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Jew vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry

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In "Jew vs, Jew," Samuel Freedman has something to say, and overall says it well, but still I recommend that you take this book with a large grain (maybe even a pillar!) of salt. For instance, Freedman argues that the "Orthodox model" has "triumphed," but at the same time there is evidence (which he doesn't cite) that enrollment of non-orthodox Jewish children at Jewish Day Schools is booming. Also, as Freedman himself acknowledges (in the last line of the book -- "the only ones fighting are the only ones left who care"), the vast majority of Jewish-Americans (especially the "just Jews" group, as Freedman calls them) are NOT involved in this "struggle for the soul of American Jewry." What about all those people? And what are the implications of the fact that most of these people are proceeding with their lives regardless of what the Orthodox "establishment" thinks about them? Is Freedman writing off half (or more) of the American Jewish population, or is he just not interested? Examples like this make me feel that although "Jew vs. Jew" is well-written (in a journalistic style), it somehow is missing the forest for the trees, and also that it lacks rigor - i.e., hard evidence and an analytical framework to put all the anecdotes (interesting though they may be) in some sort of intellectual context.

Three other criticisms of "Jew vs. Jew." First, Freedman claims (ambitiously) to be painting a picture of "the soul of American Jewry" today. But does Freedman really believe that there IS one "soul" and one "American Jewry" - or should be -- in such a large, diverse population? Second, Freedman argues that, in America, Jews are being "loved to death," and that this is a bad thing. But wait a second...isn't it GOOD that anti-Semitism has declined to the lunatic fringe? And, is it really soooo bad that, given the freedom to do so, different Jews will chart their own course towards God and religious expression? What's wrong with having a whole range of Jews - from politically and socially liberal, secular humanists to politically and socially conservative, ultra-Orthodox - out there, anyway? Christianity has that, and it seems to be doing just fine! And Freedman never explains why, just because Jews are a minority in America, they are doomed to fail. What about the explosive growth of other religious minorities in America (Mormons, Muslims, etc.)? Finally, Freedman seems to ignore the fact that much of the conflict he cites regarding Jews in America is really about power and money. How about some honest discussion about fears and prejudices among non-Orthodox, suburban Jews, who fear that an influx of Orthodox Jews will overwhelm their town, hurt their schools, and perhaps drive down their property values?

It's not that I think Freedman is totally off base in what he has to say - indeed, the liberal, secular, Zionist Camp Kinderwelt IS dead, and the ultra-Orthodox Kiryas Joel IS thriving. Also, there's no doubt that intermarriage rates are very high, probably over 50%, and that many (most?) of the offspring from these marriages are not being raised Jewish in any meaningful sense. It's also definitely true that there ARE passionate disagreements between Jews - just as with all other groups of people (Christians, for instance). But Freedman never really explains how arguments within the Jewish community are NECESSARILY a bad thing. Would Freedman really prefer a monolithic community or one in which arguments are suppressed?

Anyway, in my opinion Freedman's book really should be subtitled: "These are the kind of problems you WANT to have!" For one of the first times in history, Jews have nearly complete freedom, and lack of anti-Semitic persecution, in a majority non-Jewish country, and to all that I say: mazel tov! The question now is whether Judaism - in all its manifestations - can adapt and compete in the free marketplace of ideas that is America. True, Camp Kinderwelt itself may be dead, and its liberal, Zionist, secular orientation on the wane at the moment, but something tells me that it's not the end of the story quite yet. The Jews - however they are defined -- have been written off many times, but somehow are still around. Camp Kinderwelt is dead...long live Camp Kinderwelt!

