To be or not to be a real Jew, in the American imagination
No, Biblical Israelites are not the real Jews. Neither are Hasidim, 20th-century modernists, neurotic New York psychoanalysts, Moroccan saints, angst-ridden intellectuals, High Reformers or anyone else. Real Jews are all of the above - and the rest of us who take Jewishness seriously.
By The Forward and Jay Michaelson Tags: Jewish World Israel newsAmerican Jews of a certain class and culture have the scene engraved in their memories: Woody Allen's Alvy Singer in "Annie Hall" at Annie's goyish parents' house, suddenly seen through their eyes as a Hasid, in a long black coat and peyes.
It's a hilarious moment: Allen imagining how he is seen by non-Jews, giving us a great sight gag and, of course, capturing in just a few seconds of film the great anxiety of American Jews that we are "too Jewish," notwithstanding all our best efforts to assimilate.
I wonder, though, how many of us share the unstated assumption of the "Annie Hall" gag: that to be Hasidic is "really Jewish," to be secular is not really Jewish, and everything else lies somewhere in between. How often has our culture set up "Fiddler on the Roof" as an imagined Jewish ideal: real Jews in a real shtetl, practicing real Jewish traditions for the real Jewish God. Never mind that all these were creatures of fiction: what is most authentically Jewish, many of us believe, is the old-time religion (a non-Jewish term) of black hats and the Pale.
Arguably, a similar trope crops up in this year's "A Serious Man," which begins with an extended scene of a possible demonic possession, set in the shtetl and performed in Yiddish. As the film cuts to Minnesota from Eastern Europe, the sense of dislocation is palpable.
It's not, of course, that we want to be the shtetl Jews of Anatevka - only that we continue to see them as the "real" ones, and the rest of us, well, as a kind of hybridization, or adaptation. Thus there persists in the American Jewish imagination an anxiety of inauthenticity - that someone, somewhere, is the real Jew, but I'm not it.
The myth of authenticity, however, has got to go.
First, of course, it's not historically accurate. Traditional Jews didn't wear long black coats until the 18th century (notwithstanding some recent, and absurd, images of Moses crossing the Red Sea in a fur-lined shtrayml).
Moreover, until the advent of modernity, the notion that if you were "really" religious, you would dress anachronistically, simply did not arise in Jewish thought.
Distinctive dress, modest dress, visible signs like the yarmulke, sure - but never the idea that to be "real" was to be so radically other from one's own place and time. In fact, with only a few exceptions, everything that we think of as "really Jewish" came along at a particular place and time, because of particular historical circumstances, and was never universally shared (by Sephardim, for example).
More importantly, however, the entire notion of authenticity is a false projection of particular historical quirks onto an imagined ideal of "realness" that artificially freezes culture, and thus spells its demise. The truth is that there is no single authentic Jewishness.
Like any living culture, Jewish culture (and religion) evolves over time in order to remain vibrant. Of course, there are certain core values, myths and cultural traits that remain relatively constant. But bagels, bookishness and bar mitzvahs all evolved historically; none is more "really Jewish" than sushi, sports or a Sweet 16.
Orthodox fidelity to the law, anxieties of dislocation, reformist rationalization - all arose along the way. Even the ultra-Orthodox maxim that "innovation is forbidden by Torah" is, of course, a 19th-century innovation. To imagine that cultural forms must remain static to be authentic is to doom a culture to obsolescence.
It is also, of course, to privilege some cultural forms over others. Why bagels and not jahnoon? Why Joseph Caro's legalistic Shulchan Aruch but not his radical, mystical "Maggid Mesharim"? And for that matter, why a white male rabbi over an African-American female one? Anytime we claim that one cultural form is more authentic than another, we are replicating privilege and marginalization.
And worst of all, by ossifying and reifying a fake authenticity as "the real thing," we actually undermine the attempt to create true authenticity on the part of progressive Jews.
Meaningful authenticity isn't about an old religious form or a Yiddish pun (please, enough with cutesy invocations of "gelt" and "schlep"). It's when a religious, literary or cultural form - old, new or alt-neu - speaks to the depths of what it is to be human.
If a guitar-playing, meditating female rabbi resonates more with the souls of her followers than does a nigun-singing, Talmud-learning male one, she is the more authentic spiritual leader. If ecstatic prayer speaks to and from the spirit more than a supposedly consistent rationalism, then it, too, is more authentic, notwithstanding the howls of the secularist. Authenticity isn't about form, it's about getting to what matters.
