American Jewish approaches to social justice can best be understood by investigating the various definitions of \u201cwho is a Jew?\u201d Those definitions changed over time and place as Jews lived in the ancient land of Israel or in the diaspora. Each approach to defining one\u2019s Jewishness mandates a different understanding of social justice issues and differing requirements to respond. Unlike other religious communities that demand a sole faith-based membership test, Jews define themselves across a variety of identity markers, each with its own social justice imperatives. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In Israel, the history of Zionism has splintered Jews into different social justice camps. In the United States, a large majority of Jews identify as liberal, engaging in social justice work from the post-war civil rights movement to contemporary immigration debates. While many American Jews contend their social justice mandate grows from their religious tradition, the larger political culture shaped Jewish activism more than textual mandates. What seemed a Jewish ethnic revival in the 1960s actually reflected an Americanist embrace. Only in that decade of ethnic awareness would Jews present their social justice work in religious terms. In contemporary America, Jews of color are redefining attitudes towards social justice as religious and racial categories merge.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The study of Judaism offers\nimportant new perspectives for clergy interested in how American Jews engage in\nsocial justice work. Unlike other religious traditions, Judaism counts multiple\ndefinitions of \u201cwho is a Jew,\u201d some of which complement one another while\nothers can stand in conflict. When those definitions are imposed over thousands\nof years of Jewish history, we can learn how different Jews in different times\nand different places all claim a Jewish basis for their activism, even as each embraces\na different definition for Judaism. Sometimes Jewish social justice work grows from\nclassic theological mandates in the Hebrew Bible. Other times, though, Jews credit\nJewishness even when they identify secular sources as their inspiration. For\nclergy across different faith communities, a critical look at American Jewish\npolitical activism encourages a re-examination of all religion-based approaches\nto social justice work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At its most fundamental level, the\nJewish mandate for social justice activism depends on how we answer Judaism\u2019s\nmost basic and debated question: who is a Jew? While Christians can offer a straight-forward\nfaith-based test\u2014do you accept Jesus as the Messiah?\u2014Jewish law does not demand\nfaith for membership. Instead, it embraces a matrilineal definition of\nJewishness: if someone is born to a Jewish mother, s\/he counts as a Jew,\nregardless of their level of faith, education, or even communal engagement. It\nis possible, then, never to attend synagogue, refuse all Jewish education, deny\nthe existence of God and, as long as you have a Jewish mother, still enjoy\nstatus as a Jew, even among the most stringent rabbis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The definition of \u201cwho is a Jew\u201d\nmatters in social justice because it offers guidance on the all-important\nquestion of authority. For those Jews who adhere to traditional Judaism,\nobligations to engage in justice work and the very definition of what\nconstitutes \u201csocial justice\u201d must grow from Biblical text, rabbinic text, or\nother sources of Jewish law. Jews who embraced modern forms of Judaism after\nthe European Enlightenment in the 18th<\/sup> century will apply a rational\nlens to their definition while nationalist Jews who reject faith but embrace a\nZionist outlook will frame their obligations through the needs of a modern\nJewish nation-state. Even as these different Jewish notions of what defines\nsocial justice may appear confusing, they gain clarity when we connect an understanding\nof one\u2019s Jewishness to the authority and mandates each \u201cwho is a Jew\u201d definition\noffers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Judaism\u2019s traditional explanation\nof who is a Jew, God has chosen the Jews and established a covenantal\nrelationship with them. As quoted in Genesis 22:17, God promised to make Jews\nas numerous as the stars in the sky and sands in the sea while Jews agreed to\naccept Torah, God\u2019s word, to guide their lives. The Jewish people\u2019s\nchosen-ness, then, encourages them to observe the Torah\u2019s 613 commandments,\nboth as a way to become closer to God and hasten the coming of the Messiah. But,\neven if they reject these covenantal obligations, even if they reject their\nfaith, they will still enjoy standing as full-fledged Jews. Judaism means more\nthan faith. It includes a variety of qualities beyond theology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jewish sovereignty over the\nBiblical land of Israel, for example, developed as a critical part of ancient Judaism\u2019s\ndefinition. The Torah itself counts a return to Zion as central to what it\nmeans to be a Jew. When the Israelites left Egypt and eventually entered the\nPromised Land, they established sovereignty, built a Temple to practice their\nfaith, and rebuilt a Second Temple after the Babylonian exile. Instead of a\npure faith-based religious expression, Jews considered themselves Jews solely\nbecause they lived in the Jewish homeland under Jewish rule. Zionism showed\ntheir Judaism and Jewish identity as much as faith did. In the ancient period,\na Jew\u2019s ability to travel to Jerusalem and offer a sacrifice to God at the\nTemple fulfilled their religious obligations. Without Jewish nationalism as a\ncomponent of Jewishness, ancient Jews could not practice their religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The definition of who is a Jew\nchanged yet again when the Romans invaded Jerusalem and destroyed the Second\nTemple in 70 CE, sending the Jewish people into exile. Jewish leaders faced an unprecedented\nchallenge: how to practice Judaism without a Temple. In the centuries that\nfollowed, rabbinic Judaism developed. Individual rabbis formed communities\nthroughout the world, taking direction from the developing Talmud, which\noffered a set of Jewish laws anchoring Jewish practice. With this new civil\ncode, Jews could maintain their communities even under threat from hostile\nrulers. The Talmud, then, formed a large part of Judaism\u2019s definition even\nthough it was not strictly a faith-based document.