I started to read this book the day after an Orthodox neighbor of mine said to me that the vandalization of the Liberal (HUC) yeshiva in Jerusalem was probably the work of Reform Jews seeking sympathy. I completed this book the day the major media organizations focused on Gore's pick for a VP candidate, Joseph Lieberman, as an Orthodox Jew. How ironic that a country can rally behind him as a candidate, but in a synagogue, his policies might cause strife. Freedman, a former reporter at the NYT and a journalism Professor at Columbia, was attending his local synagogue and saw a conflict among its members. He observed very PUBLIC disagreements among various Jewish denominations, among types of Diaspora Zionists, among adherents to the various levels of observance and Jewish parentage. These OBSERVATIONS led to this book on how the Jewish community in America has become fragmented since 1960. At a time when America's 6 million Jews should feel more secure and cohesive than ever, a CIVIL (civil as in calm most of the time) WAR is tearing the community participants apart (well at least Jewish leaders, the rank and file is probably not as concerned with the issues). Congregations, neighborhoods, even families are taking sides in battles about Jewish identity and Jewish authenticity. The conflict pits fundamentalist against secularist, denomination against denomination, even egalitarian, and liberal against conservative within each branch of Jewry. Even the Orthodox are fragmented by levels of authenticity and belief. Has American Jewry terminally become unstitched in the last forty years? Was it actually ever cohesive? The flash-points in the skirmishes range from standards for conversions (an intermarriage rate of 52%) to the role of women in rituals, from the peace process in Israel to the sexual climate at Yale University's dormitories. Israel once was a unifier of Jews, now it divides them. Anti-Semitism is no longer a threat that unifies that shtetl minded community. Why did non-Orthodox Jews trying to stop an Orthodox congregation from building a synagogue in suburban Beachwood, Ohio? (or in the Hamptons?) Why did a Jewish man (Harry Shapiro) try to blow up a liberal Florida synagogue where Shimon Peres was speaking? What happened when a group of Jewish students at Yale refused to move into a mixed sex dormitory as required by the university? What happened when a Los Angeles synagogue leader tried to use more gender neutral language at her synagogue by adding the names of the matriarchs to the Amidah (Sarah, Rachel, Rebecca and Leah)? Freedman reports on these skirmishes as a journalist, not as a pundit.

Freedman presents a very interesting, worthwhile study of modern American Jewish development. His style is clear and the book is beautifully structured. Attempts are made to analyse the prevailing and underlying issues surrounding topical issues in the Jewish USA, many of which have interesting parallels in the UK community. I found this book easy to read, and very enjoyable for its humour, clarity and unbiased scholarship.

Some reviews have called this book a "definitive study", which cannot be the case, since huge areas of Jewish life are left alone by this one volume; however, there is surely room for expansion, and a sequel of sorts would certainly be received graciously by me! There are areas where greater depth may have been appropriate, but for the most part, a sensible level of thought has been articulated.

Perhaps most importantly, this book will serve as an insight to both Jews and non-Jews into the challenges and conflicts which have faced and doubtless will face the Jewish community, both in the USA and in the rest of the world, in the last few years and in the next few. Particularly interesting are Freedman's "predictions", specifically his prediction of the demise of "modern orthodoxy" into Conservatism.

In short, read the book, and see if you agree.

Freedman spent two years and nine months researching and writing this book; the subject is obviously close to his heart but he has worked hard to be scrupulously fair. He skillfully weaves history, both ancient and modern, American and Israeli, into the twentieth-century American events he has chosen to illustrate conflicts between different Jewish factions.

A chapter is given to each of the following:
1963 (Camp Kinderwelt, New York) - the story of Sharon, from a Labor Zionist family, and what the camp meant to her; the camp's decline in popularity and eventual replacement by an Orthodox settlement, hostile to Zionism, whose mayor says of Kinderwelt, "Secular Judaism is failure."

1977-1983 (Denver, Colorado) - an unprecedented experiment in cooperation among Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbis to educate converts, which fails when the Orthodox withdraw, declaring that such conversions should not be considered valid.

1987-89 (Los Angeles) - the Library Minyan conflict over whether prayer to the Matriarchs should be included in the Amidah - after much anguished discussion, a vote permits the prayer, but over a period of time, few choose to include it...

1993-97 (Jacksonville, Fla.) - the story of Harry Shapiro, an Orthodox Jew who plants a supposedly dud bomb in the Conservative Jewish Center, hoping to keep people from hearing Shimon Peres speak.

1995-99 (New Haven, Conn.) - a group of Orthodox young people sue Yale, desiring to be permitted to live off campus rather than in coed dormitories with roommates who do not share their moral standards.

1997-99 (Beachwood, Ohio) - the identity of a suburb which has been a comfortable home for assimilated Reform Jews is threatened by an Orthodox building project - the new neighbors judge the liberal Jews and fail to support the public schools which the liberal neighborhood has built.

"So what's the big deal?" might be your response, if you aren't Jewish, or you are Jewish but don't keep up with this stuff. Isn't it a lot of fuss over nothing? Well, no. When you read about the people involved, the history behind their points of view, the diversity of their backgrounds which often means that they "stand all over the issue" rather than just on one side...you begin to appreciate the incredible diversity of Judaism, and you sympathize with all who are caught in the conflict between liberal and conservative - by their caring.

I read this book because my best friend these days is a Jewish lady and I have begun to get to know her family and celebrate Passover with them. Before this, I lived in Miami and sang in a Conservative Temple choir in the 1980s - our music was piped in to the sanctuary. I did not appreciate until now how recent it was for a female cantorial soloist to be allowed. I was fascinated by what I learned about Judaism during that time, and wanted to know more. Although Friedman's book challenged this relatively uneducated shiksa, he was clear enough for me to understand his history and his points.

