A Look at Judaism and Jewish Identity: Part A (Column 336)

With God’s help

Disclaimer: This post was translated from Hebrew using AI (ChatGPT 5 Thinking), so there may be inaccuracies or nuances lost. If something seems unclear, please refer to the Hebrew original or contact us for clarification.

Yesterday (Tuesday) morning I came across a very interesting woman, Rabbi (Reform) Angela Buchdahl (Angela Warnick Buchdahl), who serves as a rabbi at the Central Synagogue in New York City, a major Reform congregation. She also serves as the cantor of this synagogue. Buchdahl is a fascinating combination of rabbi and cantor—both at a high level—a phenomenon not usually found in our parts. Typically such a combination is a “jack-of-all-holy-trades,” meaning someone who does all the roles needed in a community, and then either he’s not really a rabbi or he’s not really a cantor. From the Wikipedia entry I gathered that she is considered one of the most influential rabbis in the American Jewish world today (here you can see her hosted at the White House by Obama in 2014 for Hanukkah), and it’s rather surprising that here in Israel almost no one has heard of her. As Yair Ettinger writes in his article about her, apparently the Jewish shtetl is also not small and not so well connected.

Her words stirred me to think and connected with issues I’ve been dealing with in recent days from other angles. This past Yom Kippur I started reading Ehud Luz’s excellent book, Struggle at the Jabbok (it was indeed a very fruitful fast). The book deals with Jewish identity and Judaism’s relationship to the use of power, from historical, sociological, philosophical, and Torah perspectives. It begins with a principled discussion of Jewish identity and, more generally, national and religious identity, and, as noted, these matters resonated for me with what I heard from Buchdahl. Therefore I thought to begin a series of columns dealing with Jewish identity.

A preliminary description

Buchdahl is the daughter of a Jewish father and a Buddhist mother (from South Korea), has an Asian appearance, and apparently underwent conversion (Reform, as I understand it) at a fairly late stage of her rabbinic leadership. She has served for quite a few years as rabbi and cantor in central Reform congregations in the United States. In a video from a few years ago here you can hear “Kol Nidrei” arranged to the traditional melody, with choir, violin, and of course organ, which popped up for me on YouTube. To my ear it’s beautiful, and that’s actually how I first encountered her. After hearing that, I happened upon (thanks to the algorithm, may it be blessed—see about it in the previous column) the fact that she is also a rabbi, and I immediately searched and listened on YouTube to two of her sermons for the High Holidays of this year, which I will discuss below.

She is an excellent orator who speaks candidly and eloquently, formulating her ideas with great clarity. One can sense that she controls her audience, the pacing, the intonation, and the voice, and I was also impressed by her command of the Bible and of Hebrew. She is certainly a powerful spiritual leader of a community, though I must say that her messages were quite predictable and at times even banal. All in all it is standard American liberalism, using biblical interpretations and their contemporary application to Black Lives Matter, women’s equality, pluralism, the fight against racism in the Jewish community and beyond, and of course in these days of 2020 one cannot avoid the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG)—how could one not?![1]

Her speeches reminded me of the addresses of political orators (like Obama, Martin Luther King, Churchill, Jabotinsky, or even our own Reuven Rivlin—who in my view is quite a good orator). They too did not present much that was new (certainly not in their speeches); their main point was the pathos that motivates—moving listeners to think and to act, instilling courage and energy. A spiritual and social leader is not supposed to present deep innovations in sermons, nor to bring new tidings. His role is mainly to lead and to spur the listeners (the community) to action and reflection. If you look at all the famous speeches in history you’ll see there are no real novelties in them. And I think in that sense she belongs entirely to the genre.

I’m putting all this on the table at the outset precisely because these directions (liberalism, Reform, florid rhetoric) usually trigger strong antibodies in me, and I assume many of my readers here feel the same. Despite that, I tried—and I recommend that you also try—not to approach her words with a priori hostility. It’s worthwhile to hear things as they are, and only afterward form a position about them. I hope I succeeded in that task, and as noted, in the bottom line I was truly impressed by her. And yet, all along I felt that beyond all the criticisms I had of particulars, there is mainly one point underlying all her words that bothered me again and again throughout the listening. I tried to define it for myself and realized it is not specifically connected to liberalism or Reform, nor to demagoguery and rhetoric. Through that I arrived at thoughts about Jewish identity that I have written about before, and as noted this also connected to Ehud Luz’s book, which I will reach in subsequent columns. But first I’ll turn to Buchdahl’s two sermons. I’ll try to describe each (sometimes critically), and only then offer a more general insight that touches both and this phenomenon in general.