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the modern era, Jewishness added\nseveral denominations, each seeking to align the traditional mandates of\nJudaism with the promised emancipation of Jews in Europe. Reform Judaism, the\nfirst group to emerge, applied an ethical monotheist frame to modern Jewish\nlife. Reviewing the 613 commandments in the Torah, Reform theologians held\ntight to rational religious mandates as relevant in the modern world. They\nrejected ancient traditions that they believed were superstitious. Unless it\ncould pass a logic and rationality test, a commandment had no place in the\nmodern world. In order to make these changes, classical Reform Jews rejected\nthe divine nature of the Torah and eventually centered on the prophetic\nwritings as key to their theology and the social justice work that followed. Rather than focus on the day-to-day Jewish\nliving mandates of the Talmud, this new group of modern Jews read about the\nlives and choices of the prophets, aspiring to model their own good work on the\nexamples set by Isaiah and his cohort. Too radical a change for many, Reform met\nresistance from more tradition-bound rabbis who founded a Conservative movement\nthat sought a middle ground between Orthodox Judaism and Reform. Later,\nAmerican Jews reinvented Jewish practice yet again with a Reconstructionist\nmovement based on the writings of Mordecai Kaplan and Renewal Judaism that\nsought to join much of the 1960s counterculture with Jewish spiritual practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With an ancient definition of \u201cwho\nis a Jew\u201d that extends beyond faith and the development of denominationalism in\nthe modern period, Jews in contemporary America looked as well to a variety of\nethnic, religious, and nationalist attributes for guidance on how to live their\nlives in a meaningful way. Recent demographic surveys report an increasing\nnumber of Jews who identify primarily as cultural Jews, secular Jews, Jews with\n\u201cno-religion,\u201d or, a category growing in popularity, \u201cjust Jewish.\u201d These\nrespondents would fail a faith-based Jewish membership test. While theology remains\na central feature of Judaism, so too do secular attributes such as culture,\nlaw, history, peoplehood, and political sovereignty. \u201cBagels and lox\u201d Jews,\nthen, reflect an identity deeply-rooted in a definition of Judaism that expands\nbeyond the limits of faith and practice.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Defining \u201cwho is a Jew\u201d made for\none of the most fascinating and debated case studies: Brother Daniel. In this\nexample, the Jewish parents of a boy named Oswald Rufeisen hid their son in a\nCatholic convent when the Nazis invaded Poland. Immersed in Catholic living,\nthe young Jew decided to convert, eventually becoming a friar in the Discalced\nCarmelite Order. Known as Brother Daniel, he immigrated to the new State of\nIsrael, claiming himself a Jew by virtue of his Jewish mother. Under Israel\u2019s Law\nof Return, enacted to provide immediate relief for Jewish Holocaust refugees,\nany person deemed a Jew would enjoy immediate citizenship in Israel. Brother\nDaniel opted to immigrate to Israel as a Jew because he was born to a Jewish\nmother, even though he was a converted Catholic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Israeli government officials\nnoticed Brother Daniel wearing a cross and dressed in the clothing of a\nCatholic religious leader, they refused to declare him Jewish, making him\nineligible for immediate Israeli citizenship under the law of return. The State\nof Israel claimed that a Jew who converts to another religion ceases to be a\nJew. When Brother Daniel\u2019s case went public, many Israelis sided with the\ngovernment\u2019s position. How can a Catholic priest ever be considered a Jew? If\nJudaism is, at its core, a faith tradition, then rejecting it for a different\nfaith should be disqualifying. By definition, Catholic priests cannot be Jews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, some in Israel\u2019s\nultra-Orthodox Jewish religious community backed Brother Daniel. As they read\nJewish law, only God can determine who is a Jew, and God determines Jewishness\nthrough the religious status of the mother. Since Daniel fit the technical\ndefinition of Jewishness, he should be considered Jewish. In this thinking, no ordinary\nperson has the power to undo God\u2019s will. Since it was God who made Daniel\nJewish by birthing him from a Jewish mother, God intended to count Daniel as a\nJew. Any ruling by the government otherwise would amount to a rejection of the\nAlmighty. In a civil case that moved all the way to the Israeli Supreme Court,\na landmark 1962 ruling rejected Daniel\u2019s claim of Jewishness. It amended\nIsrael\u2019s law of return to add a faith-based litmus test for inclusion as a Jew.\nIn Israel at least, Jews are not allowed to embrace a faith other than Judaism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To illustrate these points, I open\nmy lower-division entry-level survey course \u201cIntroduction to Jewish Studies\u201d at\nSan Francisco State University with the following statement: \u201cYou know, you can\nbe Jewish and NOT believe in God.\u201d Within seconds, half my students drop their\nchins in a look of surprise and disbelief. These, I figure, are my Christian\nundergraduates who cannot imagine membership in a faith community without\nfaith. For students raised in Christianity, belief in God must be the central\nfeature defining their religious status. To hear from a professor that an\natheist Jew counts equally with a believing Jew confounds logic and their own\nreligious upbringing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then I proclaim, \u201cYou know, if\nyou\u2019re Jewish, you need to embrace Zionism, the Jewish people\u2019s age-old quest\nfor political autonomy in their ancient homeland.