Comments by Leo Pfeffer
COMMENT BY LEO PFEFFER I am of two minds in respect to Rabbi Schindler's call for affirmative efforts toward conversion to Judaism. Like almost all other Jews for past centuries—exactly how many...
...It was, I think, Paul's abrogation of the circumcision requirement that turned to Christianity what had been a surge toward Judaism...
...These have become part of the synagogue holiday ritual, and clearly refer to Temple practice during the period preceding the Babylonian exile...
...we must try to make of it an ally rather than an enemy...
...It seems to me that we should instead take less drastic steps not simultaneously with, but before embarking upon, a conversion campaign...
...Undoubtedly, this ethos has historic roots going back not merely to the Tal-mudic period but even to Biblical times...
...We must welcome the non-Jewish partners into our faith, not with condescension, but with full acceptance and equality...
...The Talmud and the Midrashim manifest the same conflict...
...I need hardly add that I hope this will not prove necessary...
...Nor can we count upon the current revival of chassidism...
...All this is history, or at least my interpretation of history...
...Therefore we must not only learn to live with intermarriage...
...In short, we Jews have made it, and made it big...
...Psalm 118 reads in part as follows: Let Israel say: His mercy endures forever...
...On the contrary, we are welcomed into the most exclusive clubs and highest-income apartment houses...
...These passages, if I am correct, reflect a warm, welcome attitude to converts, as contrasted with the attitude of the purists, such as Ezra and Nehemiah...
...Specifically, I suggested that these references pointed to converts to Judaism who assumed all the mitzvot except that of circumcision...
...Like almost all other Jews for past centuries—exactly how many centuries I am not sure—I have grown up with a strong aversion towards such efforts...
...I suggested that "those who fear the Lord" might be of the same class of people as the "aliens that join themselves to the Lord," referred to in Isaiah 56, and of the same class as is referred to, also in Isaiah, as the "eunuchs that keep My sabbaths, and choose the things that please Me and hold fast to my Covenant...
...But we live today, not in history...
...But for myself, I am not yet ready to accept the assertion...
...We must enlist them in our congregational activities, give them active roles in our Jewish schools...
...It may be that Rabbi Schindler will be shown right in his assertion that a realistically aggressive affirmative action program toward conversion is the only road to survival...
...Some of the Talmudists demanded the complete exclusion of converts from the congregation of Israel...
...If that proves insufficient, I would be inclined to agree with Rabbi Schindler that we must engage in earnest efforts in what he calls an affirmative outreach program among the unchurched...
...Even if that were not so, we could not expect chassidism to effectuate an internal voluntary ghettoization on the part of more than a comparatively small handful of Jews...
...There is no doubt that the more recent centuries in the chronicles of the Jewish people reflect an unsympathetic attitude toward conversion and a practically unanimous rejection of any suggestion that Jews engage in an affirmative effort to achieve it...
...Among us will be found bank presidents and Wall Street lawyers...
...Indeed, the former ascribes to David, Israel's most revered leader after Moses (and the person from whom according to later tradition the messiah will come) descent from a convert to the Hebrew faith...
...We should, of course, through family life and education, intensify our efforts toward assuring a lifetime commitment to Judaism on the part of our children...
...Our children have no problem in obtaining admission to medical, architectural and other professional schools which for decades rejected them...
...This, I think, should be our first step...
...I would love to see the erstwhile non-Jewish partners (of either sex) become presidents of congregations, teachers in religious schools, or even rabbis...
...The books of Ezra and Nehemiah reflect that aversion...
...That too will pass, and there are no more East European shtettlach to nourish it...
...Certainly there are ample precedents in our history...
...The great majority of American Jews cannot now and are not likely in the foreseeable future to accept chassidic views on such issues as birth prevention through contraception or abortion, one-way divorce, sexually separated schooling, the immutably inferior status of women...
...others reluctantly accepted converts, but only as second or even lower class citizens of the house of Israel...
...Let the House of Aaron say: His mercy endures forever...
...Neither Zionism, which even Reform Judaism has espoused, nor commitment to the defense of the State of Israel as a political entity can be counted upon forever to assure the survival of Judaism as a living faith...
...Wherein, then, lies the solution...
...We must, however, recognize that we are paying a tremendously high price for this, and the price may go higher, perhaps even as high as self-extinction...
...Intermarriage there is, and as Rabbi Schindler shows so convincingly, it is becoming more, not less, acceptable...
...In an article entitled "Reflections on Conversion" that I wrote for Congress Weekly some years ago, I suggested that this dichotomy might be reflected in some verses in the book of Psalms...
...We are no longer despised and rejected (as in The Merchant of Venice, Oliver Twist, etc...
...But realistically, I am afraid, this is not likely to suffice...
...Let those who fear the Lord say: His mercy endures forever...
...and certainly not objects for extermination (Mein Kampf...
...Leo Pfeffer is the Chairman of the Department of Political Science and Professor of Constitutional Law at Long Island University...
...On the other hand, there were, among the rabbis, those who expressed a far more sympathetic attitude toward conversion, and during their time, as Rabbi Schindler points out, ten percent of the population of the Roman Empire was converted to Judaism...
...It is assimilation, not Hitler's final solution, which threatens the future of Jewry and Judaism in the United States...
...On the other hand, the earlier books of Ruth and Jonah (both of which have become part of our synagogue ritual) manifest a directly contrary ethos...
...Absent a return to virulent anti-Semitism, which for better or worse we cannot assume, intermarriage will continue to be the most serious threat to Judaism in this country...
...Above all, the survival of American Jewry cannot be assured by the continued refusal of non-Jews to marry Jews or by the refusal of their parents to sanction such marriages...
Vol. 4 • March 1979 • No. 4
