"Who is a Jew?" Revisited

Generations from now, when the history of American Jewry is produced – please God even as new chapters are still being written – there will be a footnote, if not an entire chapter, on Adam Sandler. One cold December night some twenty years ago, in the midst of an otherwise forgettable Saturday Night Live Weekend Update, this often funny and frequently crude comedian sang what would become an anthem for American Jewry. Calling it the “Hanukkah Song,” with nearly every line rhyming with “harmonica” or “Veronica,” Sandler sang the Rolodex of Jewish American celebrity. In his words: “David Lee Roth lights the Menorah, so do James Caan, Kirk Douglas and the late Dinah Shore-ah.”

My favorite stanza:

Guess who eats together at the Carnegie Deli,
Bowser from Sha-Na Na and Arthur Fonzerelli.
Paul Newman's half-Jewish, Goldie Hawn's half, too.
Put them together, what a fine lookin' Jew.”

I remember laughing very hard the first time I heard it, and more recently, experiencing wistful nostalgia as Debbie and I realized that our children didn’t know a single name listed.

Twenty years later, I would contend that the song is not just a cultural marker in my own life, but a turning point in the American Jewish condition. Why? Because it was on that night that the genie was let out of the bottle on the age-old question of “Who is a Jew?” The novelty of the song was not the public, pride-filled and tongue-in-cheek embrace by a Jewish comic of his or her Jewish identity; Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Gilda Radner and too many others to mention had done that before. What made the skit notable was that Sandler exposed the democratic and slippery and prickly nature of American Jewish identity. Harrison Ford, Rod Carew and all Three Stooges, by birth or by conversion, matrilineal or patrilineal, true or not true – that night the boundaries of Jewish identity became a lot more porous. Being a “Jew” was a label that could be assigned or acquired by the authority of ... Adam Sandler. A Wild West opened up, where to be a “Jew,” one merely needed to act or be perceived to be “Jew-ish,” and it was so and nobody could say otherwise.

The opening chapter of Professor Shaul Magid’s recent book on American Jewry is titled “Be the Jew You Make: Jews, Judaism and Jewishness in Post-ethnic America.” (American Post-Judaism, 2013) The take-home message, as you may guess, is one and the same as that of the Adam Sandler song. Not just Jews but all of America, Magid explains, has become post-ethnic. Meaning, it is no longer is it the case that blood, or history or memory determines identity. It is the voluntary affiliations, not the involuntary ones, that now make people who they are. There may have been a time when who your grandparents were determined who you are, but as Magid points out, you need look no further than the mixed-racial parentage of our President to know that the ironclad assumptions of that era are no longer operative. In a sentence, America is no longer a society founded on “descent,” but one founded by “consent.” If we feel Jewish, or if Adam Sandler thinks or says we are, then that makes it so. In Magid’s words, “religion is increasingly a product of voluntarism and inventiveness as opposed to inherited tradition.” (p. 19) Or, as the title of another survey of American Jewry puts it: “‘Grande Soy Vanilla Latte with Cinnamon, No Foam’ … Jewish Identity and Community in a Time of Unlimited Choices.” (Bennett, et. al. Reboot, 2006)

Depending on who you are, you may believe these developments to be a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand, with a looser definition of “Who is a Jew?” there could be more and more people who find themselves identifying with our people. How amazing is it that we live in a time that people just want to be Jewish! On the other hand, many may argue, there is a consequence to all this: a cheapening of what it means to be a Jew, theologically, historically, communally and otherwise. After all, if everyone who wants to be a Jew can do so simply by asserting it to be the case, then at what point does that claim become meaningless? As Americans we shudder at the thought of anyone telling us who we can and can’t say we are. But as Jews we know that the situation is a bit more textured. At the very least, when it comes to matters of personal identity, just because you say it, doesn’t make it so.