\u201d And since San Francisco and\nmy university are situated in a leftist and often anti-Zionist political\nculture, the other half of the students in the class drop their chins in\ndisbelief (or upset) when they learn that Zionism, most widely known as a\nmodern political movement, rooted itself in ancient Jewish texts. These, I\nimagine, are my Jewish students. Raised in a nation that bifurcates religious identity\nfrom national status, American Jews have always struggled with notions of dual\nloyalty. How can they be loyal and patriotic American citizens if they owe\nnationalist fidelity to the Jewish state? Ever since the U.S. Constitution\nseparated Church and State, American Jews have struggled to reconcile the\nage-old nationalist component of their Judaism. American Zionism, in this\nframing, proves an oxymoron. With this course opening, I am ready to begin a\nfifteen-week overview of Jewish Studies focused on answering that basic\nquestion: who is a Jew?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The very definition of Jewishness,\nthen, offers the platform we need to explore how and why Jewish religious\nleaders explain their social justice work. Because Jewishness proves so open to\nvarying definitions, Jewish social justice advocates can fashion their\npolitical work on competing interpretations of Jewish text and tradition.\nNeither the political left nor right, the religiously observant nor the secular\ncan claim a monopoly on determining how Jewish beliefs should inform social\njustice activism. As we will see, Jews from different ends of the political\nspectrum call on differing definitions of who is a Jew to defend their\npositions. Among faith-centered Jews, denominational differences lend\nthemselves to profound disagreement in social justice viewpoints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Of greatest interest in the current\npolitical climate, almost every non-Orthodox Jew opposed Trump in the 2016\nelection. Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Renewal Jews define\nJudaism in more universalist language, extending their social justice mandate\nto all U.S. citizens as well as those who wish to become Americans. The\nnation\u2019s Orthodox community counts many supporters of the Republican standard\nbearer in its ranks. Observant Jews adopt a particularist definition for social\njustice and place religious Zionism at the center of their political agenda.\nThey do not enter the social justice public square, preferring instead to\nsupport more Jewish-centered issues and causes.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Israeli Jews animate this\ncomplexity. To the surprise of many, polls indicate that only 1 in 5 Jews\nliving in their ancient homeland identify as \u201creligious\u201d while the other 80%\nclaim a secular nationalist definition of their Jewishness. Belief in God does\nnot determine their religiosity. Instead, their Israeli passports do.[3]<\/a>\nNationalism means more than faith in the determination of \u201cwho is a Jew.\u201d The\nrecent embrace of President Donald Trump by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\nillustrates the point. For the Israeli leader, the U.S. president\u2019s slogan of\n\u201cAmerica First\u201d and hyper-nationalism aligns with right-wing Zionism\u2019s call for\ngreater and stronger Jewish sovereignty. The move of the U.S. embassy from Tel\nAviv to Jerusalem proved emblematic of this new US-Israel alliance, even as the\noverwhelming majority of American Jews, and almost all American Jews on the\nleft of the political aisle, cringed. They consider President Trump\u2019s domestic\nand foreign policies antithetical to their Jewish social justice mindset even\nas nationalist Israeli Jews care less about their expansive rights-based\ncampaigns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Right-wing and religious Zionists,\njoined by most of America\u2019s Orthodox community, deploy Jewish tradition to back\na return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland. To do God\u2019s work, they\nadvocate the expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which are called\n\u201cJudea and Samaria\u201d to denote their status as a part of God\u2019s promised land to\nthe Jews. With scripture as their guide, Jewish settlers seek a restoration of\nancient Israel. Democratic understandings of social justice pale in comparison\nto fulfilling God\u2019s mandate for Jews. For them, Judaism\u2019s social justice\nmandate begins with the Jewish people\u2019s ability to dwell in their God-given\nancient homeland. As these pious Jews reclaim some of the most important sites\nin all of Judaism and Jewish history, they complicate any political answer to\nthe Israel\/Palestine conflict. Their sense of justice does not demand, and for\nsome even opposes, a mandate for Palestinian self-determination. Framed by\ntheir read of Jewish text, justice demands nothing more and nothing less than\nthe realization of a reunited ancient Israel under Jewish control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Conversely, leftist Jews in both\nthe United States and Israel embrace a read on Judaism that demands a\nrights-based approach to justice that includes the Palestinian cause. Without\nthe strict demands of traditional Judaism, they can adopt a more pragmatic\napproach to the mid-east conflict, trading land, even historic and sacred\nJewish sites, for peace. Within the State of Israel itself, progressive-minded\nJews focus their social justice campaigns on ensuring that Arab, Muslim, and\nChristian citizens of the State of Israel enjoy rights on par with Jewish\nresidents. They back the two-state solution because their sense of justice\ndemands that Israel remain both Jewish and democratic while protecting the\nright of Palestinians to enjoy national self-determination. For Jews who have\nsuffered so much for so long under the political sovereignty of unfriendly\ngovernments, these leftists argue, the continued Jewish occupation of\nmajority-Palestinian lands proves contrary to their sense of justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the United States as well, the\napplication of politics to religion mirrors the complexity of defining Judaism\nand the social justice mandates that follow. A quick scan of the American\nJewish social justice landscape centers Jewish political activism on the\ntraditional concept of \u201ctikkun olam<\/em>,\u201d\nrepairing the