Now, as a Catholic, I see parallels between the Jewish factions and the Catholic factions...but we are blessed with a Pope who has the power to make decisions and cut the Gordian knots, even if there are many who fail to respect his authority. The same jokes work for us - how did the priest get rid of the mice in the church? He baptized them, and then they only showed up for Christmas and Easter! The cultural Catholic has a lot in common with the cultural Jew...

I have nothing but respect for those on all sides of these issues - Freedman has done an amazing job in making them real to me. The question of pluralism vs. unity is one which arises in many different contexts, where people care about truth and not just about "getting along," at the expense of betraying important values.

Freedman's final two sentences say it all, to me, and sum up why people should read this book: "It is tragic, yes, that American Jews have battled so bitterly, so viciously, over the very meaning of being Jewish. It is more tragic, perhaps, that the only ones fighting are the only ones left who care."

I live in Jerusalem and from Israel a book like S. Freedman's reads like tales from another planet. We know that we are people of "the Book", but do so many books have to be churned out about Jew vs Jew or Jew With Jew or concerning every millisecond of distant Jewish history, while ignoring the most pivotal time in Jewish life, which happens to be onging in the war we are up against here. I'm not saying that Americans don't have the right and the need to write about their own country. That is a right, fair enough. But some books, and "Jew Vs. Jew" is the prototype, smack of wasted academic leisure, ill-spent. We Jewish Israelis are in a war; we do not have the leisure to do sociological tomes about make-believe matters. And all of us Jews need to dig deep in order to read and write books that pertain to the soul of our religion, which entails our current, ambiguous place in history. That's my strongly felt opionion, what came to the fore reading this book, one that seems created for one man's entertainment and/or aggrandizement. Too much herein rings false. Certainly nothing Freedman creates is beautiful nor does it touch on the heart of the matters issues we all must ponder. From Jerusalem, you cannot imagine how self-serving this book reads, at least for me. Sorry. This is one woman's opinion.

Samuel Freedman does a superb job of reporting on the religious divisions among American Jews today. He alternates chapters of exposition with reports from the field, vividly recounting recent battles waged between secularists and religious Jews. Though the background chapters may be old news to those who are up on these schisms, the journalistic chapters, which describe actual cases, are illuminating and compelling. The epilogue, summing up the author's own conclusions, is highly insightful. Freedman not only reports, he distills. This book fills a gap, defining the intractable dilemmas of faith and identity facing American Jews in the coming decades -- at least, those who remain to carry on the debate.

Having just suffered through this book, I feel as though the encomnia showered on the author must be tempered somewhat. Given the author's credentials -- former NYT reporter, professor of journalism -- one would be excused for thinking that he might have the barest inkling how to write engagingly, or, if not, at least interestingly. Unfortunately, freed from a newspaper's space constraints, Mr Freedman does nothing but blather endlessly and leadenly, making sand from the rocks he tirelessly pounds. Each of the topics he essays to examine is, in itself, of interest; however, by the time he finishes describing the provenance of, e.g., the dog's veterinarian's psychiatrist's rebbe's education and dining habits (well, perhaps the slightest exaggeration), one feels like screaming, "Get to the point if you have one!" "Jew vs. Jew" joined that exceedingly short list of books I've had to force myself to finish, a rare occurrence for this compulsive reader. The author has blown up a perfectly reasonable NYT Magazine-length article into an over-long, misshapen mess. If you think you absolutely must read this, begin skimming from the very beginning; you'll still glean Mr Freedman's meager and rather self-evident points, while frustrating and exhausting yourself less.

I read this book in 2001 on the recommendation of a friend and just reread it. For this generation of American Jews, post-Boomer, post-post WWII, it's the closest thing to a definitive study that we'll probably have. The last chapter is the heart of Freedman's argument, but it won't make sense unless you read the previous chapters. Some reviewers criticize Freedman's journalistic format, but within the limitations of the genre, he's done an excellent job. He has the big picture right: American Jews are splitting up into factions or sects, and the broad "center" of American Jewish life, defined by secular "Jewishness" and the marginalization of religion, is in decline. Here in Boston, the secular Jewish agencies now define themselves in overtly religious ways unthinkable 30 years ago. This definition attracts and keeps the "affiliated," but inevitably puzzles and alienates the "periphery" or "just Jews," as Freedman calls them.