The sermon about “Hayom Harat Olam”

The first sermon I heard was delivered this past Rosh Hashanah,[2] and Buchdahl deals there with the meaning of the words “Hayom harat olam.” I recommend listening before reading. At least on the rhetorical level, it’s certainly an experience. Here I will only briefly describe the content.

She says that ostensibly “harat olam” is the world’s birthday. But the literal meaning of the word harat is pregnancy, which is potential but not yet birth, i.e., without a guaranteed outcome. Therefore it’s not a reason for celebration but at most for hope. Buchdahl explains that for this reason in our tradition we don’t say “mazal tov” for a pregnancy but “b’sha’ah tova” (“at a good time”). She notes that the phrase “harat olam” originates in Jeremiah 20:17, where it appears as an expression of despair: the prophet wishes that his mother would remain pregnant forever (meaning that he would not be born). In that sense “hayom harat olam” describes a catastrophe—perhaps more fitting for this year with all its troubles (the virus and of course the death of RBG, of blessed memory). But, she says, like any good supervisor, in Jewish tradition a crisis signals the chance for renewal. She says that the word “mashber” (crisis) in the Bible has three meanings that create a map helping us out of the darkness (the crisis):

1. In Exodus we find Moses breaking the tablets. She asks why Moses breaks the tablets when descending, since up on the mountain he had already heard from God what Israel had done. She explains that the breaking was not a reaction to an inner feeling but an outward display. In the end God gives us new tablets in whose creation a human being is also involved, and that constitutes a better basis for the covenant between us and God. She then turns to current events: during the difficult period of the virus and the death of George Floyd (see notes on that in Column 316), the problematic attitude of the American administration and society toward Blacks was exposed, but it wasn’t born there. It existed and was known beforehand. The social fracture occurred when it was exposed in actuality. Again, this fracture is the first step toward repair and a more fitting attitude toward minorities.
2. With Jonah who is cast into the sea we find the phrase “all Your breakers passed over me” (yesovevuni kol mishbarekha). The mishbarim (with hiriq) are the breaking waves. In the previous usage mashber was the act of breaking; here it names the object that breaks. And again, following the crisis and under the threat of waves that don’t let him breathe, Jonah, who is ultimately saved, rethinks and comes to understand his mission (and stops fleeing from it). So too in the storm of corona and its crises, those of us who were spared need to recalculate our path and understand what is essential and what is secondary—our relationship to our home and family, etc.—and, in fact, the voice of God to us (this of course connects to the corona midrashim discussed in Column 285).
3. In Isaiah we read “for the children have come to the birthstool (mashber) and there is no strength to give birth”—a bit like Jeremiah’s “harat olam.” Here the term mashber is the birthing stool on which a woman brings life into the world. A woman sitting on the mashber has no strength to push; she doesn’t feel she is bringing life but thinks she is going to die. At some point the woman, like Sarah and Hannah and our foremothers, feels she must find the strength to push and give birth. One cannot remain pregnant forever. Again she returns to current events. The pain afflicting democracy, society, the economy, health, and more should lead us to conclude that we must find the strength to bring new life into the world. Again, the problems have always been here, but in crisis everything is exposed and reaches the limit; therefore precisely here one can find the strength to address them. In previous crises—the Depression of the 1930s and the 1970s, the fall of the Twin Towers, and more—the feeling was that New York City had died. But from the crisis they rose, took a deep breath, and set out anew, stronger. So too we must do in the wake of corona.

This is not a new situation for us, says Buchdahl. We have often been in such crises and emerged from them. That is what the Jewish tradition teaches us: a crisis is an opportunity to take a breath, to push, and to reach the birth of something new and better, in good time.

As noted, these are not earth-shattering novelties, and yet I think listening to the sermon will leave more of an impression than reading this summary. I brought it specifically because I think it is a typical sermon that could be delivered in many synagogues, even thoroughly Orthodox ones, though here it is delivered at a rhetorical level much higher than is common in our locales. Her words contain interpretations of biblical sources and contemporary applications to our day, whose main purpose is to give people direction and motivation to draw lessons for their lives. That is what a rabbi is supposed to do in a synagogue sermon, no? Exactly as I described above with regard to political and ideological orators.