world. Drawn from examples in the ancient text, the Jewish obligation\nto repair the world enjoys broad currency among contemporary American Jews. For\nmany synagogues and Jewish social justice organizations, tikkun olam<\/em> has become their guiding light. Popular among a wide\nexpanse of American Jews because it links their religious identities to the\nmandate of fixing a broken world, tikkun\nolam<\/em> gifts its followers with a nearly seamless alignment of their personal\nsocial justice orientations with their larger religious obligations. In a\nsense, social justice-minded Jews, under the rubric of tikkun olam<\/em>, can count themselves as better Jews merely by acting\nas they would without Judaism\u2019s mandate to help others. Liberal and progressive\nAmerican rabbis love this alignment. They can double-down in their sermonizing:\nfighting for the oppressed inspires otherwise secular Jews to \u201cdo Jewish\u201d even\nif they do not realize they are advancing a religious mandate. Rabbis deliver\nmore people to the pews. Judaism, Americanism, and progressivism align. A tikkun olam<\/em>-centered approach to\nAmerican Judaism seems to have it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Except it does not. As\nscholar-rabbi-activist Jill Jacobs writes, contemporary Jews have forgotten the\ntextual definitions of tikkun olam<\/em>,\nreinventing the phrase to conform to larger American liberal ideas rather than\nrooting it in the language and context of its textual roots. Contemporary Jews\nwho believe they are following a Jewish social justice mandate know nothing\nabout the concept\u2019s earliest mention in the Mishnah<\/em>,\nnor would they embrace the mystical kabbalistic<\/em>\nreference to repairing the world that emerged in the medieval period. And, as\nwe learned earlier, if the tikkun olam<\/em>\nimperative demanded that Jews engage in social justice work, then we would\nexpect the country\u2019s Orthodox Jews, for whom Jewish law governs their day to\nday lives, to engage in progressive Jewish politics. They do not, distancing\nthemselves from their less-observant co-religionists whose sense of justice\ndemands that they cross religious and racial lines. In effect, each differing\ntype of Jew understands tikkun olam<\/em> through their own lens.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n A quick survey of American Jewish\nhistory reveals the problems inherent in equating the Jewish concept of tikkun olam<\/em> with broader progressive\npolitical mandates. For the most part, Jews engaged in social justice causes\ntended to emulate the political cultures that surrounded them, drawing\nparallels to pre-selected pieces of Jewish text to rationalize their beliefs.\nThis quest for inclusion into American society proved so important that it\nguided the course and direction of Jewish social justice work. In the\nantebellum period, for example, even northern rabbis offered Bible-based\ndefenses of slavery while southern Jewish congregations claimed Judaism as a\ndefense for its Confederate views. In January 1861, New York Rabbi Morris\nRaphall offered a \u201cBible View of Slavery,\u201d concluding that \u201cslaveholding is no\nsin, and that slave property is expressly placed under the protection of the\nTen Commandments.\u201d Just four months later, Shreveport Louisiana\u2019s synagogue published\nan editorial criticizing a northern Jewish newspaper for its anti-slavery\nstance. \u201cWe mistook your paper for a religious one,\u201d it wrote, \u201cwhich ought to\nbe strictly neutral in politics.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In more recent history, the\nwell-known and celebrated alliance between Jews and blacks during the civil\nrights movement reveals this dynamic as well. When asked to explain the\ndisproportionate Jewish participation in the struggle for racial equality,\nrabbis and other Jewish leaders tended to advance one of three arguments;\nhistory, sociology, or religion. In the case of history, Jews parallel their\nown to that of African Americans, drawing comparisons between the experience of\nJews as slaves in Egypt to slavery in colonial America and the United States.\nMost often referenced during the yearly Passover seder<\/em> meal, Jews recount their experience as slaves and celebrate\ntheir exodus to freedom. With this thinking, Jews marched with blacks during\nthe civil rights movement because they too understood what it meant to be a slave.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Except the history argument does\nnot work. The Jewish experience of slavery in ancient Egypt does not parallel\nthe experience or the legacy of African American slavery in the United States.\nAs one African American leader remarked after attending his Jewish friends\u2019\nPassover seder<\/em>, \u201cif they tell me they\nunderstand the legacy of American slavery because they too were slaves in the\nland of Egypt, I\u2019ll scream!\u201d[6]<\/a>\nContinued racism and white racial supremacy remain a powerful negative force in\nthe lives of African Americans today. Even though slavery ended more than a\ncentury ago, its impact has not. The American Jewish experience, on the other\nhand, moved in the opposite direction. Not only did Jews arrive on American\nshores with thousands of years\u2019 distance from their slavery, but they rose up\nthe social mobility ladder with astonishing speed. Jews earned inclusion in the\nwhite middle class by their second generation. The Jewish social justice\nimperative to join the civil rights movement did not grow from common\nhistories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A second argument focused on an\napparent sociological parallel between blacks and Jews. In this telling of\nJewish social justice, a strong affinity existed between blacks and Jews\nbecause each understood what it felt to be marginalized by the larger white\nsociety. While that approach may have been true for American Jews in the early\ndecades of the twentieth century when they had not yet joined the white middle\nclass, Jewish participation in the civil rights struggle did not occur until anti-Semitism,\nwhich reached a peak in the 1920 and 1930s, retreated in the 1950s and beyond.