis Frankism, followers of the Jewish pseudo-messiah considered the boy a “rare find,” perhaps because Jacob Frank, but his mother Frederika rejected Rauschenbush’s liberal ethical values (the social the cult and raised her children in a home devoid gospel) mirrored those of the Brandeis clan. of traditional Jewish learning and , but But today, that branch of the family maintains no strong on values such as high intelligence, a ties to Judaism. Brandeis’s niece, Amy, likewise blameless mode of life, and a powerful sense intermarried and Brandeis described himself as of morals, justice, and charity. As an adult, “very happy” with that match. Brandeis’s daughter, Brandeis never belonged to a synagogue, Susan, did marry a Jew, and the Jewish observed no , and enjoyed eating attachments on that side are much stronger. 8 ibid, p. 89. the tasty hams that his brother, Alfred, sent Nevertheless, Brandeis, like other secular Jews, 9 Sarna, Jonathan D. him from Kentucky. His family’s rituals were found it hard to justify endogamy (in-marriage) “The Greatest Jew conspicuously secular: birthdays, anniversaries, on ethical grounds and his descendants were in the World Since Christ: The family vacations at Chatham. The only religious therefore more likely than not to out-marry. In Jewish Legacy of holiday that the family seems to have observed his case, as in so many others, secular Judaism Louis D. Brandeis,” American Jewish with any regularity was Christmas, which was proved inherently self-limiting. History 81 (1994), an occasion for gift-giving, and featured, for a Brandeis’s brother-in-law, Felix Adler, pp. 346-364.

 understood this problem earlier than most. As successful secular ever created in early as 1876, he publicly disavowed Judaism (with the United States. It revolved around , its dogma of in-marriage) in favor of “Ethical and it boasted institutions like the Workmen’s Culture,” a universalistic faith that focused Circle (Arbeter Ring), the Yiddish press, schools on and the study of . His (the Yiddishe schule), camps, a thriving Yiddish experience illuminated secular Judaism’s greatest literature, music, art, theater, food, and, in challenge. Could it craft a this-worldly Judaism, time, radio. Without ever entering a synagogue, bereft of God and religious ritual, that would secular East European Jews in America felt nevertheless ensure Jewish continuity? intensely Jewish. Four critical factors made this secular culture mmigrant Jews from Eastern Europe rose to possible. First, and perhaps foremost, was a shared meet that challenge. Between 1881 and 1924, language—Yiddish (mamaloshen), the folk language almost 2.5 million of them immigrated to of the Jewish masses. Yiddish also distinguished IAmerica. A large percentage cast off the practice Jews from non-Jews and linked East European of Judaism either before they left home or after Jews in America to the self-governing Jewish they arrived on these shores, some adopting world of Ashkenaz, rooted in the medieval revolutionary ideologies in its stead. More German lands. than half failed upon their arrival to affiliate Second, patterns of residential segregation with a synagogue. made secular Jewish culture possible. East In place of religion, these Jews committed European Jews overwhelmingly lived in themselves to what they called Jewishness, or Jewish neighborhoods which they themselves —a secular cultural Judaism that dominated: in places like Brownsville, Far emphasized the importance of helping Jews, Rockaway, and Grand Concourse (all of which fighting , and promoting universal were 60 to 80 percent Jewish), but also elsewhere, social justice. They opposed all forms of religious in cities like Boston, Cleveland and Chicago. coercion, insisting that both religion and anti- Even in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, we learn that religion were “private affairs,” and they demanded Jews “clustered side by side within particular that education and culture be protected from blocks.” 11 This “segregation” of East European any form of heresy-hunting. “Secularism,” the Jews was partly voluntary, partly encouraged, 10 Goodman, L. great theorist of secular Judaism, Chaim and partly imposed from without. But whatever (ed.), The Faith of Zhitlowsky, once proclaimed, “denotes the the case, creating a Jewish subculture proved Secular Jews (Ktav, 1976), p. 54. exclusion of everything that comes in the name of much easier when everybody lived close 11 Morawska, Eva. any revealed superhuman, authority, to one another. Insecure Prosperity [or] divinity.” 10 Third, secular Jews lived side by side with (Princeton University Press, East European Jews in America succeeded in religious Jews. “The dominating characteristic 1996), p. 77. creating a secular Jewish culture—by far the most of the streets on which I grew was Jewishness in

