Jewish Identity
1. First, I want to say something about Jews in general and tell you a few Jewish jokes.
2. Then I want to examine the question: Who is a Jew?
3. And next I want to turn to the question: What is Judaism?
4. This leads to the topic of what really makes a person Jewish. I will argue it is historical memory.
5. And that leads on to memory and modern history. In particular the state of Israel and the Holocaust.
6. In the end I will sum it all up for you, and stress how critical memory is.
Introduction
Now, you might think that Jewishness is essentially a matter of belief. It has never been so. In this respect being Jewish is fundamentally different from being Christian. It makes no
sense to think a person is a Christian if the person is an atheist. But there are millions of Jews worldwide who have no religious belief, but are nonetheless as Jewish as the most pious amongst us. And we Jews recognise each other in seemingly incomprehensible ways.
This point is illustrated by a Jewish joke about identity:
A woman on a train walks up to a man in the dining car. ‘Excuse me,’ she says, 'but are you Jewish?’
‘No,’ he replies.
A few minutes later the woman returns. ‘Sorry to bother you again,’ she says, ‘But are you sure you're not Jewish?’
‘I'm sure,’ insists the man.
A few minutes later she goes up to the man a third time and quizzes, ‘Are you absolutely sure you're not Jewish?’
‘All right, all right,’ he sighs, ‘You win. I am Jewish.’
‘That's funny,’ says the woman, ‘You don't look Jewish.’
Despite our differences we Jews understand one another and laugh at the same stories. Some Jews are devout; others are not. We are scattered around the globe. Yet no matter where we live, we regard ourselves as one enormous dysfunctional family. And we love making fun of each other. Rabbis are often the butt of the jokes we tell--like this one:
"A rabbi dies and is waiting in line to enter heaven. In front of him is a man dressed in a loud shirt, leather jacket, jeans and sunglasses. Gabriel says to the man, ‘I need to know who you are so that I can determine whether or not to admit you to the kingdom of heaven.'
The man replies, ‘I'm Moishe Levy, taxi driver.' Gabriel consults his list, smiles and says to the taxi driver, ‘OK. Take this silken robe and golden staff and enter the kingdom of heaven.'
Now it's the rabbi's turn. He stands upright and says, ‘I am Benjamin Himmelfarb and I have been a rabbi for 40 years.' Gabriel looks at his list and says to the rabbi, ‘OK. Take this cotton robe and wooden staff and enter the kingdom of heaven.'
‘Hold on a minute,' says Rabbi Himmelfarb, ‘that man before me was a taxi driver. Why did he get a silken robe and golden staff?'
‘Up here, we only work by results,' says Gabriel. ‘While you preached, people slept –but while he drove, people prayed.' "
It is not only rabbis who are satirised--Jewish mothers frequently get similar treatment:
A young Jewish man tells his mother he plans on marrying and invites her to meet his chosen bride-to-be. He asks the bride-to-be and two other attractive women friends of hers to stand in a row, and after his mother arrives, he asks her if she can pick out the woman he plans on marrying. Without hesitation, his mother goes right to the bride-to-be and says, 'Her!' The son is dumbfounded and wants to know how his mother could possibly have selected the right woman so quickly and unerringly. His mother answers: 'She's the one I didn't like.'"
I wonder if Christians tell the same kind of jokes about their priests and mothers.. Maybe they do. But there is no doubt that Jews--no matter what their religious orientation--would laugh at the punchlines. Jokes about rabbis, biblical characters such as Moses, Jewish mothers, Jewish businessmen, Jewish princesses enliven Jewish life. We love to make fun of the most serious issues. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is sacrosanct. And paradoxically, we only allow Jews to make fun of other Jews. If a gentile told the sorts of jokes we tell about ourselves, that person would be branded an antisemite. We would call in the police. We would cry 'antisemitism.' We would get UPSET. But what is there about Jewish life that unites us? What is there that binds us together so that we laugh at the same thing?
Who is a Jew?
Officially Jewish descent is all important. Let me tell you how the system works. In the Bible Jewish identity is based on paternal descent. In other words, a person is Jewish if their father is Jewish. However, in the Hellenistic period, the definition changed. According to the rabbis, it is the mother who counts. Over the centuries Jewish law adopted this principle. If both parents are Jewish, then their child is Jewish. If the father is non-Jewish but the mother is Jewish, the child is Jewish. But if the mother is nonJewish and the father is Jewish, the child is a gentile. However, conversion was also allowed. A non-Jew can become Jewish by going through a conversion procedure.