\nAs historian Eric Goldstein has observed, American Jews did not enter into a\ncoalition with blacks until they achieved whiteness. While some Jewish leaders\naided blacks in the early part of the twentieth century, a broad inter-racial\nmovement could not emerge until Jews left the margins of society and enjoyed\nenough power to extend their hands in solidarity.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, and of greatest interest\nto clergy, American Jews often point to their religious beliefs as the guiding\nprinciple driving them to justice work. Yet, deploying Judaism, the religion of\nthe Jews, as a rationale for social justice involvement unearths\ninconsistencies among Jews. In the Reform movement, especially, prophetic\nJudaism took center stage. Rabbis from Judaism\u2019s most liberal wing preached the\nwords of Isaiah as the anchor of an activist agenda that followed the Torah\nprecept, \u201cJustice, justice, shall you pursue.\u201d More than any other\ndenomination, Reform Jews took the highest profile in racial justice work.\nIndeed, the Reform movement\u2019s Religious Action Center in Washington DC has\nearned an impressive reputation for its work securing the Civil Rights Act of\n1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as other vital pieces of\nlegislation.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet, the Reform movement\u2019s strong\naffinity for social justice work demonstrates the weakness of the\nreligion-based argument. During the protest movements of the 1950s and 1960s,\nfor example, Jews showed an inverse relationship between the level of\nobservance and engagement in the civil rights and other reform movements. That\nis, the least ritual-minded Jews of the Reform movement placed social justice\nwork at the center while the most ritual-minded Jews of Orthodoxy steered clear\nof it all. Surveys of Jewish participants in civil rights activism also show\nthat only a very few connected their decision to protest with their Jewish\nheritage. Though disproportionate in number, Jewish civil rights workers tended\nto affiliate with secular organizations such as the National Association for\nthe Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Student Non-Violent Coordinating\nCommittee (SNCC), or the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) rather than their\nsynagogue or the national Reform movement\u2019s UAHC (now the Union for Reform\nJudaism, URJ). The most engaged Jews counted themselves as leftists in either\nthe socialist or communist parties, rejecting organized religion as\nantithetical to their political approach. [9]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n These dynamics came to play in the\nAmerican South as well, where southern Jews did not hop on the civil rights\nbandwagon. For them, a common experience of social marginalization in the South\npushed the Jews of Dixie farther away from activism. Unlike their northern\nco-religionists who moved into the white suburban middle class by the 1950s,\nsouthern Jews still feared anti-Semitism. Overwhelmingly centered in business\nand commerce, Jewish shopkeepers faced the threat of boycott from whites if\nthey supported blacks or accusations of racism from blacks if they did not.\nIncidents of synagogue bombings and the well-known murder of Jewish civil\nrights workers Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, along with African\nAmerican James Chaney, reminded southern Jews that southern Jewish activism\nwould prove threatening and costly. The lynching of Leo Frank in 1913 remained\nwithin the memories of many southern Jews who move cautiously and often\nresented northern Jews for upsetting their lives and livelihoods when they\nventured into southern-based grassroots civil rights activism.[10]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The social justice tensions between\nnorthern and southern Jews were best captured by University of Chicago Hillel\ndirector rabbi Richard Winograd. During the 1963 annual meeting of the\nConservative movement\u2019s Rabbinic Assembly, Winograd and a group of civil\nrights-minded rabbis left the conference early and headed to Birmingham in\nsupport of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On arrival at the Birmingham airport,\nlocal Jews protested, urging the rabbis to return home. At a tense moment such\nas this, one would expect Rabbi Winograd to educate his southern\nco-religionists on the need for their support. Instead, the Chicago-based rabbi\noffered understanding, empathy, and compassion. After reflecting that he must\nhave seemed to be either Haman, the villain from the Book of Esther, or\nTorquemada, the chief Spanish inquisitor from 1492, to southern Jews, Winograd\ndefended his brethren\u2019s civil rights recalcitrance. He understood the threats\nposed to their economic, social, and even physical lives in the South. The\nnorthern rabbi knew that he lived a far more privileged life: he would be\ncelebrated as a civil rights hero upon his return to Chicago. He did not think\nhe had the right to place southern Jews in a threatening position. From a moral\npoint of view, he wrote in his diary, \u201cthe scales were very even.\u201d For\nWinograd, the most painful aspect of the encounter did not prove to be southern\nopposition to his civil rights strategies. Rather, it was the division, over\npolitical differences, of the American Jewish community itself. Winograd pained\n\u201cover the circumstances that led to pitting Jew against Jew.\u201d Even as his\ndefinition of Judaism demanded civil rights activism, he extended compassion to\nJews whose understanding of Jewish social justice did not.