What we can all agree on is – or at least all the data seems to indicate – that we are entering, if not already living in, a new chapter of American Jewish life. One of the most fascinating byproducts of the recent studies of New York and American Jewry is the new glossary of terms in use. It used to be that Jews were Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Ashkenazic, Sephardic, a few atheists and Madeline Albright. Now there are Jews of no religion, Jews by personal decision, partial Jews and more. Some of these people may have a Madonna-like affection for Jewish mysticism, some may just have an ex-spouse who was Jewish, and some just say they feel at home in the faith. The sociologist Steven Cohen calls these Jews with melded or malleable or fluid identities “borderland Jews.” They have liminal identities. Some practice other faiths; some do not. There is a statistically significant and growing number of people who are, for lack of a better word, Jews by cultural affinity. Proud and self-confident, not Jewish by any halakhic (Jewish legal) definition, but laying claim as stakeholders in our people’s destiny.

To make matters even more complicated, and for reasons we can delve into another day, the exact opposite trend is taking place in Israel. The Israeli Chief Rabbinate is rapidly moving to constrict the definition of who is a Jew and who is authorized to vouch for someone’s Jewishness. As you may know, because of the manner in which Israeli society is structured, all matters of personal status (birth, marriage, conversion, burial) are under the authority of the Chief Rabbinate. So for instance, when two Jews from the Diaspora register to get married in Israel, the Israeli rabbinate requires some sort of letter vouching for the Jewishness of the individuals in question. You may have read of the firestorm that erupted this past week as the bona fides of mainstream Orthodox rabbis have been rejected by an increasingly insular Israeli Chief Rabbinate. In the eyes of the State of Israel, American Jews are no longer empowered to say “who is a Jew.” It is a terrible turn of events, a state of affairs whose only silver lining is that the American Orthodox rabbinate finally understands what Conservative and Reform rabbis have been complaining about all these years. In other words, a perfect storm has emerged between the two centers of the Jewish world, America and Israel. A loosening definition of Jewish identity in America and a tightening in Israel – both problematic, the two probably interrelated, and together, with potentially calamitous consequences. One Jewry watered down beyond recognition and the other parochialized beyond relevance at its own peril. Neither one interested in acknowledging the other, neither one invested in the other’s well being. The prophet Jeremiah prophesied that the destroyers of the Jewish people will come from within. We are a small enough people with big enough problems as it is, and here we are tearing each other apart from the inside with nobody to blame but ourselves.

So what is the answer? It is a good question and as a congregation that is both traditional and liberal in its sensibilities – we can take some leadership in responding. I do take some solace in the knowledge that the problem at hand is not entirely unprecedented. As early as in the events of this week’s parashah, the emancipated Israelites experienced a redefinition of identity upon entering a new chapter of wilderness existence with nobody but themselves who would tell them who they were. Liberated from Egyptian bondage, they sang a triumphant song as they passed safely through the Sea of Reeds. “This is my God and I will glorify Him; My father’s God, and I will exalt him.” (Exodus 15:2) At one and the same time, they asserted a voluntary, intimate and personal relationship with their faith – “This is my God” – and laid claim to the faith of their predecessors – “My father’s God, and I will exalt him.” Neither one by itself was sufficient. As free Jews, the Israelites insisted on establishing a relationship with God on their own terms, in the coin of their day. Yet they also were able to understand that personal religious experience as connected to their ancestral faith. That they could see it as one and the same project – that realization, as much as the theatrics of splitting the sea – was the miracle of our parashah.

There are those in the Jewish world who believe that the only response to the emergent Jewish demography is to circle the wagons. And there are those who believe that the first and only loyalty of Judaism is to Jews; Judaism is whatever Jews say it is – no matter who says it and how that Judaism is expressed. Here in this sanctuary, we reject the premise that it is an either/or proposition. Ours must be a Judaism of both descent and consent: “The God of my fathers” and “My God.” In the words of my teacher Louis Jacobs, “Both concepts are essential to Jewish piety, the one giving strength to the other.” (We Have Reason to Believe, p. 32) We stand on new shores, facing a wilderness, a Wild West that we are still seeking to understand. No matter what course we choose, the condition of the Jewish people as whole must always be of paramount importance. In North America, in Israel – and most of all – between the two. A shared Jewish destiny linked together in space and in time: past, present and – most of all – future.