For progressive Judaism to succeed, it must jettison the myth of authenticity based on some "real" forms that some "real" Jews really believe in and replace it with a personalized notion of authenticity measured by integrity and individual coherence.
Is my Buddhist-Judaism less authentic than someone else's more carefully patrolled boundaries of permissibility? Quite the contrary: It is more authentic, because it is more faithful to the truth of my experience. Not preference, not whim - but carefully considered internal coherence.
Those who prefer traditional forms sometimes deride innovations as "compromises". Yet, which is the more objectionable compromise: bending the rules to eat hot food on nonkosher plates, or clinging to a ritual form that may no longer hold any meaning, is historical in its origin and may actively impede other ethical values (such as connecting with people of other faiths)?
Likewise, sometimes traditional forms are derided as intellectual compromises by those who insist on a more rigorous secularism. But which is the real compromise: admitting the irrational desire to pray, or maintaining some pseudo-intellectual purity that cuts off the heart despite the soul?
Progressive Jews don't do what they do to compromise the authenticity of Judaism; they do it to maintain it. Sure, plenty of lazy Jews simply indulge their laziness, whether as ritual wafflers, ethical slobs or intellectual weaklings.
But for those who care about living an authentic life, values shift because of consideration, not spinelessness. To say "This works for me" can, indeed, be a summary denial of responsibility. But to say so meaningfully, based on discernment and introspection, is a mark of integrity.
The myth of authenticity, in contrast, is an abdication of introspection and personal responsibility. Thanks, but I'm not religious. Thanks, but I'm Orthodox. Thanks, but I don't need to think any further. It's a lot easier to say "This is real Judaism, and I do/don't practice it" than to look closely at what form might work to do the important stuff (afflict the comfortable, comfort the afflicted) for you.
Obviously, newer Jewish forms are not intrinsically superior to older ones; the books of the Bible have endured precisely because they continue to speak to so many people, despite the gulf in history and culture. And to be sure, the ancientness of these texts is part of their power: They bind us to history in a way that newer books cannot. But this power is not because of some imagined authenticity, or some unbroken connection between us and biblical Israelites who, after all, imagined that the world was a small, flat place, had no concept of medicine or industrialization, had notions about nation, ethnicity and gender that hopefully would have no place in contemporary society.
No, Biblical Israelites are not the real Jews. Neither are Hasidim, 20th-century modernists, neurotic New York psychoanalysts, Moroccan saints, angst-ridden intellectuals, High Reformers or anyone else.
Real Jews are all of the above - and the rest of us who take Jewishness seriously, in one form or another.
Real Jews speak with Southern accents, keep one day of yomtov (the holiday), hike in the wilderness, eat shrimp, intermarry, become ba'alei teshuvah, do karate, are bisexual, are neoconservative. Real Jews are the ones who make Judaism real for themselves.
In the past few years, there's been a fair amount of attention to novelty Jews. Yuri Foreman, for example, is both a rabbinical student and a boxing champion. What?! Matisyahu is a Hasid and a pop star. What?! The media love those interrobangs (the ?! symbol), but behind every one is an implicit assumption that Jews are supposed to be one way and not another. Boxing rabbis, lesbian rabbis, "Adventure Rabbis" and yoga-teacher rabbis - these images are foreign, funny or weird to some people, because the word "rabbi" still conjures up a very particular image: usually male, nebbishy and bearded. (Not that there's anything wrong with that - I'm all three.)
But that image is just a form. Indeed, when I read about Jewish farmers, Jewish Sufis and Jewish pro wrestlers, I think, good for the Jews.
I'm generally reluctant to praise one culture over another, but if there is one distinctive feature I love about Jewish culture, it's how, in our many diasporas, we have amalgamated so many contradictions, oblique angles and diverse perspectives on how it is to be human.
Granted, that pattern also leads to Jewish mobsters, Jewish financial shysters and Jewish arms merchants, but Jewish crooks aren't bad because they're inauthentic; they're bad because they're bad. The basic principles of change, growth and evolution are what has kept us going these thousands of years, as much as the basic bedrock values that remain more or less constant. For Jews, even more than for others, change is authenticity.