[11]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n A decade later, new understandings\nof \u201cwho is a Jew\u201d continued to animate Jewish social justice work when a Jewish\nethnic and religious revival swept across the American landscape. During the\ncivil rights struggle of the 1950s and early 1960s, American Jews sought\nintegration into the larger white Christian communities around them. For them,\nJewishness meant reaching across religious lines. Their approach to social\njustice work aligned with this assimilationist mindset. Consensus reigned. If\nthe definition of \u201cwho is a Jew\u201d meant raising Jewish children in Christian\nneighborhoods, then their involvement in the civil rights movement would align\nwith the political culture surrounding them. Just as southern Jews during the\neighteenth and nineteenth centuries defined Jewishness in a way that informed\ntheir political views on slavery, post-war suburban Jews redefined their\nJewishness, and their resulting social action, to fit the time and place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beginning in the mid-1960s,\nAmerican Jews turned inward, shifting their social justice work to\nJewish-centered movements aimed at strengthening Jewish identity. They seemed\nto follow the three-generation model of acculturation devised by University of\nChicago sociologist Marcus Lee Hansen: immigrants do all they can to integrate\ntheir children into American life only to watch as their grandchildren, sensing\na loss of their heritage, reclaim their grandparent\u2019s religious and ethnic\ntraditions in an effort to reclaim their ancestry. For Jews of the mid-1960s and\nbeyond, \u201cwho is a Jew\u201d meant religious self-reflection and discovery. That new\nawareness translated into social justice work laser -focused on the particular\nneeds of Jews rather than the universal hopes of other Americans.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Among young Jews especially, this\nperiod witnessed an unprecedented religious revival. College-age Jewish\nstudents, hardly aware of Judaism in their suburban youth, discovered their\nfaith. They learned about the laws of kashruth<\/em>,\nkeeping kosher, and decided that they could lead a more meaningful life if they\nthought about the food they ate. For some, their increased level of ritual\nobservance made visits home a challenge: they refused to eat the unkosher food\ntheir parents prepared. Embracing Jewish ritual observance, many Jews in this\nera bought The Jewish Catalog<\/em>; a counter-cultural do it yourself guide\nfor increased Jewish religiosity. The second most popular book (after the\nBible) released by the Jewish Publication Society in this period, The Jewish\nCatalog<\/em> and its two sequels offered a Jewish spin on The Whole Earth\nCatalog<\/em>. In chapter after chapter, Jews raised in assimilationist times\ncould learn how to braid their own challah<\/em>\n(Sabbath bread), knit their own kipah<\/em>,\nor create their own tallit<\/em> (prayer shawl).\nAcross the country, parents offered their children Biblical Jewish names,\nidentifying them in public as Jews in a break from their parent\u2019s generation of\npost-war Jewish moms and dads who sought the most assimilationist-minded names\npossible.[13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Inward-turning Jews also sought\ndeeper and more intensive Jewish learning. What was in the 1950s a limited\nsynagogue-based education program on Sunday mornings turned into\nfully-immersive Jewish day school educations that guided students through the\nrhythms of the Jewish calendar as their foundation to day-to-day Jewish living.\nOnce the exclusive purview of the nation\u2019s Orthodox community, Jewish day\nschools grew in both the Conservative and Reform movements, enjoying added\ngrowth among suburban Jews fleeing court-ordered integration of public schools.\nIn 1940, only seven American Jewish communities counted Jewish Day Schools.\nThat number grew to 117 in 1965 and 425 just ten years later when over 82,000\nJewish children attended. A 1967 survey noted that non-Orthodox Jewish day\nschools accounted for almost 80% of the national total.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The ethnic and religious revival\nduring the 1960s translated into what most American Jews considered a new\nJudeo-centered direction for social justice causes. In perhaps the best-known Jewish\nsocial justice efforts of the period, American Jews organized a movement to\nsave Soviet Jews. Led by young people with training in the American South\naiding African Americans, the Soviet Jewry movement rallied American Jews from\nacross the denominational spectrum, including the Orthodox. Whether in the\nhalls of the U.S. Senate advocating for government support against the\nCommunist superpower or in the streets during 10,000-strong public\ndemonstrations, renewed and reinvigorated Jewish activists translated their\nsocial justice mission from African Americans in the South to Jews in the\nSoviet Union. Their message to Moscow: Let My People Go. In this\nidentity-politics era, to be a Jew demanded particularist approaches to social\njustice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n American Jewish support for the\nZionist movement surged in this period as well. In June 1967, the State of\nIsrael launched a pre-emptive attack on multiple Arab armies when it became\nclear that war would be inevitable. In less than a week, the Jewish state\ngained control of the Golan Heights in the North, the Sinai desert in the\nSouth, and, most importantly, east Jerusalem that included the Old City, the\nWestern Wall, and the Temple Mount. When news of the Israeli victory broke,\nyoung American Jews added Jewish nationalism to their definition of \u201cwho is a\nJew\u201d and leveraged their newfound affection for the Jewish state into a more\npublic and less apologetic embrace of Zionism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a reaction that surprised even\nthe nation\u2019s organized Jewish leadership, American Jews more than doubled their\ngiving to the Jewish state in the year after the war. 1,000 Jewish college\nstudents called their mothers asking for their passports so they could fly to\nIsrael and help the cause. Universities across the country opened junior-year\nabroad study programs in Israeli universities so that young American Jews could\nexplore their newfound nationalist identities. Between 1967 and 1980, the\noverwhelming majority of American Jewish immigrants to Israel counted\nthemselves on the progressive left of the political-social justice spectrum.\nFor them, realizing their sense of Jewish nationalism and returning to live in\nthe Jewish homeland reflected a new understanding of what it meant to be a Jew.\nIt was a perspective that embraced identity politics just as it rejected the\nJewish community\u2019s historic affinity for maintaining a strict separation\nbetween church and state. For these American Zionists, the category \u201cJewish\u201d\nwould apply to both religion AND nation.