For our purposes, I don’t see anything Reform here, but there is a context and some liberal hints. In terms of content, it’s a regular synagogue talk by a rabbi to his or her community. Her next sermon is no longer that—at least in terms of its content.

The sermon about racism

The second sermon I heard was delivered this last Yom Kippur. There, Buchdahl dealt with racism in the Jewish community and beyond. Again I recommend listening before continuing to read. I’ll preface by saying that here you will find a more generous serving of liberalism and a full helping of Reform. Despite the good rhetorical level, naturally I enjoyed this one less. The messages are quite predictable and banal, including not a few fallacies typical of liberal discourse on these subjects. Again, I’ll summarize the main points for you, and this time—precisely because my concern is not to critique liberalism and Reform per se—I will accompany them with local critical remarks. I’ll reach my principled point only at the end and in subsequent columns.

Buchdahl opens with a story about Chabad Hasidim who went around with a mitzvah tank at Yale during her studies (the early 1990s). They would stop students and ask whether they were Jewish. She says that at that time there were 25% Jews there, so it was almost a rhetorical question. But, for some reason, over four years they never asked her that question. Her claim is that her Asian appearance led them to conclude that she was certainly not Jewish. Here you have an opening story about Jewish racism.

But this is, of course, typical liberal naïveté. The “racist” Chabad Hasidim did not ask a woman with an Asian appearance whether she was Jewish—just as they also didn’t ask the street cats there whether they were human beings. They didn’t ask her because the overwhelming majority of those who look like her are indeed not Jewish (and halakhically she herself is apparently not Jewish). True, as the sermon proceeds it becomes clear that she has a principled claim (that Jewishness is not a race and not an ethnic matter), so she is not merely being naïve, but this opening seems to me really a rather low rhetorical ploy. It’s a bit reminiscent of the fashionable claims of racism in the screening of Arabs/Muslims at airports.

At the next stage Buchdahl raises a more relevant argument: the Orthodox never recognized her as Jewish, even though she read the entire Jewish liturgy (the siddur) in Hebrew—something many Jews cannot do—sat in a sukkah, and so forth. She says that, unlike those Chabadniks, many people did ask her—but with puzzlement: are you Jewish?! Again, their implicit assumption was that Jewishness is an ethnic matter. Jews have their own names, their own look, and even their own genetic diseases. Therefore people think Jewishness is an ethnic-genetic-racial matter. She explains that she understood their implicit assumption: that Jewishness is innate and built-in, not subject to change. Since it is an ethnic-genetic-racial matter, then although she has a Jewish father, with a look like hers she can never be considered Jewish.

Before continuing, I must comment. Appearance indeed serves as an indicator of being Jewish (see below). But the statement that it is innate and cannot be changed is again misleading. One can convert and accept Judaism. Judaism, as opposed to Jewishness, has nothing to do with ethnicity or race. Judaism is a conception or a normative system (see below), and one can indeed enter it. True, through it one also enters Jewishness (the Jewish society and the Jewish people). Below we will see what Buchdahl says about conversion and entering Judaism and Jewishness.

After this opening she said that in this sermon she wants to shatter several of the myths regarding Jewish peoplehood. At the outset she states that Jewishness is not a race. On the contrary—and here come the expected examples—treating Jewishness as a race characterizes precisely the haters and persecutors of Jews, from Pharaoh through the Inquisition to Hitler. In her view, the idea of Jewishness as a race was created by Jew-haters to justify violence, racism, and persecution against us, and, ironically, we ourselves adopt that conception regarding ourselves. Here I wondered where she drew the idea of the Inquisition’s racism from. On the contrary, they gave Jews the option to convert to Christianity and were then prepared to ignore their race. That is, they pursued Judaism as a religion, not Jewishness as ethnicity. As for Pharaoh, I didn’t understand where she got the racial element. Does she think one can also read gender there (“every boy… and every girl you shall let live”)? Pharaoh persecuted the Jews, but I don’t know whether he would have waived persecution for Buchdahl because of her Asian appearance. The only one who hung the matter on race was Hitler, who indeed developed a racial theory as the basis for his persecution of Jews. But the analogy to Pharaoh and Torquemada is on her responsibility alone. As is well known, precisely for such reasons “we do not respond to homiletics.”