So let's get used to slippery slopes, murky swamps and the many other geographies of blending and uncertainty. Whether or not Jews have traveled here before, they are where we live today. Finding authenticity without is ahistorical and self-defeating. Finding it within is holy.
Why Facebook Connect?
Comment on Haaretz.com articles with your Facebook login, and share your thoughts on your own wall.
- Latest
- Most Viewed
- Most Rated
- Open all
Sorry, Jay. What you are speaking of is not authentic Yiddishkeit, but authentic Michaelson'keit. The two ain't neccessarily the same thing.
You mean if we talk to an ORTHODOX rabbi, we'll get THEIR truth! Nothing in the Torah says that one's Jewish ancestry can only come from the mother. Nothing in the Torah even remotely dictates that! Think the Orthodox get their ideas on ritual circumcision from the Torah? Think again!
Since when does "Jewishness" constitute our faith? "All of the above" makes it right--a heap of togetherness from various cultural sources? Does any religion, except modernism, function on consensus? Wow! Is not being a Jew based on faith in our God--a real relationship? Knowing Him and serving Him? Somebody needs some rehab here. Our Bible might come in handy at this point!
Jews and 'Messianic' Jews, too, are victims of Xtain racism and discrimination. Messianics are never allowed to be fully converted Xtians by labeling them and segregating them as 'Messianic Jews' in their own seperate congregations so they don't contaminate Xtians with the the power and influence of what little Jewish thought they have and as is expressed by Jesus and identifiable as Jewish in these wayward individuals. If they are thus rejected by Xtians, are they then still somehow Jewish? Worst of both worlds; wanting to be accepted to the point of selfabnegation of identity and a special relation w G-d and still subject to discrimination.
You have got the "point" there is different ways for to be a good jew
Here is a little true story. I have a friend who was adopted as a child, in Germany, by Jewish couple. He was born to german parents. Whole family immigrated to America and my friend tall, blue-eyed guy, who I met at work, considered himself Jewish. He got married to a Philippina lady and have 2 beautiful grown kids. His daughter just officially converted to Judaism and went to Israel for 10 days trip arranged by the University. In my book, if you are brave enough to call yourself JEWISH then you are a JEW. I've seen too many people who are hiding who they are due to very harsh realities they experienced. I think we are called CHOSEN because we are being picked on by people who are unable to compete and ruled by pure envy. Jewish people given to the world the best music, the best scientists, the best thinkers, greatest inventions, best movies, best actors and I can keep going on forever..so my point is if you are brave enough to call yourself a JEW then you are a JEW!! Case closed.
Is a person looking for a human definition or a definition from 'god'? If the latter then you have no business. If the former then carry on.
Since the question is never asked to non - Jews for the heck of it I asked a Christian friend: "To you, who is a REAL Jew?" He replied: "The Hassidic Jews. They are not diluted. They are PURE 100 % Jews through & through." I found the answer interesting. If not baffling. At times I ponder on his answer.
Just wanted to say that I totally agree with the author of this article. Jew, 17 yo
A "Real Jew" is defined by Halakhah--differently than stated by posters: a. born of a Jewish mother or b. converted according to Halakhah AND has not converted to a rival religion. The issue of authenticity is distinct & separate. Scholars agree that the most authentic model today of Judaism as handed down to Mosheh at Har Sinai are the Teimanim (Yemenite Jews). Instead of fragmenting around peripheral sectarianism (minim) discussed in the article, all sects of Judaism should pursue unity through this authentic paradigm, converging in emulating Nusakh Teimanim Baladi Dardaim (the latter incorporates science, logic and continuously modernizing technology and knowledge). Paqid Yirmeyahu Paqid 16, The Netzarim, Ra'anana, Israel Israeli Torah-reverer (& Orthodox Jew) Advocate for Logic as Hermeneutic Halakhic Authority Welcoming All Torah-reverers (Jews & non-Jews) www.netzarim.co.il
Is seems to me it is harder to be a Jew in Israel than it is in America. I am an orthodox jew, in America I go to school, take the train, live with races and religions of all kind. I have never gotten any grief for it, except in Israel, from both sides.
