Immediate Crises & Beyond - A Call to Action

...This was relatively easy...

...I do so in the context of a call to action: You choose the ones that strike you as easiest to bring into reality...

...The faculty is gathered from the seminaries of all religious denominations, Ivy League and major state universities and Israel...

...They are: • seminars based on the Wexner model • Lehrhauses based on Franz Rosenzweig's model • Hebrew Literacy campaigns...

...Without this knowledge, everything our parents built will fall apart through disuse and neglect...

...The Wexner program is already a tremendous success in 15 communities only five years after its beginning...

...The value of Judaism to the world is that of the greatest civilizing moral force ever known...

...They were motivated by a sense of Jewish identity that they expressed through financial generosity and an instinct that the physical manifestation of ethnic community was necessary in America...

...As we enter a period of new testing, we must summon all possible creativity to devise tiiose ideas, programs, systems and methods of educating our members so that the chain of continuity adds new links, generation after generation, in the face of a permissive, friendly, nonthreatening environment that will allow us to be as creatively Jewish as we wish—or to assimilate painlessly and disappear, if we wish...

...At die retreats and summer institutes, the consuming topics of ethics, interfaith marriage, nationhood, war and modern Israel are all presented in plenary sessions and then discussed in small workshop groups...

...Take the initiative...

...The subject for the first year is history and for the second it is thought...

...As Babylonia wound down, the result of economic and political decline, from its position as home to the then largest, Jewish community in the world, a new center was growing in Spain...

...Somedmes it included secular subjects—mathematics, philosophy, astronomy...

...If it became socially important, as it was in Frankfurt, where it was Ow place to be seen on certain afternoons of the week, this would guarantee the quality of the curriculum...

...If war comes and Israel is again victorious, 1 presume this would be the final conflict, for the Arabs would then surely see that the military effort to obliterate must be replaced by the diplomatic effort to negotiate...

...The Hebrew Literacy Campaign developed by Noah Golinkin was described in detail in the August moment (see "You Can Learn to Read Hebrew in One Day...

...And so we will wait, supporting the Soviet exodus and knowing how we will respond as the military events unfold...

...Pessimistic voices have told us that the only reason tbejews have survived is because of pressure from their enemies...

...Whenever Jews of any particular area were confronted with political, economic or religious threats that jeopardized their lives or made it impossible for them to lead a normal life, they found their solution in flight...

...During these millennia of migrations, the second operative principle was also always at work: education...

...This generation, the fourth in America, has the harder task of building systems for learning our heritage...

...Israel must know—she does know—that we will stand with her to the bitter end...

...Eternal existence is decided anew every 40 years...

...You must go and learn, so you will not make a mockery of your ancestors...

...Emigration and education were the twin characteristics of Jewish existence—lighting Shabbat candles on the run...

...This process has occurred with uncanny precision so often that it seems like an ineluctable rule of Jewish history...

...When that time comes and the basic technique of migration will have done its work assuring survival by returning the majority ofjews to the original homeland and landing others in safe havens, the era of migration will have passed from the stage of history, leaving the second tool, education, as the most important concern of Jewish communities everywhere, including Israel, When physical persecution ceases, the continuity of this unique people will depend only on its internal motivation...

...Assimilation was beginning to take its toll, and the effects were studied in strict, pedantic fashion, (Rosenzweig himself had been ready to convert to Christianity when he suddenly drew back and turned to Orthodox Judaismi) Today a Lehrhaus with a magnificent faculty could be set up in a Jewish community center funded by the whole community, offering a large menu of courses attended once or twice weekly...

...You were not yet born when the Shoah engulfed our people in a storm of fire, nor could you participate in the majestic birth of Israel, nor were you old enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the new nation in her early wars...

...All have been proven on the battlefield, so to speak, all successful, all with lots of experience behind them, all possessing a cadre of administrators and faculty willing to share that experience with anyone eager to replicate any one of the three...

...The non-Jewish neighbor had a church, we had to have our synagogue, beautiful and prominent, as proof of our existence...

...This generation has the harder task of building systems for learning the contents of our heritage...

...This is a favorite theme of mine: Jewish history seems to possess a thermostat, a watch and a compass, anticipating the heat or persecution and danger, sensitive to the time to move and steering an advance party to the next creative location to prepare a new home for some later need...

...The value of Judaism is that it gives you an identity and provides a meaning to your life by linking you to an ideal greater than yourself...

...More than 70,000 adults in many cities have learned to read the Friday evening service by the end of the 12th week...