Here Buchdahl moves to the claim that contrary to the (American) stereotype according to which a Jew is a white Ashkenazi of European origin, the truth is that Jews today have all kinds of appearances: Sephardi and Ashkenazi, African, Asian, and more. Here too she is not precise. Sephardi and Ashkenazi—of course that’s true and uncontested; who disputes that? One might argue that Sephardim are discriminated against, but who doesn’t see them as Jews?! (Perhaps non-Jews in America due to ignorance.) But as a matter of fact an African appearance is not a Jewish appearance. An African Jew in America is almost always someone who converted or his descendant. This is not a regular Jewish community, and mixing them into the Ashkenazi–Sephardi axis is a demagogic attempt to lean on the feelings of discrimination that exist there as well.

It’s important to sharpen the point. I too think it’s right not to follow appearance as a criterion for Jewishness (who even thinks otherwise?), but it is not true that, factually, appearance says nothing. We operate throughout our lives by means of stereotypes, and usually it works. One must be careful not to cross an ethical line in using them and not to take them too far, but we cannot completely dispense with them in our dealings with people in our lives. That demand is an illusion or a liberal slogan, baseless and unfounded.

She added that a 2019 survey in the U.S. found that about a seventh of Jews are people of color (I don’t know whether that includes regular Mizrahim or not). One can, of course, wonder what the criterion for their Jewishness was (I would bet that those among them who converted according to halakha are a shining minority), but I fully agree (who wouldn’t?!) that her claim has a place: we shouldn’t ignore these facts and remain with the Ashkenazi stereotype (which is really more prevalent in the U.S. than in Israel). And then she says to her listeners: you’re surely saying to yourselves, “I don’t believe it. After all, I don’t see any of these around me.” And to that she says: you’re right. They really aren’t here. And on this Yom Kippur we must repent precisely for that.

She describes a Black rabbinical student who came to the synagogue and was asked at every turn whether he was Jewish and what background he came from, whether and how one might help him, etc.—signals of blatant racism in her eyes. In my eyes these are entirely legitimate and appropriate questions (if asked politely and carefully), and in fact, if they were not asked, there would be alienation and a lack of engagement with the stranger. But in liberal discourse this is always racism.[3] When you see someone who looks like an outsider, it’s appropriate to inquire who he is and whether one can help him. By the way, later Buchdahl says that asking a Black person to take my drink order (as a waiter), or asking a woman with an Asian appearance whether she is the babysitter of the baby at the brit, is not necessarily racism. But we must remember that the people we ask experience it as racism. In these words there is a measure of justice, and therefore one must certainly be cautious and gentle in these matters.[4]

Now she moves to a discussion of racism in America, a burning contemporary issue. The Jewish community, in her view, should see the fight against racism in America as its own fight. We should reexamine the racist assumptions embedded in us, if only for reasons of survival—otherwise we may lose generations of Jews and their descendants (or those who are not absorbed because of their foreignness, or ordinary Jews who are unwilling to live in a racist community). She tells of a couple who came to her ready to convert—the woman Protestant and the man Jewish. At that very moment the woman asked him what “Jewish” means to him, and he answered that he’s not really religious, but for him Jewishness is a community where when you enter a party or event you can approach and join other people who belong to that community (who are also Jews). She asked him: so I and the rabbi (=Buchdahl) don’t belong to Jewishness in that sense? In the end they married, but she did not convert. This is apparently an example of her claim about the loss of people and generations because of the racial approach to Jewishness. Again, I don’t really understand. Nowhere in her telling was any racial matter mentioned. If the fellow had seen Buchdahl wearing a tallit (as she does), I imagine he would have seen her as Jewish as well. Moreover, it is quite likely that for him Jewishness was not a question of race but of familial belonging. The fact is that he was willing to marry a Protestant woman—that is, he certainly did not reject her on a racial basis. He merely expressed the feeling that Jewishness is a kind of family—but one to which you can indeed join (I remind you they approached her to convert). The impression is that Buchdahl sees racism everywhere, including places where there is no necessity to see it. She shoots the arrow and then draws the target—but I must say that this is the way of preachers everywhere and of every kind (without distinction of religion, outlook, race, or sex).