[15]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n On the surface, the American Jewish\nturn inward that began in the mid-1960s presented as a religious and ethnic\nrevival. Social justice causes appeared less secular and more Jewish. Jews\nrooted their sense of activism in an expanding definition of Jewishness and\ndeepening respect for tradition. In both the academic writing devoted to this\nera as well as the historical memory of its participants, this Jewish rebirth\nseemed a testament to a strengthened American Jewish community. Jewish pride\nskyrocketed in a population that just a generation earlier preferred quiet,\nassimilationist and consensus-based lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A closer examination of this period\nreveals a different story. The social justice shift from inter-group to\nJewish-centered movements followed the larger social trends of the decade. When\nidentity politics grew in the mid-1960s, many ethnic\/racial\/religious groups\norganized their own returns to their roots. African Americans created the Black\nPower movement. Latinos launched a student group, Mecha. Indigenous peoples\nformed the American Indian Movement that showed its inner-directed activism by\ntaking control of Alcatraz Island in the late 1960s. In the early 1970s,\nsecond-wave feminists created the National Organization for Women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jews became more Jewish, as it were,\nbecause blacks became more black. Even though Jews presented a more\ntradition-based public face during this revival, they were merely adopting the\nnation\u2019s larger move to identity politics. Only in the political culture of the\n1960s, when so many ethnic, racial, gender, and even religious groups sought a\nmore public and more activist stance could Jews return to their own tradition.\nOnly when secular trends encouraged more religiosity would Jews hop on the\nbandwagon. In a sense, the Jewish religious revival proved a secularist\nenterprise: Black Power\u2019s broadening of acceptable ethnic-group expression\npaved the road to Jewish revivalism.[16]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In what seems on the surface an\nirony, the rise of Jewish religious and ethnic politics in the mid-1960s\nemulated the assimilationist posture of early post-war suburban Jews. In each\ndecade, Jews looked to the political culture around them and followed it. In\nthe 1950s, that meant accommodating to Christian-based neighborhoods. When, for\nexample, a leading national Jewish organization protested against a public\nschool principal that required Jewish children to sing Christmas carols, Jewish\nparents objected. They wanted their children to fully integrate into their new\ncommunities, even if that meant proclaiming Jesus to be the Messiah in song. In\nthe 1960s, American Jews followed larger trends once again, shadowing activist\nmovements as they designed for themselves a Jewish version of group-based\nadvocacy.[17]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of marching for blacks in\nSelma, they rallied for Jews in Kiev. Instead of fighting for strong public\nschools as a mainstay of Jewish values and American Jewish life, they removed\ntheir children, especially in districts with court-ordered integration plans,\nand formed non-Orthodox Jewish day schools. When the Jewish state achieved a\ndramatic military victory in 1967, American Jews offered public support that\noutdid even Israel\u2019s very creation in 1948. Despite their outward Jewish\nappearance, these efforts reflected a changing definition of \u201cwho is a Jew\u201d\namidst a larger secular political culture that encouraged their Jewish turn\ninward. In short, were it not for the rise of Black Power, the Jewish revival\nwould not have occurred. In their Jewishness, Jews showed American-ness.\nReligiosity revealed secularism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the contemporary period, Jews of\ncolor offer an important perspective on questions of who is a Jew and its\nimpact on Jewish social justice. Recent demographic surveys of American Jews\nreport that 20% self-identify as ethnically diverse.[18]<\/a>\nThe 2018 San Francisco Bay Area Jewish community survey noted that for\nrespondents aged 18-34, an astonishing 38% of family households counted at\nleast one person of color.[19]<\/a>\nAs Ilana Kaufman reflected in a recent Eli talk, \u201cRacism in the Jewish\nCommunity: The Uncomfortable Truth,\u201d Jews of color will become a larger and\nlarger portion of American Jewry, even as Jewish communal organizations and\ninstitutions still frame their work with an assumption of Jewish whiteness.[20]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n An embrace of Jews of color demands\nthe most basic re-evaluation of how we define American Judaism and its\nimplications for justice work. All too often, Jews of color enter synagogues\nand other Jewish institutions and are not recognized as Jewish. When they\npresent themselves as Jews, a repeatable and predictable pattern of questions\nfollow: How are you Jewish? Were you born Jewish? Did you convert? None of\nthese questions, of course, are ever asked of white Jews, perpetuating white\nracial supremacy in the synagogue, alienating Jews of color from organized\nJewish life, and forcing white Jews to reflect upon how racism alienates their\nown co-religionists from the organized Jewish community. Most recently, an\nAfrican American Jew carrying a Torah scroll down a street in Brooklyn, New\nYork in November 2018 faced an angry mob of white Jews seeking to recover what\nthey assumed was a stolen Jewish text.