Comments by Wolfe Kelman

COMMENT BY WOLFE KELMAN Jewish public officials, especially those aspiring to or dependent on public recognition, learn quickly that there are three news releases which will almost guarantee...

...The widespread publicity given to Rabbi Schindler's proposals was triggered less by a careful reading of his address in Houston than by the provocative selection of that part which emphasized "outreach to the unchurched...
...The Union of American Hebrew Congregations, of which Rabbi Schindler is President, was one of the most active participants in this campaign in Rome, in Geneva, and, most recently, during the evangelical campaigns launched with the Jews as a specific target (such as Key '73 and other evangelical efforts to bring Jews to or for Jesus...
...Rabbi Schindler proposes to "reach the unchurched, those raised in non-religious homes..., those seekers after truth ..., the rootless and the alienated who need the warmth and comfort of the people ..., the people of ancient and noble lineage...
...They assure us that their prime targets are the secularized Jews and weir children, raised in homes bereft of faith, and they wonder (with Rabbi Schindler) why we would prefer to have people, born of Jewish parents, remain prey to the lure of secular gods, which have failed, when they want to bring them to eternal salvation, a Living God of the Scriptures, albeit mediated through a Christian prism...
...Is Rabbi Schindler really nostalgic for the Maccabean monarchy and the yearning for the sacrificial system which was also widely observed in that period...
...We must continue to love one another, with our differences, and revere the mysteries which inspire the faiths of the different families of men...
...As Rabbi Heschel constantly reminded us, tolerance between the faiths is not enough...
...Rabbi Schindler argues "that Judaism is not a propagating faith is far from the truth" and that "Abraham was a convert, and our tradition lauds his missionary zeal," both of which statements are historically incontrovertible...
...The differences in doctrine or observance which may exist between congregations should not diminish the respect due to a congregation dedicated to the service of God...
...Then let those who revere the Lord talk together...
...COMMENT BY WOLFE KELMAN Jewish public officials, especially those aspiring to or dependent on public recognition, learn quickly that there are three news releases which will almost guarantee coverage by The New York Times and widespread dissemination over the wires of the Associated Press...
...Did not one God create us...
...It is with his "third and likely the most controversial aspect of the matter to launch a carefully conceived outreach program aimed at all Americans who are unchurched and who are seeking religious meaning" which attracted the most attention and the most vigorous dissent...
...We must never ever be suspected of violating this right by aggressively trespassing on the heritage of our neighbors...
...Indeed, many in our own faith would argue that our tradition does not exclude an atheist from the Jewish community but that we intuitively reject apostates from the household of our people...
...As we deepen our own roots and reach out to the world, can we not extend this fraternal embrace to people of all faiths and none, praying that the faithful will teach their kinsmen, by example and persuasion, and not by aggressive programs of outreach and other techniques which are better left for the mass sale of consumer articles and hardly fit for kindling a spark of holiness...
...In view of his success in that effort, it was, therefore, not surprising that his press officer highlighted a section of Rabbi Schindler's address to the Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations about the poignant reality of the rapid increase in the rate of intermarriage and the launching of a national program to welcome converts...
...Isn't that exactly what our Christian evangelistic colleagues tell us when we ask them why they persist in proselytizing Jews...
...Perhaps then we will become worthy of the Malachi's prophecy: "Have we not all one father...
...He reminds us that "this is America and it is 1979...
...His remarkable rhetorical talents resonating with authentic love for Jews and their heritage, he rallied a stunned American Jewish community which had been persuaded that only Mapai and its traditional coalition partners were qualified to govern Israel, wage its wars, and achieve peace with security...
...He further reminds us that "during the Maccabean period, Jewish proselytizing activity reached its zenith...
...Following the election of Mr...
...I do not expect my Christian friends to understand the mystery of my attachment of the Sinaitic revelation of the halachah anymore than I can expect to grasp the Christian mystery of the Incarnation...
...For more than twenty years, the organized international Jewish community has been engaged in an unyielding campaign of persuasion with our Catholic and Protestant brothers, encouraging them to discontinue Jewish proselytization...
...Some of our patriarchs also practiced polygamy and were served by slaves, who, we hope, were treated mercifully...
...I have chosen to identify with the Conservative movement...
...Almost every knowledgeable Jew would applaud his call that we act more hospitably to those who have converted to Judaism and that we must do everything possible to draw the non-Jewish spouse of a mixed marriage into Jewish life...
...Begin, Rabbi Schindler began to receive deserved—and almost daily—mention in the press during his effective leadership of the Presidents' Conference in a critical time of political transition...
...True enough, but is there not a higher wisdom than repressive laws which should persuade us to reconsider whether we really want to return to a triumpha-listic posture that only Judaism offers life and not death, hope and not despair...
...We must learn to accept the potential for holiness in those who seek to quench their thirst for the words of the Lord from different wells and springs...
...Quoting from his own words, the Associated Press reported that "for the first time in modern history, a major, national body of Judaism has launched an active, forthright effort to win converts to the faith...
...Rabbi Schindler will find widespread sympathy in the Conservative movement for the reconsideration of "the principle that Jewish lineage is valid through the maternal line alone...
...I truly believe that the ladder of faith to holiness is rooted in many traditions, that one need not be a madman to embrace Judaism, but that the failure to do so, by seekers within and without our community, is also not necessarily a reflection of instability...
...Cuddihy's No Offense details the struggles within the Jewish-Catholic-Protestant communities between their traditional trium-phalism and their ever-growing recognition of the need for accommodation with other faiths in a society in which religious pluralism is the ideal...
...Among the standards which it has adopted for its guidance, I cherish: "Where two or more congregations exist in one community, their relationship should be cooperative and not competitive...
...Each congregation should regard every other congregation, whether Conservative, Orthodox or Reform, as equally sacred...
...Reverence for diversity should become our religious charter...
...All fall broadly within the category of man bites dog: anyone identified as a Jewish leader and/or intellectual who publicly dissents from whatever happens to be the current Israeli political position, the critical shortage of clergy, and missionizing and its threat to Jewish survival...
...Is Rabbi Schindler suggesting that we revert to a kind of karaitic fundamentalism and go back to all the beliefs and practices recorded about our ancestors...
...How often have we politely but firmly told them that Jews would worry about converting Jews to Judaism and that Christians should concentrate on bringing pagans of Christian and other ancestries to Christianity...
...Rabbi Wolfe Kelman is Executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Assembly...
...No repressive laws restrain us...
...All persons have been endowed with an inalienable right to the heritage of their ancestors...

Vol. 4 • March 1979 • No. 4


 
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