Today all branches of Orthodox Judaism (including the Hasidim) as well as those belonging to the Conservative movement (a nonOrthodox traditional branch of Judaism) accept the criterion of maternal descent. Reform and Liberal Jews (who belong to a more progressive branch of Judaism), however, have expanded the definition of Jewishness to include children born of both maternal and paternal descent. So if either of a child's parents is Jewish (not just the mother), the child is considered to be Jewish as long as the
child is raised as a Jew. In addition, these various non-Orthodox movements have their own conversion procedures. However, the Orthodox refuse to accept either the children of paternal descent who lack maternal descent as Jews, and they also regard converts in these various movements as non-Jewish.
What you can see then is that in the contemporary Jewish world, there is considerable confusion as to who should be regarded as authentically Jewish. The Orthodox have their own rules, whereas the various non-Orthodox movements have different definitions of Jewishness. This matter is further confused by the Law of Return in Israel which extends the category of those entitled to immigration and citizenship as Jews to individuals who are the children and grandchildren of Jews, regardless of their affiliation. In addition, all converts to Judaism regardless of under whose auspices conversion took place, are entitled to settle in Israel.
What is Judaism?
We Jews have been in existence for nearly 4000 years. Judaism continues to remain a living faith. Yet, paradoxically we cannot agree about who belongs to the Jewish community. There is constant and bitter contention among the various religious groups about the definition of Jewishness. So you might think that, even if we cannot agree about who is a Jew, we would at least have a unified view about the Jewish faith. Surely there is a clear definition of Judaism itself. Well, this is not so. Alongside the debate concerning the status of individuals within the Jewish community, Jewry is deeply divided about the legitimacy of the various forms of Judaism that have emerged in the modern world.
Strictly Orthodox Judaism in its various forms regards itself as the only authentic Jewish way of life. All other branches (such as Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist Judaism) are viewed as heretical. These non-Orthodox branches, however, view themselves as legitimate interpretations of the faith more suited to
modern circumstances. Hence, in the modern Jewish world, there is profound disagreement about the fundamental beliefs and practices of the Jewish heritage.
What then are the different points of view? Traditional Jewish life centred around the observance of the law. It is an article of the faith that the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) was given to Moses in its entirety by God. This means that all the stories in the Five Books of Moses are true: creation, the flood, the exodus, the revelation on Mt Sinai, the conquest of the Promised Land. In addition, the 613 commandments in the Five Books of Moses are binding on Jews for all time. These laws are referred to as the Written Torah.
Alongside the Written Torah is the Oral Torah, which is viewed as divinely revealed alongside the 613 commandments. This oral law was also revealed to Moses on Mt Sinai, and passed on through generations of sages. Eventually the Oral Torah was written down in the Mishnah, and later expanded in the Talmud. These rabbinic interpretations of the law are binding on all Jews, Strictly Orthodox Jews are thus upholders of an ancient tradition passed down through the centuries.
Non-Orthodox branches of Judaism, however, have broken away from the tradition. No longer do they regard the Torah as divinely revealed in its entirety. This means that Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist Jews no longer view the Bible as containing inerrant truth. Instead, these various movements in different ways and to different degrees have abandoned much of the legal code, and have ceased to view the narrative accounts in the Pentateuch as true. Instead, they regard the Bible as an inspired record of the history of Israel.
You should bear in mind that alongside these various religious denominations, there are literally millions of Jews world-wide who have no religious belief. Some are atheists; some agnostics. All are
unaffiliated. Think of the 6 million Jews living in Israel. Although they in different ways are supporters of Zionism, most Israelis do not affiliate with synagogue life. Instead of worshipping on the Sabbath, they drive to the beaches. They do not keep kosher. They are unobservant.
Historical Memory
So it appears that neither Jewish descent, conversion, nor religious commitment definitively defines Jewishness. What then does? What makes someone Jewish? What unites us as a people?
Arguably, it is collective memory. Let me begin with the Bible. For the Orthodox the Five Books of Moses contain truths about the nature of the universe, God's selection of the Jewish nation as his special people, the exodus, and the revelation on Mt Sinai. For the Orthodox, the Torah is an infallible record of historic events.
Non-Orthodox Jews like me, however, do not view Scripture in this way. For example, I don't believe that the universe was created in six days. Possibly the events recorded in the Torah did not actually take place. Were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob historical persons? I have no idea. Did the Jewish people escape from Egyptian bondage under Moses leadership? Who knows? What about the conquest of the Canaanites? Archeological findings do not support the events recorded in the Hebrew Bible. So who can tell?