Jew is one of am israel, being one, living with, crying with, laughing with etc. That is why it is a mitzwa for a jew to live in israel. Living in israel ,being a jew is not special, most are jew ... religious or hiloni, we all have to live to gether, to protect our children ,unfortunately sending our children to army . and for most of us israeli religious or hiloni with children and average job , it is a very hard mitzwa and not easy life. Certainly not so easy as the life of (religious) american jews. And this mitzwa to life with your own people in israel is as hard for hiloni as religious jews to do. But we all do it for our freedom to life as jew in our country. And you ask me, So who is this jew? what clothes? how long is his beard? and so on. Then I say come to israel and see who is this real jew. We all are ,and free to be what we are. Thats our price for doing the mtzwa living in israel :to be free ! No diaspora jew can take this from me away!
So who or which group is seekinh to deligitimize a fellow Jew, Shabbos-observant or pork eating atheist? If the yid has a Jewish mother or went through Kosher conversion process then the Jew is a Jew. The writer sets up the same straw dog as non-tradtional branches of Judaism do The branches which do not go by the Rambam's 13 Principles of Faith and go steps further to deride the sages and scoff at the Rabbis authority to enact binding legislation on Jews, i.e., to poskin on our behalf). It's these beliefs which are not authentic because once you step outside the recognized boundries you are no longer within the "four cubits of Halacha", plain and simple. In Gittin 57b the "scoffers of Israel" boils in his (singular and not plural) own excrement as his punishment for deriding the sages (the rabbisw of HIS time, the Talmudic giants).
In the very near future in the Galut, the only Jews left will be the Orthodox. The others will assimilate and intermarry out of Judaism.
From those who supposedly know soo much.... You guys (who are trapped in the man made laws of the Talmud) are captive children. The truth of our religion is found in the way it "brings light unto all nations". We can't bring that light to them if we are stuck in our self imposed gettos. You may try to proof your talmudic religion through supposed obscurities in the Torah all you want. It is not Judaism. Read the Tanach for yourself. It is the duty of every Jew to interpret the Torah for his or herself. If you only know what others from history tell you is right to know you are throwing away your heritage and Blessing. You are not clones. Our God expects more from you.
Nothing in the Torah explicitly states that one must have a Jewish mother in order to be considered Jewish. That is simply the inference made by Orthodox Jews. By their own logic, a Jewish woman's descendants are automatically Jewish because SHE is Jewish. But a Jewish mother could be on either side of one's family. Also, the belief among Reform Jews is that it's not your Jewish ancestry that makes you Jewish, it's whether or not you were born and raised Jewish or had undergone a formal conversion to Judaism.
From a discursive point of view, the binary distinction created between authentic or not deconstructs itself as authenticity is socially constructed and subjective. As a secular myself, I understand the author's attempt to demistify a collective superego that imposes restrictive criteria for identity construction which historically has privileged self-selected individuals and groups. However, the piece portraits a self-indulgent, consumerist, individualistic, egocentric, classist, and nihilistic standpoint. I am not ready to shelve objectivity, not ready to abandon parameters and criteria which forces a collective, negotiated, sense of solidarity as well as privileging, yes giving preponderance!, to the contribution of the rule of Talmudic (particularly Halachic) wisdom and law. We can choose to live as we want, but as much as the author claims "progressivism," a Buddhist is not a Jew, period! and progressivism, historicallly, has been patronizing, classist & racist.
Reform Jew - you are incorrect with regards to "jewish mother" being made up by the rabbis. It is directly from the torah and oral torah. Speak to a knowledgable orthodox rabbi who hasn't divereted from the truth like reform rabbis have. "Reform Rabbis" have made things easier for this day and age but it is very far from the truth. Unfortunately, ppl are always looking for an easier way to do things. Reform Jew, you should look closely at your life and ensure you aren't living a mistake...
I would just like to clear something up.... having a beard, black suit, black coat, and a huge sombrero (hat lol) doesn't make you a religious jew....you may look like one but only a person that keeps the torah can be labelled an orthodox jew... many people where the costume but there actions nothing more....
Carolina, i agree with you. you shouldn't care what others think of you. But you should care what G-D thinks of you. You may be the kindest and most loving person of all but G-D has given jews a task here and it explicitly says what/how to do things in our torah. You should do some research about why orthodox ppl do the things they do before making your own assumtions...remeber, believing is really not knowing (b/c believing leaves room for doubt).
