Jewish Disunity Is Good for Us
LIPSET, SEYMOUR MARTIN
ON MY MIND Jewish Disunity Is Good for Us The Jewish community is deeply troubled about internal conflict. Disunity, it is said, plays into the hands of our enemies. However, unity should not be...
...Particularly noteworthy is the phenomenon of Jewish attainment in the academic and intellectual world...
...Of course it does...
...In a recent Los Angeles Times poll, which inquired about the meaning of being Jewish, more than 50 percent of the respondents chose social equality as the most important element...
...There are two major groups among the teachers, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT...
...The Republicans barely existed...
...The pattern of Jewish liberalism still holds up, even though there may have been some drift to the right, towards conservatism, among American Jews...
...The Jewish left-liberal orientation has diverse sources: commitments to com-munitarianism, to Uedakah, to the obligation of the fortunate and well-to-do to help individuals and communities in trouble...
...The support for a socialist Israel was rooted in people with the same backgrounds as those who voted left and built trade unions in America...
...So on this, he was silent...
...They feel impelled to speak up for what they think is important for the very survival of Israel...
...Both are composed of moral people...
...Those who act out of self-interest are rarely a problem...
...The Orthodox are not only the smallest group, around 10 percent, but also the poorest and the most conservative politically...
...The "who is a Jew" issue is about Orthodox power, not practice...
...When American Jews are queried with respect to the Palestinian uprising, the Orthodox are most supportive of Israeli policy, the unaffiliated least...
...Why were the kibbutzim so important...
...A colleague who had married a Jew told him to go to Brooklyn...
...Tens of thousands of Soviet Jews who are of mixed ancestry have emigrated to Israel...
...Now it's closer to one-sixth (about 17 percent...
...But many are very much concerned and feel the need to speak out...
...Critical reactions by American Jews should certainly come as no surprise to anyone who has read the studies bearing on the political and social values and behavior of American Jews...
...American Jewish reaction to what is happening in the West Bank and Gaza must be seen in the context of this background...
...Thus, when asked whether "continued occupation of the West Bank will erode Israel's democratic character," 58 percent of the Orthodox responded "no," compared to 50 percent of the Conservatives, 42 percent of Reform Jews, and 39 percent of the unaffiliated...
...Support for Israel and religious observance were tied for second, with 17 percent each...
...Competition, criticism, argumentation can have positive effects, much as business rivalry has contributed to the strength of the American economy...
...It would be amazing if we were not...
...Rather they are behaving as they are because they are good people...
...But there is no way to produce unity when there is disunity...
...It is not generally known that Jews are more supportive of affirmative action than any other white ethnic or religious group...
...The same behavioral tolerance also occurs in Brooklyn...
...Still, the distribution between Reagan and Mondale in 1984 was roughly 70/30 in favor of Mondale, and current opinion polls show Dukakis doing much better than Mondale amongjews...
...Those with opinions among Conservative, Reform and unaffiliated Jews prefer Peres, by 23 percent to 16 percent among the Conservatives, by 33 percent to 12 percent among the Reform, and by 30 percent to 9 percent among the unaffiliated...
...This same background helps explain Israeli politics...
...We as Jews should welcome competition, but we should try to understand what the various Jewish groups are fighting about...
...Although the overwhelming majority of Jews, including the unaffiliated, remain positive about Israel, still, it must be reported that Steven Cohen's national surveys of American Jews indicate that the percentage is declining...
...In 1983, eight out of ten Jews said "caring about Israel" was a very important part of their being Jewish...
...And these schools, of course, are where the Jewish students go...
...The answer, I believe, lies in the fact that American Jews, at least since World War II, are incredibly successful and at the same time are overwhelmingly left-liberal, politically and socially...
...By 1986, the proportion had fallen to six out of ten...
...Before they united, dual unionism was considered the worst possible heresy in the labor movement...
...The fact that American Jews are deeply committed to Israel reduces the extent to which they feel offended...
...the number gradually increases until it reaches 58 percent among the unaffiliated...
...Moreover, Jews vote for blacks for public office (Jesse Jackson excepted) much more heavily than do other whites...
...When he asked why, the colleague answered that in Brooklyn it takes two weeks, not a year...
...The trouble is that the most bitter conflicts occur when morality is at stake...
...However, unity should not be our objective...
...Conservative and Reform Jews backed Democrats rather than Republicans by three to one...
...Those who feel that it is essential to the survival of Israel that the policy of the government with respect to the territories be changed cannot be made to keep quiet...
...As soon as the conversion was over, however, the first thing one of the rabbis said to him was, "When's the wedding...
...Among college faculty, 10 percent are Jewish...
...Those on neither side are acting as they do because they are bad people...
...There can be no argument that the American Jewish community is sharply divided—especially on Israeli policy toward the Palestinians and the West Bank...
...about one-third of the employed workers then belonged to unions...
...Division undermines influence with Congress...
...These major universities are not only intellectual centers, they are also centers of liberal political and social thought, values fostered by the Jewish intelligentsia...
...We are a divided community, particularly now...
...They sought to build a socialist nation in Israel...
...Let me illustrate this with an analogy: Trade union membership in the United States hit a high in 1955-1956...
