Sitting in Judgment

...Sitting in Judgment The Sacred Chain: The History of the Jews BNonnan F Cantor Hai pei Collins 472pp $35 00 Reviewed b) Robert M. Seltzer Professpr of Jewish history Hunter College author 'Jewish People Jewish Thought The Jewish Experience in History THIS IS a bizarre book loppy, flippant and strangely sad A more accurate title would be, "Norman Cantoi's Opinions on Various Matters Connected with Jewish History" The Sacied Cham is fiom a phrase used once in the text It refers to the rabbinic tradition (oi oral law), an essential part of what the author designates as mainstream ' (oi Orthodox) Judaism For both he has very limited sympathy Everv so often, it seems, someone writes about the "jejune ' (a favorite Cantor word) charactei of Judaism and the imminent end of the lew ish people because of assimilation and intermarriage Here the pubhshei has artfully disguised the message wrapping it in ajacket featuring a lovely menorah surrounded by fanciful Trees of Life A well-known medievalist who teaches at New York University, Cantor briefly touches upon many of the standard topics in Jewish scholarship, and just as quickly solves histonographic problems that continue to perplex experts in the field Some academics carefully distinguish between their passing interests and their areas of specialization—where they have immersed themselves in primary sources, carefully weighed alternative reconstructions of events, and pondered secondary literature Cantor rendersjudg-ment on any subject that piques his curiosity Taking on the role of a terrorist, he blows up myths and demolishes all who might disagree with him Virtually every major phase and figure of Jewish histoiy is implicitly graded—usually earning a C, sometimes an F I was reminded of a former student who proudly announced he had completed a training program in speed-reading "And I read the Book of Isaiah last night in six minutes1 ' Cantor, on the basis of a similarly quick read, unhesitatingly tells us what really happened over all those centuries He begins by debunking the Pentateuch The Biblical account of the origins of the people of Israel, he says, is actually a "romantic fantasy" invented during or after the reign of King David It reflects the culture and knowledge of the penod "Today," he postulates, fantasists might imagine that sometime in the distant past a spaceship from another planet landed on this earth carrying an extraterrestrial people initially called Hebrews and later Jews " Cantor declares "If you believe in science, if you want your history to be based in empirical evidence, there was nothing ethnically or sociologically special about the earliest Jews They were just another group living in the eastern Mediterranean, until at some point between 900 and 300 B C they developed a distinctive religion with its monist providential doctrine, its pun-tan ethic, its insistence on male circumcision, and its strenuous dietary taboos Then a history going back a further thousand years was created to give substance and conviction to the Law that went forth from Jerusalem' You may wonder whether the social and religious traditions of the people before their settlement in Israel could have had something to do with their "distinctive religion " To the author that apparently is not a valid question for analysis With equal dispatch Cantor explains the problematic origins of the rabbinic tradition during the period of Roman occupation According to him, its founders were the "Pharisaic rabbis" (an odd description, since the hononfic "rabbi" came mtouseattheendofthefirstcenturyC E , after the term "Phansee" went out of circulation) They maintained a self-segregating Judaism that arrogantly shut itself against other civilizations, Hellenism m particular Never mind the strong case that has been made to the contrary—that the Pharisees opened Judaism to a level of personal religiosity and flexibility unknown to the priestly, Sadducean luda-lsm they supplanted or to the monastic Essenes, with their strategy of withdrawal "The exclusiveness, discipline, abstinence, stability, prayerfulness, reticence, and inwardness that characterized the thick culture and repressive behavior patterns of rabbinical Judaism,' we are told "absolutely marked it off (and still does today) from the world of the goy, from the world of the Gentiles " After a while the reader becomes numb You want to learn about the roots of Christianity' Cantor looks through the Gospels and effortlessly solves the his-torical problems of Jesus' identity and career, producing such gems as "Jesus radiated the masochistic temperament that lies at the heart of Pharisaic consciousness " You are puzzled, perhaps, by the tension between umversalism and particularism in Judaism7 Cantor lays out the relevant ironies for all to see "It is curious today to sit in a Reform or so-called Conservative Amencan congregation and listen to the rabbi sermonize about the equality between Jew and Christian, black and white This is actually the universalizing message not of the Talmudic rabbis but of Rabbi Saul [Cantor's way of referring to Paul the Apostle], who was beaten up and driven from the Diaspora synagogues when he preached