Still have not heard of anyone or any sect of judaism denying the authenticity of any Jew born to a jewish mother or converted halachically. This is universally accepted. You don't seem to be denying it either. Whether reform decides to abolish (doesn't sound like they did anyway-just decided to water it down) or to use your own term "invent" its'own rules the above definition is the standard in Judaism. Are you telling me that a reform convert will be accepted across the board ? I think not.- Where do you live ?
There is only one real type of judaism and that is ORTHODOX Judaism. Here is my proof. If you KNOW there is a g-d and that He gave the jews the torahS (5 books of moses, 8 books of the phrophets, and 11 books of the Writings) then you KNOW that every jew has a mission here, there is a world to come, that you are ad will be judged, reward and punishment is on a measure for measure basis, and that you should keep the words of the torah. If you don't KNOW that...but believe in G-D and but only keep a couple of things...then all i have to say is BELIEVING is not KNOWING AT ALL. Believing leaves room for doubt and as a jew if you have doubt you should be investigating the truth of the torah. You should never have any doubt about Judaism...none whatsoever....You should ask questions and challenge knowlegable rabbis..and at the end you will see clearly that the torah is divine, given only by g-d, and is the clear way as to how we should be living. All questions have answers..
Jews portrayed by Woody Allen in Annie Hall and other films. considering that he has , for a large part of his career, made his fame by using Jews in his films, I was shocked to see in a documentary , how he viscously verbally assaulted his aged parents about their Jewishness, reveling in the fact that he and his brother married out. Neurotic is too kind a word for Mr.Allen. I stopped seeing his movies after that and I understand I'm not missing much.
I would like to see Mr. Michaelson explain how the Torah fits into his framework of Jewishness. What happens when a Jew denies that the universe was created? And since when is it OK for Jews to eat shrimp? I think that Mr. Michaelson is proposing a feel-good form of religion, based on selfish-ness and the needs of the individual. Unfortunately, experience in the last 100 years has demonstrated clearly that this form of religion leaves no legacy that can be passed down to the next generation, thus it extinguishes itself. So what's the point of that? I'll stick to the formula that's been working, albeit with problems, but working for the last few thousand years.
The author confuses "authentic" with "meaningful" or "important to me" and thus does violence to the actual meaning of "authentic". He is also simply wrong in alleging that fidelity to the law is a recent invention - it is in fact a Torah-based injunction. He (and many others) should read Yeshiyahu Leibowitz e.g. "Judaism, Human Values & the Jewish State" (ed. Goldman, pub. Harvard University Press).
Do you not see the contradiction as in a Jew who eats pork? You cannot have it both ways and if you want to change the religion so much then choose a different one or make your own as Jesus and Mohammad did.
By Jay's definition a Jew is anything at anytime which means being a Jew is meaningless and should have no meaning. Jewish culture has roots and so do observance, a Chasidic Jew has more in common with any Jew in history than a Left wing secular Jew who eats ham to celebrate yom kippur. That btw is a non-Jewish activity but you would not know that since anything goes in your people of the non-book.
being jewish is being part of am israel and living in israel. That lot of Azkenazi jews are white is due to mixing with local goying during the centuries. We jews are jews like arabs are arabs and as a matter of fact we jews are historicly arabs who have gone their own way. Like arabs we jews are color less, not in the Thora not in the Koran the color of the skin has been used to devide people in "races" In america (and europe) first of all people have to be placed in some of "group" according to the color if the skin. we (middle east) arabs/jews are arabs/jews not black and not white. I remember some years ago an american jew who not only was surprised to see in Netanya a religious jew with kipa working behind a garbage truck, and seeing a old rabbi giving talmud lessons. Why was this american surprised and little bit upset? Cause the jew who empty garbage in to the truck had a white skin and the rabbi had a black skin... still do not understand his problem
Is he from the Davidic bloodline and a Jew? Is he born in Bethlehem out of a Virgin mother? What does the Torah say.
Women wearing wigs and men looking like John Belushi in "The Blues Brothers" does not define an what is Jewish. I'm as non-observant as you can get ritually but am Jewish to the core ethically. I don't care what an orthodox person practices & their judgement of me is meaningless.
Many practices in the Orthodox community actually started after the Babylonian captivity. Even the Orthodox ritual of circumcision comes from the Talmud, not the Torah, which mandates that a male baby must be circumcised on the 8th day after birth and is not necessarily done ritually. I'm a Reform convert myself and I feel just as much at home as if I were born and raised Jewish. I was circumcised, I keep kosher, observe the Sabbath and the High Holy Days and study the Torah. My Hebrew needs improvement too, but all in all, I don't feel any less Jewish than the most Orthodox Jew.