...Yet from the time of the AFL-CIO unification, unions steadily declined in membership and in approval ratings in the opinion polls...
...The man went to Brooklyn and was taken into the faith in an Orthodox conversion in two weeks, in a process in which he did next to nothing...
...This is true even though Jewish organizations, Jewish .leadership generally, are opposed, and are considered by blacks as the main opposition, to affirmative action quotas...
...On a question as to whether Israel's critics should speak out publicly, 43 percent of the Orthodox said yes...
...Many East European Jews supported revolutionary and socialist politics, and were therefore on the left when they first arrived in the United States...
...Few groups are as well-educated and affluent as American Jews—and as liberal...
...But few other union leaders try as hard as the teachers at union organizing...
...they can be bought off...
...Feelings between Orthodox and Reform groups of Jews are mild compared to those between the AFT and the NEA...
...This can be seen in the debate in Israel over "who is a Jew...
...He had been told by an Orthodox acquaintance that because marriage was not an acceptable reason for conversion, he must not say anything to the rabbis who were supervising his conversion about his forthcoming nuptials...
...The general liberalism of the Jews overwhelms the concern for Jewish self-interest which, as voiced by Jewish organized leadership, opposes racial hiring and admission quotas...
...The Orthodox Israeli Jews with whom I have discussed this do not argue the point...
...But to be united there must be agreement...
...How can Orthodox Israeli Jews ignore the possible violation of halacha in accepting as Jews these Russian immigrants without any question as to their ancestry...
...Some even counter with rationalizations about how people who consider themselves Jewish and who come to Israel to live under Jewish law become Jewish by living in a Jewish environment—by a sort of osmosis...
...I remember growing up in the Bronx before World War II, when although the number one party was the Democrats, number two was the Socialist party...
...Why is this so...
...The Orthodox show up in the same poll as the only denominational group who give a plurality to "Shamir, the Likud candidate" (31 percent), rather than "Peres, the Labor candidate" (16 percent), when asked how they would vote in an Israeli election...
...Many are like American Jews—they identify themselves as Jews, but are not Jewish by any known principle...
...Theological conflicts, like ideological controversy in politics, are often not about behavior but about symbolic status or control or power...
...Not long ago I read an article by a British man who was not born a Jew...
...But moralists—most Jews—cannot...
...They honestly and deeply believe that the present policies are wrong and can lead to the destruction of Israel...
...One occupation, teaching, produces close to one-fifth of the current membership of the labor movement...
...I do not have any easy solution...
...People who believe passionately that certain policies are crucial to the security of Israel or to its nature as a democratic state will not stop feeling that way because they are told that disunity hurts...
...But we are disunited about many issues, including how to defend Israel and ourselves...
...We want to say we are one, and we are one with respect to our concern for our rights as Jews and in our concern for Israel...
...Conversely, some unions have grown where dual unionism has continued...
...The Orthodox are more concerned with status and power and with the acceptance of halacha than with behavior...
...Beyond this, it should be noted that when people are asked to identify themselves in ideological terms, Jews show up as by far the largest white ethnic group to describe themselves as liberals...
...There is no doubt that Jewish lobbying groups can be stronger if the community behind them is united...
...as well as concern with anti-Semitism, and many Jews consider anti-Semitism a right-wing phenomenon...
...It is true that a somewhat larger percentage of Jews are voting Republican today than when Roosevelt, Truman and Humphrey headed the Democratic tickets...
...Denominational loyalty and identity is an important source of difference among Jews...
...He had wanted to convert because he was marrying a woman from a religious family, and discovered that it would take him a year to convert according to the practice of British Reform Jews...
...Most of the East European emigrants went to the United States, but some moved to Palestine and formed the Jewish society there...
...They were no longer in competition for union membership...
...Why was Israel dominated by socialist and labor parties until 1977...
...They do not question the immigrants' Jewishness as long as these individuals do not make a public statement about their background...
...What happened to cause membership in the AFL-CIO to fall by more than half (in percentage terms) in three decades...
...In addition, most interviewees believed that Jews who are critical of Israel should not keep quiet...
...The situation will not be changed by moralizing, by saying disunity is bad, that it weakens us politically...
...In an April 1988 Los Angeles Times poll, the Orthodox were more Republican than other Jewish groups, but still only 24 percent preferred the Republican then-candidates for the presidency (mainly Bush), compared to 50 percent for various Democrats (mainly Dukakis...
...What is to be done...
...Of course Jews differ politically among themselves...
...Each group thinks the greatest thing that can happen is to take away a school system from the other...
...Jewish left-liberalism is also,\a result of the importation of political values from Eastern Europe...
...The groups not only try to organize the unorganized, they also work to recruit each other's supporters...
...They are the one Jewish group who voted for Reagan in 1984...
...Over 90 percent of all Jewish young people go to college or university...
...But more significantly, one-third of the professors in the leading universities such as Harvard, Chicago, Berkeley and Stanford, are Jewish...
...Seymour Martin Lipset...
...The Israeli Orthodox have not raised objections to these Soviet immigrants...
...Disunity can often be a positive good...
...The answer, in some part, is that the two competing federations, the AFL and the CIO, united...
Vol. 13 • September 1988 • No. 6
