RICHARD REEVES ON POLITICAL BOOKS
Richard Reeves on Political Books I have always thought that one way to pick a place to live is by the number of Chinese restaurants in close proximity. It's not so much that I like Chinese food,...
...the Dutch West India Company, a group back home that included a couple of Jews and several devotees of Dutch religious tolerance...
...Michael Halberstam wrote a novel that came out last year, The Wanting of Levine, based on the premise of a Jew running for president...
...When I began reporting politics in New York, there had never been a Jewish mayor of the city with more Jews than any other place in the world...
...For most of this information, which I found fascinating, I am indebted to Max 1. Dimont, the author of The Jews in America: The Roots, History, and Destinty of American Jews, which will be published this month by Simon and Schuster...
...It's not so much that I like Chinese food, but that experience indicates that the number of Chinese restaurants in a neighborhood is roughly proportional to the number of Jews living nearby...
...The Dutch governor, Peter Stuyvesant, whose statue 1 used to guard as a patrol boy in grammar school, tried to throw them out...
...The book didn't cause much of a stir, perhaps because no one seemed particularly struck by a thought that once seemed so unthinkable...
...Among other things, Dimont confirms what everybody already knew: 33 per cent of America's doctors and 17 per cent of her lawyers are Jewish, not bad for people who are less than three per cent of the population...
...So they stayed even though Stuyvesant would not let them build a synagogue, a privilege they were finally granted by the city's new rulers, the British, in 1682...
...The British, incidentally, still refused to allow Roman Catholics and Lutherans to build churches...
...Thank God and the Dutch West India Company, there have been Jews around America since at least 1654, when 23 of them, driven forcibly from Brazil by the Portuguese, arrived in New Amsterdam...
...Dimont, who focuses on the religious development and transformation of Jews here, assertsaccurately, I think-that America is The Promised Land...
...Collectively," he writes, "the American Jews are one of the most remarkable groups in the world...
...The new role is out front: the candidate...
...A society of six million Jews has attained the highest economic, educational (non-Jewish), and social levels in Jewish history, and enjoyed a degree of freedom never before attained in any country, in any civilization, in any age, including the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in ancient days, and the state of Israel today...
...Richard Reeves on Political Books I have always thought that one way to pick a place to live is by the number of Chinese restaurants in close proximity...
...Since then, two Jews have been elected mayor, and by 1978, young Jewish politicians were contending for every elective office in sight...
...Not bad at all...
...Close to 40 per cent of all Jews are marrying non-Jews (compared to six per cent 20 years ago...
...As one Jewish leader succinctly summarized the threat: `Fewer than half of American Jewish households belong to synagogues...
...It's a rather straightforward account of the growth of the original 23 into six million Americans---with the possible exception of Episcopalians, the richest and most influential religion-based community in the United States...
...And that role has changed dramatically in a very few years...
...The synagogue as a `museum' may persist in Jewish life for another century or so, until the new institutions destined to replace it have gained the confidence of the Jews...
...In fact, politics in New York and California is often just the wary circling of Jewish men and women in their thirties who think of themselves as mayors, governors, and United States senators one of these days...
...The real problem is the preservation of the Jews and Judaism, not whether it is done within the confines of a Jerusalem Temple, a synagogue, or a Jewish Federation...
...I suppose many Jews could argue with that-they have been known to disagree-but I found it interestingly parallel to my own observations of the role of Jews in American politics...
...And Jewish political leaders generally thought that was a good thing-Alex Rose, the wise old leader of the heavily Jewish Liberal Party thought Jewish candidates at the top of the ticket would not only run badly, but would trigger latent anti-Semitism...
...He was told to mind his own business by his bosses, the directors of Richard Reeves is the author of Convention...
...American Judaism no longer expresses itself mainly through the culture of the synagogue but through the culture of organizations...
...And I'm not sure voters know, or particularly care, that Abrams, Goldin, Stein, Holtzman, Waxman, Berman, Levine, Pines, Reiner, and a dozen others are Jewish...
...A Jew in the White House-so...
...More than one of those folks occasionally go to sleep thinking that they are going to wake up one day as president...
...His column is a regular feature of The Washington Monthly...
...Which means that schools will be better and...
...well, I have always agreed with something said by former California congressman Thomas Rees after we had spent a deadly evening with some of our fellow WASPs: "Ah, you know me, I'm bored when there are no Jews around...
...Focusing on Judaism as religion and culture, Dimont chronicles Jewish fears and concludes that they are just old fashioned: "Viewed through the lens of orthodoxy, American Judaism is in grave danger...
...The stereotypes I began covering-the fundraiser/ giver and the behind-the-scenes adviser, "the court Jew"-are fading, partly because new political spending laws have cramped traditionally generous Jewish contributors and partly because many of the smart young Jews in politics are no longer satisfied in the backroom...
...It has been forecast that the forces of assimilation, lowered birth rate, and increased intermarriage will reduce today's six million American Jews to 4.5 million in 25 years.' "[But] American Judaism will not only preserve the Jewish heritage but will serve as a vehicle for its enrichment...
...What the hell, Nebraska has a Jewish senator...
...Religious school enrollment has plummeted to 400,000 in the last 15 years, down one third from a high-water mark of 600,000...
Vol. 10 • January 1979 • No. 10