She then moves on to shatter another myth and claims that scientists have shown that race is not a scientific matter. Race is a human creation or definition whose goal is to perpetuate the privileges a certain group has taken for itself. In her polished phrasing: race is the daughter of racism, not its father. In these words there is a claim of fact (that division into races is unscientific and not factual) and a claim about motives (that it was created to reinforce a privileged group). For my part I don’t understand the meaning of the factual claim (I hope she does). Today there are racial characteristics that anyone can identify. That’s a fact in every sense, and I assume it can also be described scientifically. Her claim sounds to me like the assertion that the division into species and genera in the animal and plant world (taxonomy) is a human creation. Of course the terminology and the partition are human creations (meaning one could have partitioned otherwise), but there is no doubt that this partition reflects something in the world as it is. Is the difference between a cactus and a lion—or a human being—a subjective human construct? That’s nonsense. Moreover, why even discuss whether race is a fact or not?! What matters is what one does with that distinction. So much for the factual claim. As for the conspiracy claim, I have nothing to say. Once it is clear that division into races has reality, there’s no point in seeking conspiracies to explain its emergence. Beyond that, such conspiracy claims are very dubious to me even when there is a phenomenon that truly lacks scientific basis (see my series from Column 178 onward that deals with Marxist discourse, and much more).

In short, she’s not right. Race is indeed the father of racism, not its child—though it is the stepchild. Racism is a reprehensible stance, but that does not mean racial distinctions lack factual basis. There is no need to deny differences between races in order to confront racist ideas.[5] You can accept the fact that there are differences between races and that they can be distinguished, and still reject a discriminatory racist attitude. Specifically regarding Jewishness, there is indeed room to discuss whether it has a sharp racial definition. It’s quite clear to me that it doesn’t, and there’s no need for it either. But contrary to what she assumes, no one claims that there is such a definition.

Immediately afterward she goes on to describe the Nazis’ attitude toward the Jewish race. In their view, even if a Jew converted to Christianity it would not change his being Jewish. So what? They viewed Jewishness as a racial matter, and apparently were mistaken (specifically regarding Jewishness). Does this prove anything about us? Their principal error was not the scientific error—that Jewishness is not a race. That’s a scientific error like any other. The problem with Nazism was that it developed an attitude toward people on the basis of their race. That is indeed a racist approach worthy of every condemnation. But does anyone defend Nazism today? Buchdahl draws here overblown comparisons and takes analogies to places with no connection to the source. Thus, for example, she claims that the Germans were influenced by American race laws (regarding Blacks). And therefore? Does that mean Americans are as racist as the Nazis? Even if in the past this was true (and even there I think the claim does not quite hold water), how is it connected to our time? Moreover, the Germans also wore trousers and drew on other intellectual and scientific sources. Does that invalidate all those sources?! This reminds me of the approach that accords the Nazis the right to define who is a Jew: whoever’s ancestors were persecuted by them because of their Jewishness (who are you to tell me I’m not Jewish if Hitler, the supreme Jewish authority, wanted to kill my grandparents?!).[6]

She explains that when the State of Israel was established it adopted the “Nazi” rule of a quarter-Jew as the criterion for which refugee it must absorb (one grandparent Jewish; i.e., the child or grandchild of a Jew). Here is an analogy that makes an Olympic leap from Nazism to the State of Israel (all of Yair Golan’s doctrine on one foot). By the way, I quickly checked and saw that the mainstream Reform movement also proposes a racial definition, since in its view the child of a Jewish mother and a non-Jewish father is not considered Jewish unless raised as a Jew and explicitly identifies with the Jewish religion—whereas the child of two Jews is considered Jewish in any case. Is that not racism? Incidentally, in many Reform communities worldwide this lenient criterion was not accepted, and they adopt the halakhic criterion to this day. This is, of course, not an attack on Buchdahl, since I assume she also opposes those conceptions. For her, Jewishness is nothing but culture and values with no dependence on any genetic or ethnic context. This, of course, greatly sharpens the need to define who is a Jew—that is, what is Judaism, in her view? Now we’ve reached the core of the discussion.

Who is a Jew?

She reaches this at the end of her words: the heritage and tradition from all generations before us, starting at Sinai, are very important and meaningful in her eyes. Therefore that is exactly what should define Jewishness, not ethnic-racial criteria. Instead she proposes thinking of us as a family. One can enter a family through birth, adoption, choice, or covenant—sometimes stronger than blood (as in marriage). The birth of the Jewish family was through a covenant with God, not on an ethnic-racial basis. At the beginning of Parashat Nitzavim all those standing before God are enumerated, and this includes everyone, even “your stranger who is in your camp.” Therefore, in her eyes, the fundamental definition of Jewishness is anyone who enters that covenant. That and no more.

