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Friday March 7, 2008

Jews should compete in the marketplace

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A recent study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life shows that Americans are switching religions more than ever. As many as one in every two adults does not practice the religion in which they were born or raised.

And as we’ve known even before the Pew report, Judaism is not immune to this decidedly American phenomenon, though Catholicism and mainline Protestantism are the big losers in the study.

It is time for Jews to take heed of the changes affecting religion in America, because they are Americans too, and no major trend passes them by.

Pew refers to the “marketplace” of religions in the United States, and that is exactly what it is. People shop around for the religious theologies, practices and communities that suit them. Some may try on a number of faiths until they find the one that fits.

This is one of the great benefits of the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment, freedom from the government sanctioning any particular religion and allowing many faiths to thrive. The result has been a healthy competition, a country relatively free from the religious strife that plagues so many societies.

How wonderful that there are so many choices available and people can find the religious home that they seek — or choose nothing at all if that is where they land.

At a time when other religious groups are seeking adherents, and promoting their religious faiths, Jews continue to be so afraid of decline and loss that they have created ideologies and institutionalized responses that ensure that decline and loss occur. But Jews, like other Americans, crave free choice. We are more likely to retain more people because they feel they want to be Jews, not because they have to be.

We keep having the same tired discussions about preventing intermarriage and strengthening Jewish identity. Over and over again we respond with rhetoric, ideas and programs that circle round and round in the same orbit — how do we keep Jews in? Hundreds of years of discrimination, violence and murder take a huge toll. They create a psychology of fear that results in Jewish isolation, a construct of us and them. And with unabashed and straight-faced boldness — as if no one else is listening — we ask how do we keep strangers out.

We don’t want to be part of the marketplace of religious ideas and practices; we just want to be left alone to marry each other, and keep everybody inside, safe and secure. This, of course, is an illusion.

Still, we fantasize that if we inoculate our young people with enough Jewish education, they will reject the 98 percent of other Americans they might fall in love with, or not be attracted to Zen Buddhism. What nonsense. We have all seen the numbers to prove that the current strategy is not going to work. No number of day schools or summer camps is going to turn back the clock on religious freedom and competition.

It is time for Jews to join every other group in America and quit obsessing about who is being lost and start acting on who might come in. Right now it is largely a one-way street because we cling to dangerously obsolete ideas about conversion. We do not welcome people with open arms, but rather stiff-arm. Those who convert have to be persistent enough to batter down the barriers.

Yes, of course we need standards and procedures. To say that making Judaism more accessible means abandoning

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rules of admission is a straw argument to cover up how off-putting we often are to those who want to be part of the Jewish people.

Openness and excitement do not mean that conversion requirements should be abandoned. Just the opposite is the case. Spiritual seekers are looking for meaning and purpose. Becoming a Jew can be a deeply intellectual and emotional experience, and spiritual seekers are willing to engage in rigorous education about Jewish life and rites of passage to become a Jew.

Some rabbis do a great job in dealing with potential converts; many do not. Our synagogues are often less welcoming than we think they are. And our newspapers, sermons and sociological literature are filled with hysterical reprimands and dire predictions about the demise of the Jews that result from non-Jews breaking through our traditional walls.

We have a theology that has no intermediary between the individual and God. That is appealing. We have many rituals that provide guidance and purpose. That is appealing. We have rich liturgy, beautiful prayers, deep roots in Israel, a strong communal system. All appealing. By being attractive to others, we will also be more attractive to born Jews. What are we afraid of?

We are checkmated by our own notion of ourselves that Jews don’t do that — we don’t compete for newcomers. But this is 21st-century America, not 18th-century Poland or 20th-century Germany. Pew tells us that Americans are switching religions like never before. Do we want to promote our wonderful 3,000-year-old history, or kvetch about assimilation, intermarriage and dwindling numbers?

Those who choose to join the Jewish people will enrich us. And born Jews who choose to celebrate their Judaism in an open marketplace will also enrich Jewish life. It is time to embrace the America in which we live. We must abandon the paradigm that our children and grandchildren are potential gentiles and promote the new belief that America is filled with potential Jews.

Gary Tobin is president of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research in San Francisco, a think tank focusing on philanthropy, education and other social issues.

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