But does it matter? Not really. In the synagogue on the Sabbath we read aloud the Torah portion containing these stories about Noah, Abraham, Moses. It is taken for granted that these narratives record the history of our people. But no one stands up and says: 'Hey, but is it true? Did Abraham really live? Did Moses? These figures of the past are alive for Jews in the present. Who knows if they are myths? Perhaps they are. But the stories about the great heroes and heroines of Jewish history bind us to who we are. Our identity is rooted in ancient times.
When Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who was Jewish by origin, was attacked in Parliament with an anti Semitic remark, he replied: 'Yes, I am a Jew, and when the ancestors of the right honourable gentlemen were brutal savages in an unknown island, mine were priest in the temple of Solomon.' On Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), we read the story of our ancestor Abraham who was initially commanded by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac. In his place he sacrificed a lamb--this story reminds us at the beginning of the Jewish year of the founder of the faith and his dedication to God.
At Passover, we Jews gather together for the Passover Seder, which commemorates the liberation by Moses of our ancestors who were in Egyptian bondage. My family in Denver, where I grew up, was composed of believers and non-believers. At the Passover Seder (Passover meal), we sat together and recited the Haggadah (Passover prayer book) which recounted the story of the first-born Egyptians who were killed whereas God passed over the houses of the Israelites and spared them. We ate matzohs which symbolise the unleavened bread that the ancient Hebrews baked prior to their escape. We eat bitter herbs which symbolise the bitterness of slavery, and haroset (a mixture of apples, nuts, cinnamon and wine) which is a reminder of the bricks and mortar that Jews were forced to use in Egypt.
Did the exodus really take place as described in the Bible? Who knows. Who cares? Perhaps it is all a myth. It makes little difference. Did Moses really part the Red Sea? Did God really deliver the Jews? These historical questions are set aside as we gather together to remember who we are. Memory and identity are fused as we recite the narrative of our freedom and celebrate our liberation. At the deepest levels of the Jewish psyche, we remind ourselves that we were despised and threatened with death, yet we prevailed. And this recognition of Jewish suffering and escape echoes to the present, and serves to reinforce our
commitment to the state of Israel where millions of our coreligionists now live protected from gentile hatred.
This theme of overcoming our enemies is reinforced every year at the festival of Hanukkah. This celebration lasts eight days and commemorates the Jewish victory over the Seleucids in the 2nd century BCE. This foreign power had desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem and forbidden the practice of the Jewish religion. After a three-year struggle in 165 BCE Judah Maccabee captured the city and rebuilt the altar in the Temple. According to Talmudic legend, one day's worth of sacred oil miraculously kept the golden candelabrum burning for eight days. The festival celebrates this miracle. Hanukkah reinforces our sense of identity and encourages us to believe that we shall prevail. Let the world hate us; we shall be victorious in the end.
This same theme is the dominant motif of Purim. This festival commemorates the deliverance of Persian Jews at the intercession of the Jewish queen, Esther, from the murderous plans of Haman, the chief minister of King Ahasuereus. The term Purim comes from the Hebrew word for 'lot, and refers to Haman's casting of lots to determine a date for the destruction of the Jewish people. The Book of Esther relates that Queen Esther interceded with the king for the lives of her fellow Jews. In the evening and morning service, the book of Esther is chanted, and whenever Haman's name is mentioned an attempt is made to drown it by footstamping or whirling noisemakers. Who knows if the story is true? It makes little difference. What is crucial is the sense of victory over those who have tried to destroy us. We shall prevail.
Modern History
According to Scripture, Joshua and his soldiers conquered the Canaanites and settled in the Promised Land. Initially there was one Kingdom, but very soon the Holy Land was separated into two Kingdoms: Israel in the North, and Judah in the South. The
Bible recounts the history of both kingdoms. Archaeological evidence is scant about the various kings who ruled over the Jewish people. We have little external support for the biblical narrative. Yet, for the vast majority of Jews, this is not a problem. The Kings of Israel and Judah are living realities. The story of David and Bathsheba, of David and Goliath, the exploits of Queen Jezebel enthral us. The words of Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Jeremiah and others inspire us. Who knows if any of this is historically true. Whether myth or reality, the memory of ancient times stirs and enthuses us.