this leveling message " One could make a little anthology of such quotations to warm the heart of an anti-Semite In fairness, though, it has to be said that Cantor comes down even harder on anti-Semites, especially on the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages and the Holocaust era Cantor's remarks about Reform worship and the sermons of Reform rabbis give one cause to doubt that he has set foot inside a liberal synagogue in the last 30 years He should have trusted his informants less His very first chapter contains a garbled account of the circumstances leading Ellis Rivkin, my former teacher tojoin the faculty of Cincinnati's Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, a center of Reform instruction The president of the institution, Cantor confides to us, had to promise that Rivkin's "boldly deconstructiomst class-struggle version of Jewish history would not be censored or censured " In fact, as Rivkin told me many years ago (and recently confirmed), the president had volunteered his assurance that the newcomer's traditional Jewish observance would be respected in the Reform seminary, and that he would be encouraged to teach about the Reform movement—as well as Judaism generally—in an objective and critical way, never hiding what he believes (It is another indication of Cantor's idiosyncratic slovenliness as a historian that while speaking of Rivkm with apparent regard, he exhibits in his appraisal of the Pharisees no familiarity with Rivkm's daring work about them) Cantor seems to think it impossible for well-grounded but novel scholarship to find an audience "Realistic, truth-tellmg history of the Jews,' he writes, "is even now not welcome in the ruling circles of the American and Israeli Jewish communities, among the rabbis, the billionaire patriarchs who heavily patronize and enthrall them, and the prominent politicians " I eventually lost count of the references to "billionaire patriarchs," which I suppose means individuals like Edgar Bronfman, Michael Milken, Jack Skir-ball, and Laurence A Tisch Cantor's description of Tisch emerging from his limousine, would have fit nicely in Der January 30,1995 Sturmei 'On a stocky body is a large, round, bald, head with piercing eyes forever looking for an opening, an advantage The body clothed in a $1,500 designer suit a half-smile frequently opening his lips to reveal the large white teeth " The facets of his heritage Cantor unqualifiedly admires are the social justice tradition that began with the Biblical prophets, the variegated culture of the Diaspora, and the East European labor movement of the early 20th century His treatment of the Jewish Workers' Bund of Russia, Poland and Lithuania, despite its brevity, is insightful Above all, though...

...Cantor admires Jewish genes "Why did Jews as an immigrant group do better than the Irish or the Italians'" he muses "Perhaps it was innately superior genes, better selective breeding " Later, he asserts "The genetic intellectual superiority of the Jews will be extended and as long as its earners are individually free and privileged to pursue their interests in science, philosophy, literature, and the arts, highly advantageous consequences for humanity will follow" The great Jewish minds that inaugurated modernism and transformed 20th-century thought are said to be Sigmund Freud, Emile Durkheim, Franz Boas, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, the four Jews hailed for shaping the postmodern future are Noam Chomsky, Harold Bloom, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Jacques Dernda This is the tired old story of the brilliant "non-Jewish Jew," the secular genius with Jewish genes (half-Jewish genes were enough for Wittgenstein) who blazes trails for the world Yet for all the airogance, vulgarity of language and factual error on display in The Sacred Chain, it is not devoid of a certain Jewish pnde Cantor is outspoken about the negative impact of affirmative action programs on the professional opportunities of young Jewish males He also takes up the disappointing quality of much of contemporary Jewish religiosity Unfortunately, he attempts to solve the latter with two pages of impatient orders "Jewish scholars would have to reinterpret Judaism in light of modernist and postmodernist thought They would be given an absolute time limit of three years to produce a new Jewish theology " If that seems rather rushed, consider that those in charge of creating the new Jewish liturgy would face ' an absolute deadline' of two years Observing the scene from without Cantor laments the failure of Judaism to respond quickly and intelligently enough to its changing political, social and cultural envuonment The unmistakable impression is that he feels the community has let him down personally In one of the book's most intriguing sections, he alludes to his own upbnng-mg in 1940s Winnipeg, when Canadian anti-Semitism was at its peak The author grew up, one suspects, in a Yiddish-speakmg family with Bundist sympathies and affection for Yiddishkeit What a shame he did not channel the energies, honesty and humanism of that form of Jewishness mto a more constructive con-tnbution to current Jewish dilemmas...