One of the things that strikes me more now is his secondary point about the impact these changes are having on American life. Secular "Jewishness" led American Jews into passionate involvement in politics and culture during the last century and hugely disproportionate influence on the rise of a modern, pluralist America and its public institutions like the welfare state, civil rights, and public schools. In the last 30 years, these institutions have been on the ropes, and it's safe to say that New Deal liberalism is essentially dead. As American Jews split into the affiliated and the periphery and the affiliated withdraw somewhat from American public life, does it not imply that much of the energy and passion that went into American liberalism is no longer there? I don't know what's cause and effect, so I'm speculating. Secular Jewish life in the 1990s, before the new eruption of war in Israel, was shaped by a nostalgia for the heyday of liberalism and an obsession with the Holocaust and antisemitism. Both grow out of a fear of assimilation. Non-American reviewers might not see what I mean, but the American ones will understand. Since September 2000, of course, much has changed.

The ultimate point here is that diaspora Jewish life since the late 19th century has been defined by a search for some cultural or political substitute for religious identity. That search has failed, although the search for acceptance and assimilation in America has succeeded beyond what anyone could have imagined a century ago. Boise and Jacksonville eat bagels and watch Seinfeld. You can't lead a "culturally" Jewish life with that degree of cultural interpenetration. Religion and/or moving to Israel are the only viable alternatives.

In this very well written book, Freedman presents conflicts in modern American Jewry - Orthodoxy vs. Reform, Intermarriage, Orthodoxy vs. Orthodoxy, Who is a Jew, Feminism - by detailing a specific incident without editorial comment. For example, in the chapter discussing "Who Defines Orthodoxy?" he presents the history and players in the case of the five Orthodox Jews who sued Yale over forcing them to live in a mixed dormitory.

Freedman's understanding of Judaism and modern society is impressive, especially since we grew up in the same town (his brother was my classmate) and I know that he personally did not have much of a Jewish upbringing. In the epilogue, however, he does something that few writers today will do - he makes predictions - for the future of the Jewish community in America.

First, he says, the Orthodox model of religion has won. Not Orthodoxy the denomination, but rather the structure of a community of believers oriented around a religion. Secular Judaism is disappearing because it relied on an outside pressure (anti-Semitism, small numbers, Israel, Holocaust, etc) that is either gone or going away. (This, by the way, explains the enormous popularity of Holocaust-related institutions -films, organizations, memorials, books, university studies. Did you know that the Simon Weisenthal Center has the largest membership of any group in America today?) Orthodoxy, on the other hand, is surging precisely because the restrictions bounding it in today's society have been removed.

So what will be the future denominations in Judaism? (what follows is my understanding of Freedman's book and not necessarily his presentation) Freedman postulates four new groups: 1) Haredi - this will constitute all of Orthodoxy. Various factions (Hasidic, Lithuanian, Mitnagdish) have more or less merged as internal divisions weakened compared to divisions against the non-Orthodox. Modern and left-wing Orthodox will disappear. 2) Conservadox Conservative movement will join as refugees from their prospective denominations. (I think the UTJ is the birth pangs of this new movement), Freedman predicts the feminist revolution that has spread to the women in these two groups will not be stoppable. 3) Reformative - The issues of homosexuality, like the issue of feminism 25 years ago, will rupture the Conservative movement (as well as an increasing ignorant Conservative membership) and most of it will join with the Reform movement. This movement will be ritually more conservative but socially as progressive. 4) Just Jews - Half of all American Jews are unaffiliated. Many Jews will be driven off by the growing ritual conservatism of the Reform movement and simply go away. The ethnic ties that kept the last generation of secular Jews intact (Yiddish, Jewish summer camp, corned beef on rye) will no longer work.

Thinking through these ideas, I realized that what really separates these four new denominations is the per cent mixture of Judaism with the outside world. By outside world, I mean the prevailing culture - socially, politically, culturally, sometimes economic. This led me to make up the following chart defining these four groups:

Haredi 100% Judaism 0% Outside Jews

Conservadox 75% Judaism 25% Outside Jewish Americans

Reformative 25% Judaism 75% Outside American Jews

Just Jews 0% Judaism 100% Outside Americans

One last thought (also my own): I have always wondered what kept the Jews alive throughout the ages. Looking at history and comparing it to this chart, I think the answer is the second row, where the group is mostly Jewish but has some percentage from the outside world. After all, it was largely Babylonian Jewry that kept the Jews alive and the Babylonian Jews were an active part of Babylonian culture, although they largely kept to themselves. In the medieval period, Ashkenazic (European) Jews were the most successful at survival and they too were participants in European culture.

What is a Jew? Is a question that needs more books like this to help us answer. Unlike lots of people it seems, I have neve been able to finish a book I didn't like. Jew vs. Jew is a good book that tells a story of a fragmenting faith over the last 100 years through the eyes of real people. It's fascinating. Imagine a world where the Catholic church refused to even acknowledge that any other form of christianity was viable, in fact not christian in any way. This is what some elements of Orthodoxy argue about Reform and Conservative Jews that they are not Jews. No matter which side of the fence you are on this is a fascinating story and this book tells it well.