If people like the author of this article have the idea that they are as serous about beimg Jewish as a Chasid, they are lying to themsdelves abut who they are.
Maybe. Messianic Jews are either Jewish or not. Either they are the child of a Jewish mother or are a ger tzedek or not. Engaging in a false religion doesn't change that fact. Going into a church doesn't do anything to you, because it's just an edifice. If you say otherwise, then you're granting some reality to it. Whatever they say has nothing to do with their Jewish status.
'First, of course, it's not historically accurate. Traditional Jews didn't wear long black coats until the 18th century'. Rubbish. You only have to check original pictures for that: try Cecil Roth's book on Jewish clothing for example. 'hot food on nonkosher plates' - try re-reading Numbers 31:21ff. 'Is my Buddhist-Judaism less authentic...' YES. Because you clearly haven't bothered to find out about your own religion before running after an easy option elsewhere.
If Judaism is not sturdy enough to withstand the temptations of any other religion, then the reason lies with the void between the present Jewish religious leadership and the real world. 18th century norms and modes of thought, 18th century fear of any change, are intellectually and ethically inferior to the classic dynamic thought of earlier Rabbis. That which does not change is doomed to eventual extinction.
No, because they follow a faith that opposes the basic tenets of Judaism. They have chosen to leave Judaism to practice a different faith, which despite its superficial Judaic trappings, is in direct opposition to single guiding premise of our faith. Most, if not all Messianic Jewish groups were founded to convert Jews to Christianity by religious stealth tactics; Jews 4 Jesus was founded by Christians who openly stated that was their purpose. Here's a good discussion of the religious issues and history:http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/questions-a-answers-primary-234/74-messianic-judaism-hebrew-christianity/184-is-the-christian-movement-called-qmessianic-judaismq-a-form-of-judaism. -- Wikipedia on J4J: "Jews for Jesus is a Christianevangelistic organization that focuses specifically on the conversion of Jews to Christianity." See:http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Jews_for_Jesus.html,
What the writer fails to acknowledge, however, is that the majority of US Jews are descended from Eastern European Orthodox Jews. The shtetl are part of our personal story, our family history, part of the root of our Jewishness. Our great-grandparents came here, made certain choices, and we are the results of those choices. When Woody Allen envisions himself as a Hassid, it is not because he connects to the "other" or a "better Jew", but because he suddenly is aware of his own roots, and how different they are from those of his hosts...differences that are masked by assimilation, but which still surface at unexpected moments. He and the goyim may appear identical, but they will never *be* identical. That is a message that most American Jews understand quite clearly, and the reason why Reform Jews lead active religious lives and continue to send their kids to Hebrew school, even while Israelis moan about how they are "lost" and "will forget their faith in a generation"
I don't know a single American Jew who refers to Hasids as "real jews" and feel they themselves are lacking...for the simple reason that there's an easy fix if they are. Israelis are the ones I see beating that horse to death, over and over, with protestations that non-Orthodox Jews are failed Jews, ignorant Jews, Jews who have not yet discovered what it is to be Jewish. How often in these pages we see stories about the evils of assimilation, as if Being Jewish is inherently incompatible with being anything else? (Except Israeli, of course...which is the point of such articles) (cont)
"...who is born to a jewish mother or is converted according to halacha is deemed an "authentic or real jew". I have not heard of anyone denying this..." Avi, this "Jewish mother" only thing is not d'oraita" but a rabbinic invention - and has been correctly abolishd by Reform. If you never heard of it - then you heard ithere and now . Reform Jew
Jews or Israelites are those physically descended from the male lines of the SONS of Jacob (Israel). Jews specifically descended from the male lineage of Judah. The American imagination is what you are addressing here - sadly it is a descent into madness because much of the American imagination is based in almost pure ignorance and presumption. Israel is God's time clock for the ages; the chosen race for the generation of the messiah - 3BC feast of tabernacles, the blessing of God to the earth's inhabitants - which is proven time after time; Israel will be saved from the nations after she is besieged at least two more times in the near future. Israel will have warfare with Damascus and Damascus will be utterly destroyed... Who is Jewish? Someone with "destiny" clearly stamped on their foreheads...