...When physical persecution ceases, the continuity of this unique people will depend only on its internal motivation...

...In addition to the schoolroom education, holiday observance in home and synagogue, as well as the saturation effect of the ghetto and shtell, where clothing, customs, mores and manners all served to create a total identity, Judaism was passed on to every generation without negative influence from the external environment...

...The end of the period of compulsory migrations will then have been reached, and from the 21st century onward, Jewish movement from one country lo another will be voluntary, based on desire and free will...

...The Lehrhaus is an older example...

...Because Tor many years I have been involved in adult Jewish education, I have a number or ideas in this area...

...The Wexner Heritage Foundation program is very serious...

...They tried the same against the Romans and lost...

...Sometimes education was purely Jewish—just Hebrew reading, Ckumash (Bible), a little Talmud and prayer book...

...The chain of continuity begins with parents...

...Learning is the opposite of abandonment...

...The program includes weekend retreats and week-long summer institutes...

...By the time the Soviet migration exhausts itself—in three years or ten—the Jewish world will have setded down in four primary and six secondary locations...

...Each one of these programs requires local initiative if it is to be born in your community...

...Bible is taught both years...

...The program is centered in several synagogues in town...

...Without slighting other aspects of Jewish education, let me propose some of them to moment readers...

...This generation, like each generation past, will determine what happens to the Jewish people...

...The student body is so carefully selected because the course requires strong motivation, intellectual capability and high commitment to communal service on the part of every individual...

...This is not to say that they were always safe...

...the rewards are enormous in terms of self-improvement for the individuals, plus their increased capacity to contribute to the communal good...

...There is no need for me to stress the importance of Hebrew as the international language that can connect the entire Jewish Diaspora...

...Jewish history seems possessed of a thermostat and a compass, anticipating the heat of persecution, steering an advance party to the next creative location...

...And at that point, an Israeli government must not fail to seize the moment—because of coalition paralysis, ideological stubbornness, deluded messianism or any other form of tactical delay—for if she does, Israel puts at risk not only her own population, but the Diaspora as well...

...Neither students nor communities can apply...

...I have three suggestions for good programs that can be implemented in the United States...

...pride remaining intact even as some new edict was promulgated to degrade and insult...

...Essentially it was a high-quality afternoon and evening school for adults, based on lectures and discussions...

...Sometimes friendly rulers of a province or country did them a favor by expelling them...

...These are immediate challenges...

...Eastward they fled to Babylonia and westward to Egypt and the Mediterranean basin...

...What more can anyone desire...

...Steady attendance at the Lehrhaus over a three or four year period would give die average adult a very good general knowledge of Judaism...

...Thus you are part of something that gives value to you and to the whole world...

...A conscientious student would feel mightily empowered and proud...

...Should the present situation in the Persian Gulf and the larger Middle East lead to war, which will most likely involve Israel in some way, how will we Diaspora Jews stand by her...

...Immediate Crises & Beyond - A Call to Action HERBERT A. FRIEDMAN Ispeak to you, a generation now growing into positions of responsibility and leadership in your communities, about major tests looming ahead...

...It was a 19th century German invention brought to perfection by Franz Rosenzweig in the early 1920s...

...If you protect your heritage, it will protect you...

...For ! ,000 years...

...They are causing upheavals by the sheer magnitude of their numbers, and both they and Israel need massive help from you...

...The orgies of slaughter polluted the air with screams and the earth with blood, century after century—yet a saving remnant always managed to flee and strike new roots...

...But let me go beyond the immediate crises and talk about eternal goals that overarch the problems of the moment, serious as they are, to the even more serious matters of eternal Jewish continuity—the destiny of a whole people, the meaning of our existence, the purpose for which we survive, the basis for all our struggles to remain on the stage of history, where we are, perhaps, the oldest continuous people of the entire human race...

...There may be sporadic terrorist actions, but there will be no more Arab nations or states with the stomach for a fight...

...The Jewish world will then be anchored on two strong pillars, the United States and Israel, casting their protective embrace over all the scattered tribes, each of which will, by then, have found its own secure identity...

...Israel will not start war, but she may have to preempt, as in 1 <J(>7, in order In be more sure of winning...

...Now it appears that the 20 centuries of migration are ending...

...If Israel is attacked or harmed as a result of an Iraqi calculation, or miscalculation, Israel will respond to the very limit of her capability and every Jew in the world is expected to rise to her immediate support—financial, political and moral...