[21]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jews of color challenge our typical understandings of Jewish social justice work. Until now, almost all research and writing completed on the history of Jews and the civil rights movement, my own included, focus on the relationship between blacks and white Jews. What if a Jew was also black? What if there was no black-Jewish relationship because that person was one and the same? How would that frame force a rewriting of the entire question of Jewish social justice activism? In the examples shown in this article, I have argued that American Jews adopted religious and ethnic positions consistent with the secular world around them. In these cases, white Jews learned that their Judaism proved more secular and more American than it did religious. Perspectives from Jews of color force a basic re-evaluation in thinking. To what extent, could Jews of color ask, does the definition of Jewishness and its social justice platform reflect the privileges of whiteness and white racial supremacy more than it does Judaism itself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n An example of this new perspective\nemerged recently when the movement for Black Lives (BLM) issued a 37,000-word manifesto\noutlining the many challenges faced by African Americans. Yet, when it included\nseveral anti-Zionist lines, including the depiction of Israel as \u201can apartheid\nstate,\u201d most national Jewish organizations condemned the document and the movement\nfor its anti-Jewish bias. Moreover, they demanded the removal of offending lines\nbefore agreeing to offer their support. A black cause that harmed the Jewish\nstate their thinking followed could not expect to receive Jewish support. Except,\nwhen framed through the lens of African American Jews, no such dichotomy\nexisted. With their response, Jewish leadership expressed white privilege in\nthe name of Judaism. For Black Jews, victimized by systemic racism even though\nthey are also Jewish, the Jewish communal rejection of BLM stung. It reflected\na fundamental racist outlook in white Jewish leaders who seemed ready to\nsacrifice the needs of blacks until they are satisfied that Jewish needs are\nmet without ever stopping to consider that for an increasing number of American\nJews, the two are the same. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Over time and place, the very definition of who is a Jew has changed. The social justice imperatives that followed also reflected differing understandings and interpretations of Jewish texts and traditions. Examined separately, this mosaic does not appear to make much sense. Pieced together, though, with an overarching thesis that sees Jewish history, Judaism, and Jewish social justice as reflective of the larger social and political cultures surrounding Jews, we can see a clear consensus emerge: American Jews have been engaged in a dynamic redefinition of themselves, as Jews, as Americans, as whites and people of color, and ultimately as social justice advocates. Looking to the future, we need only look around us to see how different faith communities, ethnic constituencies, and identity groups choose to express themselves in the public square to see what comes next for American Jews. Feature Image by Melany Rochester<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/a> See for example Jewish community\nstudies located at https:\/\/www.jewishdatabank.org\/databank<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n [2]<\/a> Jewish Virtual Library, \u201cU.S.\nPresidential Elections: Jewish Voting Record,\u201d American-Israeli Cooperative\nExercise, https:\/\/www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org\/jewish-voting-record-in-u-s-presidential-elections<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [3]<\/a> About 20% of Israeli citizens\nclaim Christian, Muslim, Druze, or Beduin backgrounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [4]<\/a> Jill Jacobs, There Shall Be No\nNeedy: Pursuing Social Justice Through Jewish Law and Tradition<\/em>, (Turner\nPublishing Company, 2010).<\/p>\n\n\n\n [5]<\/a> Gary Zola and Marc Dollinger, American\nJewish History: A Primary Source Reader<\/em>, (Brandeis University Press, 2014),\n109.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [6]<\/a> Conversation with the author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [7]<\/a> Eric Goldstein, The Price of\nWhiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity<\/em>, (Princeton University Press,\n2007).<\/p>\n\n\n\n [8]<\/a> Deuteronomy, 16:20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [9]<\/a> See for example Marc Dollinger, Quest\nfor Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America, (Princeton University\nPress<\/em>, 2000), especially chapters 6, 7, 8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [10]<\/a> Ibid, especially chapter 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [11]<\/a> Ibid, 164. <\/p>\n\n\n\n [12]<\/a> See for example Marcus Lee Hansen,\nThe Immigrant in American History<\/em>, (Harvard University Press, 1940).<\/p>\n\n\n\n [13]<\/a> Richard Siegel, Michael\nStrassfeld, Sharon Strassfeld, editors, The First Jewish Catalog: A\nDo-It-Yourself Kit<\/em>, (The Jewish Publication Society, 1965).<\/p>\n\n\n\n [14]<\/a> Marc Dollinger, Black Power,\nJewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s<\/em>, (Brandeis\nUniversity Press, 2018), 121.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [15]<\/a> Ibid, 163.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [16]<\/a> Ibid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [17]<\/a> Dollinger, Quest for Inclusion<\/em>,\n156.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [18]<\/a> Be\u2019Chol Lashon, \u201cCounting Jews,\u201d GlobalJews.org<\/em>,https:\/\/globaljews.org\/resources\/research\/counting-jews<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n [19]<\/a> \u201cA Portrait of Bay Area Jewish\nLife and Communities: Community Study Highlights,\u201d The Jewish Community\nFoundation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties, February\n13, 2018, https:\/\/jewishfed.org\/sites\/default\/files\/BayArea_CommunityStudyHighlights.pdf<\/a>., 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [20]<\/a> Ilana Kaufman, \u201cWho Counts?: Race\nand the Jewish Future,\u201d ELI Talks:\nInspired Jewish Ideas<\/em>, August 4, 2015, https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QCtBqbsZPLo&t=2s<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [21]<\/a> Ari Feldman, \u201cBlack Jew Swarmed by\nHasidic Mod\u2014For Carrying A Torah While Not White, Forward<\/em>, November 16, 2018. https:\/\/forward.com\/news\/national\/414373\/black-jew-swarmed-by-hasidic-mob-for-carrying-a-torah-while-not-white\/<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Download PDF: Dollinger, Who is a Jew Abstract American Jewish approaches to social justice can best be understood by investigating the various definitions of \u201cwho is a Jew?\u201d Those definitions changed over time and place as Jews lived in the<\/p>\n
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