Dr./Mr. Michealson describes G-d made in the image of man. I think he has it backwards.
I'll go farther. If you agree that the Torah was divinely given, then stop doing your own thing and do what big daddy tells you to do. That's called abiding by halacha. And all you and yours' hollering to do your own thing is just gibberish. Come judgement day you can tell it to the judge.
As a Jew of Sephardi background, I've never had to contend with the notion that "black hat" Judaism was authentic or normative. But what unites us with Jews of other lands and eras is the foundation on Torah, Jewish peoplehood, and the centrality of the land of Israel. None of that seems relevant to the autonomous focus of Michaelson's drivel. How does this attitude differ from Jefferson Airplane's "If You Feel" ethos or the general notion that "If it feels good, do it"? Michaelson focuses on whatever "speaks to me", without any underlying reference to basic principles. It is an invitation to anarchy and a feckless tendency to the fashion or tend of the day.
What has been consistent and univerally accepted amongst all factions of jews is that one who is born to a jewish mother or is converted according to halacha is deemed an "authentic or real jew". I have not heard of anyone denying this. Those people described in this article who adhere to this definition of a jew is an authentic or real jew", period.
Are Messianic Jews then, real Jews?
Pick and choose what you want. Package as "authentic" religion Stamp "made in China" Rinse and repeat
real jew is the one who keeps tradition as a way to keep the family together. real jew is the one who cares for considers other jews as his family and is aware of his background . real jew is the one who with respect to other people , fights for our dignity. real jew is the one who never forgets jerusalem. real jew is the one who keeps is origins ,yet is open to the new era . yes a need a rabbi with a guitar who instead of sending away a jew , he will accept a half jew.
I say wonderful editorial. No doubt the intolerant voices will condemn you, I see many already have. There are so many in this community that hold a "it is my way or no way" mentality they will not be able to see the point of your post. Congratulations on understanding who the Jews really are and how Jews are a vibrant multidimensional people. There have always been multiple interpretations of Judaism throughout history at any given time, why that should be any different today I do not know. It is sad however that there are so many Jews out there who purport to love Judaism but hate their fellow Jews.
Mr. Michaelson and the first "Talkbacks" seem to agree that 'authentic' is a synonym for better, or superior, or true. That ill usage of the term would, for example, make the historically original Italian Fascism superior in some fashion to its clones in Spain and South America. But, as we know, some of Mussolini's imitators outdid him in viscousness, not that he wasn't viscous enough. So, who is a real Jew? Arab bashers; right-wing narrow minded modern day colonialists; deniers of the human rights of the 'other'? If so, then the majority of Israeli citizens, aside from their ignorance in the voting booth, are not 'authentic Jews'; in the end that is what will save our souls and sanity.
To quote an "authentic" Jewish voice,(Dash from The Incredibles) sayting that everyone is special is another way of saying that nobody is special. Nothing matters, it all the same. (If anyone is interested, see the similar argument by the philosopher at the beginning of the "Kuzari" by R. Yehuda HaLevy. HaLevy rejected this argument in 1140, do we need it in 2010?) To paraphrase a quote from Solomon Schecter, Judaism's goal is as much to show the world that there are false gods as to bring the world to the True One. (See his "Some aspects of Rabbinic Theology"). Abraham, says the midrash, began his journey by breaking idols. No, Mr. Michaelson JD, almost Phd etc. you want paganism not Judaism. Moshe kibel Torah Mi'Sinai not from Buddah.
This is a very typical Jay Michaelson column, in that it's all about the individual, not about the community. If the individual values it, then it's authentic. Of course, in the world of Michaelson's article, I guess there's no such thing as assimilation (after all, if going to church and raising my kids as Christians is what really speaks to me, then isn't that the most authentic Judaism). I guess authentic is whatever we want it to be. I guess we can hold up the "straw man" of how people dress, etc. to avoid the real issue of whether "authentic" Judaism requires doing the mitzvot (and that has been a constant for a long, long time, regardless of whether it manifested itself slightly differently in one place or another). I fear that Michaelson's overwhelming emphasis on individualism squashes any real attempt at authenticity ("If I am only for myself, what am I?")
Some interesting ideas in the article. But ...a beard helps to avoid many temptations, and so does wearing a tsizit... Eating shrimp and intermarriage are not part of the Jewish way of life, I think.