In 70 CE when the Temple was destroyed by the Romans, Jews were driven out of Jerusalem. For two thousand years we have been in exile. Yet, during these centuries, we longed to return to our ancient homeland. This was the fervent prayer of the liturgy, and the hope of generations of Jews through the centuries. Drawing on the Hebrew Bible, rabbinic sages predicted the coming of the Messiah who would deliver us from our wandering and resettle us in the Holy Land. Those who have died would be resurrected during the Yom Ha-Mashiah (The Day of the Messiah) in anticipation of final judgement.
This has been the fervent hope fed by memories of past glories. In time, however, messianic longing was superseded by a different vision of the future. Abandoning a belief in the coming of the Messiah, Zionists struggled to bring about the creation of a Jewish state. In their view, this was the only solution to the problem of antisemitism. In The Jewish State, Theodor Herzl predicted that Israel would be reborn and the Jewish people revived in their ancient homeland. Despite the opposition of their Arab neighbours, Jews living in Israel eventually succeeded in persuading the United Nations to grant them statehood.
When the state of Israel was established in May, 1948 the Prime Ministers David Ben Gurion read out the Declaration of Independence which recalled the history of the Jewish nation.
'The Land of Israel,' he said, 'was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed. Here they achieved independence and created a culture of national and universal significance. Here they wrote and gave their Bible to the world. Exiled from Palestine, the Jewish people remained faithful to it in all the countries of their dispersion, never ceasing to pray, and hope for their return and the restoration of their national freedom. Impelled by this historical association, Jews strove throughout the centuries to go back to the land of their fathers and regain their Statehood. In recent decades they returned in their masses. They reclaimed the wilderness, revived their language, built cities and villages and established a vigorous and evergrowing community with its own economic and cultural life.' For Jewish world-wide, the memory of our past, the memory of hatred and suffering, has shaped our consciousness and has led to the determination to return to the land of our ancestors.
Recent memories also shape Jewish awareness and determination. The Jewish community world-wide lives in the shadow of the Nazi period when six million Jews died in the most horrific way at the hands of the Nazis. This event has had the most profound impact on Jewish awareness. Jewish emancipation was based on the hope that Jew-hatred could be eradicated through assimilation. Early Reformers believed that the integration of Jewry into mainstream society would solve the problem of antisemitism. Yet, at the end of the 19th century, it became increasingly clear that Jewry could not escape the antipathy of the gentile world. With the rise of Nazism, it became clear that this hope was an illusion. The death camps symbolise the impossibility of this dream.
Holocaust Memorial Day is observed throughout the Jewish world to remind us of the horrors of the Nazi period. This day is dedicated to the remembrance of those who suffered in the Holocaust. During the ceremonies Jews express their determination for the Holocaust to have a permanent place in the nation's collective history, and to honour those who died in the
most terrible circumstances. The aim of Holocaust Memorial Day is to ensure that future generations understand the causes of the Holocaust and reflect upon its consequences.
Conclusion
Today the Jewish community is more deeply divided than ever. Until modern times, Jewry was united in its commitment to observing the Torah and sustaining Jewish life. But from the 19th century to the present, new forms of Judaism have emerged challenging the certainties of the past. Across the religious spectrum Jews cannot agree about the basic principles of the faith. Strictly Orthodox Jews regard all non-Orthodox denominations as heresies. Reform, Liberal, Conservative, Reconstuctionist and Humanistic Jews all have their own ideologies and institutions. Alongside these religious groups, millions of unaffiliated Jews remain outside the religious community. In Israel itself there are a wide range of political groupings with their own assumptions and priorities. Yet, despite such division, we are united by the memories of the past.
Jewish identity is forged out of remembrance. For strictly Orthodox Jews, biblical history is regarded as a true account of our history. The Bible records our origins; Abraham is our father; Moses our liberator; the prophets our conscience. Believing in Torah Mi Sinai, the Orthodox are determined to live according to the 613 commandments in Scripture as interpreted by the rabbis. In their view, the Torah serves as a true record of our history and a blueprint for living. For non-Orthodox Jews, the Hebrew Bible is an inspired record of the history of the nation. A melange of myth and fact, it is a chronicle of who we were.
In either case, memory is critical. Jewish identity is made up of nearly four thousand years of our past. Full of heroes and heroines, of warriors and sages, of mystics and teachers, it binds us together. It underpins the state of Israel. It guides us in
worship, in prayer, and in service to the Jewish nation. Memory is our very being. It runs through us like a mighty stream. Memory calls us from the deep. It is the invisible thread that draws us together as one people, and pulls us forward to the future.