10 all its rich variety,” the writer Vivian Gornick has against Jews, beginning in the late 1940s, further recalled. “We did not have to be ‘observing’ Jews undermined the confidence of those who had to know that we were Jews.” 12 The Sabbath, the come to see the Soviet Union as something of a holidays, the synagogues calling out for men to Jewish secular paradise. Meanwhile, persecutions complete a —these formed an inescapable of Communists, suspected Communists, and part of the neighborhood atmosphere for former Communists in America in the wake of Jewish immigrants and their children. Secular the Cold War created a climate of fear in Jewish Jews absorbed that atmosphere and therefore secularist circles. To call oneself secular (as but never lost touch with the traditional rhythms of 1% of the U.S. population did in 1952) was Jewish life. to declare oneself subversive, for religion was Finally, and perhaps most controversially, deemed an essential part of the “American antisemitism—hatred of Jews in all of its manifold Way of Life.” In this dangerous climate, many forms—helped to preserve secular Jewish secularists prudently cut their ties with the culture. From the devoutly religious to the most Workmen’s Circle and affliated with respectable universalistic-minded secular Jews, it served as Conservative and Reform synagogues, even if the great unifier of the Jewish people, reminding they rarely attended them. At the same time, them that they shared a common particularistic all four of the pillars that had previously held fate, since all alike were victims. up Jewish secularist culture began to topple. Social antisemitism, in addition, helped to Antisemitism declined. Residential segregation prevent intermarriage—which, as the Brandeis was outlawed, and within two decades about a case demonstrated, posed significant risks to third of all Jews had moved out to suburbia, far secular Judaism. The fact that Jews were not from the old Jewish neighborhoods that had welcome in many non-Jewish homes, and that sustained and nurtured secularist Jewish culture. most non-Jews looked askance at the prospect As a result, Jews lived much further from one of having a Jewish son- or daughter-in-law, another and secularist Jews no longer absorbed significantly limited the risk of intermarriage Jewishness from their more Orthodox Jewish during the first half of the 20th century. neighbors. Their children interacted instead with tolerant non-Jewish neighbors, and many n the second half of the 20th century, however, of those children eventually intermarried. Most everything changed, and Jewish secularist important of all, Yiddish lost its hold among the culture in America collapsed. Already in Jewish masses. In 1958, fewer than 2 percent of Ithe 1930s, the Nazis shook the pillars of Jewish American Jewish children were studying in Jewish secular culture, disillusioning many who had secular schools (Yiddishe schule), and the demise come to harbor a perfect faith in , of Yiddish was widely heralded. The writer Irving universal justice, and human potential. News Howe, who chronicled secular Jewish culture and 12 Sarna, American of Soviet purges, persecutions and deportations translated it into English, was by the end of his life Judaism, p. 223.

11 disconsolate. He spoke of a “profound discomfort, readers of the magazine know, disproportionately perhaps desperation.” “Those of us committed to secular.16 The American Jewish World the secular Jewish outlook,” he declared, “must Service, founded in 1985 and today among the admit that we are reaching a dead-end.” 13 most admired, popular, and successful of new That was in 1994, and at the time, most Jewish philanthropies, consciously echoes the observers agreed with him. and ethics of Jewish secularist culture, describing itself as “a Jewish response nd yet, in our own day, almost like the to the needs of communities throughout the proverbial phoenix, globe, regardless of race, religion or nationality.” has made something of a comeback. As if in response to the late 1960s’ particularist AThe National Yiddish Book Center—a creation turn in Jewish life, the organization proudly of young Jews in their 20s—works to “rescue “breathes life into Judaism’s imperative to pursue Yiddish…books and celebrate the culture they justice and helps American Jews act upon a contain.” With 30,000 members young and old, deeply felt obligation to improve the chances

