Judaism Without Religion

A generation or two ago in America, it was possible to be culturally Jewish and religiously neutral.  Judaism had not become mainstream.  Antisemitism helped define who we were as a people in the United States.  Even if we did not directly experience any overt acts of anti-Jewish prejudice, we all knew people within our lives who had experienced and been affected by antisemitism.  And looming as a shadow over all of it was the Holocaust.  Even if we did not want to identify with being religiously Jewish, the Third Reich and the passivity with which the rest of the world reacted to the attempted destruction of the Jewish people made it eminently clear that it was not our wishes that were paramount. 

Being defined as an outsider, it was only natural to seek refuge within one’s own group.  Country clubs excluded Jews so they formed their own.  When Groucho Marx was someone’s guest at the LA Country Club, he was informed that Jews could not use the pool.  His now-famous reply was to ask whether his daughter could go in up to her waste because she was only half-Jewish.  You did not need to observe Shabbat, go to a synagogue or keep kosher to feel Jewish.

You could define your Judaism by identification with certain types of food.  Jewish delicatessens had distinct foods and even smells.  They did not even have to be kosher.  Ham was served at many of these kosher style delis.  Bagels and lox on Sunday mornings were standard Jewish fare.  Foods that were used to stretch poverty stricken budgets in Eastern Europe, such as matzo balls and gefilte fish, became delicacies for the 20^th Century American Jewish palate.

All of the foregoing led to an identification as being Jewish and part of the Jewish people without the necessity of observing the religious dictates.  Moreover, for the first few generations removed from the shtetl, except for the Orthodox, even those that did observe the religious rituals did so as a form of Judaism lite.  Our parents were less learned of things Jewish and their parents and we knew less than our parents.  You do not have to be a mathematician to see where this trend is going.

But something happened from the late 20^th Century onward.  Jewish culture had become part of American culture.  In the early 1960’s, when Carl Reiner created The Dick Van Dyke Show, loosely based on his experiences as a writer for Your Show of Shows, Rob and Laura Petrie were the quintessential Wasps, down to Rob being from Danville, Illinois.  Jerry Seinfeld did not have to hide his ethnicity in Seinfeld; he played Jerry Seinfeld the New York Jewish comedian.  Middle America was accepting of the show regardless of the creator’s Jewish roots because the show was funny.  The bagel shop down the street was owned by a Chinese couple and the Jewish deli was owned by an Hispanic guy, all of whose workers were Hispanic and nobody seemed to care. 

You could no longer be an American Jew merely by being part of the Jewish culture.  Jews became accepted and welcomed into the American melting pot.  A President of the United States felt genuine agony when an Israeli Prime Minister was assassinated.  Bill Clinton ended his eulogy for Yitzhak Rabin with the words, “Shalom Chaver” and the feelings were authentic.  His daughter was so much of a Judeophile that she married one.

The trends – the decline of religious observance and the mainstreaming of Jewish culture are leading to the demise in America of being culturally Jewish without identifying with religious practices.  There is, however, still one place where you can proudly be culturally Jewish and religious neutral.  But in order to do so, you have to take the journey across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. 

For a significant portion of the Jewish population of Israel, there is limited identification with the most minimal aspects of the religion.  Their Judaism comes from being Israeli.  The Jewish calendar does have an impact on the life of the nonreligious Israeli Jew.  Yom Kippur is bicycle day.  The Passover Seder is one of many meals in which the storyline goes that they tried to kill us, but did not succeed, so let’s eat.  Joe Israeli would never think of attending a Reform or Masorti synagogue in Israel because he wants the synagogue to which he does not attend to be authentically Orthodox.  The real Jewish identification for non-observant Israeli Jews is being asked to defend the homeland of the Jewish people against the multitude of threats that the Jewish State faces, which are far too numerous to set out here.  You can rest assured that all of the religiously neutral Israeli Jews serve in the Israeli Defense Forces.  That might be the most important Jewish identification that can be made.

© 2011 Douglas J. Workman