...The first is already in motion—the transmigration of hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million, Soviet Jews, most to Israel, some to the U.S., rejoining the main body of the Jewish people...

...You will continue to keep it alive one more generation—or you will cut it off by not passing the torch to the next generation...

...And as this Golden Age ended in the expulsion of 1492, Holland was ready to receive the Jews, as were Turkey, Italy and North Africa...

...fresh martyrs always serving to hammer home the lesson of the terrible price of Jewish uniqueness...

...In addition, Hebrew is the key to closer understanding of 4 million Israelis...

...These endowments of pride in themselves, which is their particularism, plus a mystical obligation tow:ard the improvement of the world and life itself, which is their universal ism, are the strong mortar that has cemented the Jewish people into an unbreakable unit—tiny in quantity, infinitely large in quality...

...What happens when the enemies relent and gradually disappear...

...Babylonia, which had destroyed the First Temple, served as the cradle in which the Talmud and siddur (prayer book) grew to completion...

...Find like-minded partners, get to work and make an operational plan for establishing one, two or all three...

...The second test is still a question—the perennial question of war...

...Through written questionnaires and long personal interviews, the members of the seminar are chosen...

...The lands of ancient enemies sometimes became new havens...

...In the early days, the Jews were a fighting nation...

...Israel will comain the largest number of jews, the United Stales second, the Russian Commonwealth and France will probably be third and fourth and, following that, groups numbering 100,000 and up will be found in England, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Australia...

...The foundation decides which communities to approach and, in consultation with a community, develops a system for obtaining a list of 35-40 year-old candidates already on the leadership track in all phases of communal work—the federation, synagogue, various agencies and organizations...

...I have always believed, to the contrary, that the Jews achieved their incredible record of persistent existence not as a result of outside pressure on them, but rather due to a sense of their own worth, pride in their chosenness and an acceptance of moral standards imposed upon them at the very beginning of their national existence...

...When the current waves of Soviet Jews land on the shores of their new homes, with isolated sprinklings of family reunions in places as distant as Sweden and Australia, the last of the realty great movements will be done...

...In some places, like Spain in the 13th century or Germany in the 17th, education included the language of that area...

...The course promises a mastery of reading Hebrew in 12 weeks...

...Fully funded by Leslie Wexner, the Columbus, Ohio billionaire who owns the Limited, Inc...

...It is not easy or superficial...

...When Israel overcomes its birth pangs, finishes its wars, improves its system of governance and stabilizes its economy into a free-market format With a solid standard of living and a good safety net of social services, many Jews from all over the world, including the United States, will probably migrate there happily through choice...

...In any case, the wagons and caravans rolled to a new place, often from one continent to another, Asia to Europe to Africa, as the wandering jews sought a refuge in a more haspitable environ merit...

...fashion stores, it calls for four-hour-long biweekly seminars, each requiring 50-100 pages of reading for a two-year period...

...The new movements of the time, Reform and Conservative, were analyzed in detail...

...They raised a sword against the Creeks and won...

...History had a way of somehow anticipating the migratory flow and preparing a new place, often some centuries in advance, so that a pioneering wave of wanderers could settle in and cultivate the new environment to the point where it couid receive those who later would come rushing in urgent need, often in panic...

...When German, Polish and Russian Jewry emptied westward to the new world in the middle and end of the 19th century, the litde colony in America grew so strong that it was ready by the middle of the 20th century to assist the new state that was born in Israel...

...Classes are taught by laypeople for laypeople, every day—morning, afternoon and evening—so there is no excuse for missing a class, since you can make it up in another session the same week...

...And as that old-new land grows more prosperous and safer, itsjewish soul will express itself with renewed vigor, creating a model society that, in turn, will make it even more attractive...

...I think of adults first because they have less time left—also because younger people, seeing the strange sight of adults at study will be more inclined to follow suit...

...Or tike the opposite tack: Select tbe most difficult, and if you can succeed with one of them, others will suddenly seem easier...

...If they place no value on Jewish knowledge, why should their children...

...Avraham Harman, once Israeli ambassador to the United States, later president of Hebrew University and now its chancellor, has described the secret of Jewish survival and continuity in two words: emigration and education...

...The majority know lirde about Judaism, but their emotions are strong and they will strengthen Israel by their simple presence...

...From now on, it's entirely up to us...

...Previous generations have built the community buildings and institutions...

...Most people, when hearing the word 'education' tend to think of children...

...While these places were still growing, a new focal point was being prepared for a future center in Poland...

...You are now, however, about to be measured by two major historic events in your own generation...