13 Howe, Irving. it claims to be “the largest and fastest-growing for survival, economic independence and “The End of Jewish Jewish cultural organization in America.” 14 human dignity for all people.” 17 Finally, we Secularism.” Hunter Reboot, an organization that reaches out to have the establishment in 2003 of the Center College Jewish Social Studies Program Jews in their 20s and 30s, has produced a wide for Cultural Judaism, which sponsors grants, Occasional Papers in range of cultural materials including books, a publications, programs, and university courses, and Thought #1 (NY: magazine, a record label, and a film—almost all of all directed toward “non-religious, cultural n.d., [1994/5]), p. 10. it overtly secular. Revealingly, David Katznelson, and secular Jews.” “A rapidly increasing 14 http://yiddishbook who manages Reboot Records, describes himself number of Jews throughout the world identify center.org/ as an “atheist-leaning agnostic leftist Zionist who themselves as cultural, non-religious Jews,” the 15 [New York] Jewish is a firm lover of the cultural tradition of Judaism Center proclaims on its website. “The future Week, Directions 15 Magazine, and not really a believer in the religious side of it.” of Judaism depends on reaching this community December 27, Heeb Magazine, known as “the crown jewel of and enabling them to celebrate their Jewish 2004, p.2. publications courting Generation X and Y Jews,” identity and pass it on to the next generation.” 18 16 ibid, 41. describes itself as seeking to engage “progressive, This unexpected rebirth of Jewish secularism 17 http://www.ajws.org culturally savvy Jews in their 20s and 30s who are reflects, in part, a generational turn: a reminder 18 http://www.cultural disproportionately left-leaning, disproportionately of the adage that what one generation seeks to judaism.org/ccj/ about/mission unaffiliated, disproportionately smart.” And, as forget another seeks to remember. But in my

12 view, it also reflects more than that. For one contemporary rebirth is not an unmitigated thing, Communism has collapsed, so the stigma blessing. I, for one, wonder: In the absence of of subversion no longer attaches to secularists; a collective Jewish language, a shared Jewish they can safely come out into the sunlight neighborhood, and a common antisemitic and once again breathe freely. In addition, enemy, will Jewish secularism prove viable in secularism has become widespread throughout the long term? Can Jewish secularism, with much of formerly Christian Western Europe as its universalistic ethic, meet the challenge of well as in Israel; so it is perhaps not surprising intermarriage and keep Jews Jewish? Will secular that we are now seeing some of these same Jews and religious Jews remain tethered to one trends among young liberal Jews and Christians, another, each continuing to view the other as part particularly on the West Coast and the East of the totality of the Jewish people? Coast (the blue states). Finally, the growth of The great Jewish historian Lucy Dawidowicz, Jewish secularism may well represent a cultural herself a secular Jew who over time became more response to the explosion of and more religious, once wrote that “the American among Jews, among Christians, and especially Jewish experience—still in process, still vulnerable, among Muslims. Having witnessed the violence, still experimental, has so far shown that with the intolerance, and the self-righteousness to the will to do so, Jews can preserve and sustain which far too much of contemporary religion Judaism and Jewish culture while participating worldwide has fallen prey, is it any wonder that in the larger society.” 19 That, to my mind, remains some in the younger generation are steering the central challenge for all contemporary 19 Dawidowicz, Lucy S. clear of religion altogether? Jews—young and old, religious and secular What is the Use of Jewish History For those who have followed the rise and alike. I hope that all can prove equal to that (Schocken, 1992), fall of secular Judaism in the past, however, its great challenge. p. 222.

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A leading scholar of Jewish-American history, Jonathan Sarna is the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis, where he directs the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program. A former chair of Brandeis’ Department of Near Eastern & Judaic Studies, Dr. Sarna now chairs the Academic Advisory and Editorial Board of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives.

The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Secular Judaism was adapted from a lecture given by Dr. Sarna at the University of Virginia, and published with his permission.

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