But even that doesn’t give me a good definition. What does that covenant mean? Who is a party to it and who is not? Is it enough for a person to say that he is a party to that covenant? After all, anyone can say whatever he wants. Doesn’t this require something more from him? The definitions I mentioned above from the Reform movement—that require a declaration of commitment to the Jewish religion—are unclear for precisely the same reason. What does that declaration say? I’m not speaking about the question of credibility—i.e., whether I believe the person making the declaration (since anyone can declare anything). I’m asking about the meaning of that declaration: what does it mean to be Jewish? When a person declares “I am a Jew” or “I am committed to the Jewish covenant,” what exactly is he supposed to mean? Going to synagogue every Sabbath? Sending a child to a Jewish school? (What should be taught in a school so that it will count as a Jewish school?) Speaking Hebrew? Residing in the State of Israel? Opposing racism?

The most important question in my eyes—and the one underlying the discussion—is whether Jewishness is a value or a fact. But we will get to that later. I want to end this column with a brief discussion of the main underlying issue that bothered me in these two sermons.

What actually bothered me?

Beyond all the particular points I described in the second sermon, as I said, I felt there is something more fundamental that accompanies all my critiques, and in fact is far more basic than they are. This is not a debate over degrees of liberalism, since that’s a debate I conduct with many people, including non-Jews and non-religious folks (both against the conservative pole and against the extreme liberal pole). Beyond that, at least in the first sermon there was no expression at all of Reform positions, nor even of liberalism. And even in the second sermon I concluded that what bothered me was not only that. So what is it?

On the one hand, what she says in both sermons is indeed relevant and topical. In the first sermon one can even see that it is connected to sources (as is typical of connections to the Bible and its interpretation—that’s the essence of the genre), though in the second this exists less, to my taste. But even regarding the principle of her second sermon I fully agree: in my view it is not right to define Jewishness on an ethnic basis (I simply don’t think that’s what people are doing, and therefore I don’t share her critique). I also agree that racism is negative (though I think most of the phenomena she described are not expressions of racism). In short, that’s not what bothered me. The examples and fallacies are specific matters, but there is something more basic here. I’ll say more: in both sermons (especially the first) it seems to me she delivered the message and the linkage to sources no less well than any other synagogue sermon that relies on the Bible—and in my view better than most.

My first conclusion was that these two sermons as they are could be delivered verbatim at the church next door to her synagogue (and they likely are delivered there). Who would disagree with the condemnation of racism? Who would disagree that we should rise, shake off the crisis we’re in, and set out anew? Who would not be willing to learn all this from the Bible? In short, the point where I felt a question was: in what sense is this Jewishness?! It is seemingly a talk about values, and therefore it could be delivered in exactly the same way in any forum and place around the world. Even the reliance on the Bible is, of course, not unique to Jewishness (not to mention the connections that can be made in all sorts of other directions in the same way), certainly if one sees it as a source of inspiration. Many diverse people see it that way.

But here is another surprising point. Sermons given by Orthodox rabbis are not very different from the first sermon, and to a large extent even from the second. There are Orthodox rabbis who could say exactly the same things; that is, the question of what here counts as Jewishness is not connected to her Reform identity. Moreover, even in her second sermon, which is harder on an Orthodox ear, there will be rabbis who will say similar things (I myself agree with most of them—again, with the principles, not with the arguments and applications). In other words, the conclusion is that even what Orthodox rabbis do in the synagogue is not Jewishness. The substantive differences, to the extent they exist at all, are not the important point.

Let’s go one step further. Think now about rabbis who convey messages opposite to hers—decidedly conservative and anti-liberal rabbis. Take, for example, the messages that occasionally leak from the Ali pre-military academy and from other Haredi and Hardal sources. These deal with the “Jewish” (i.e., conservative) institution of the family, modesty, assigning roles to women, abortion, homosexuality, evolution and philosophy, faith in God, and many other topics of “Jewish” thought. In fact what we have here is conservatism, not Jewishness. These talks too could be delivered in exactly the same way by pastors in churches—just as Buchdahl’s sermons. True, here it would be in different churches, less liberal (usually not in New York City or California, of course). If so, this is a debate about conservatism versus liberalism, not about Jewishness versus Christianity. Therefore, the liberal content is not the problem, since that same genre from the conservative direction is no more Jewish. There is something more fundamental.

In short, the whole business is confusing. On the one hand there is something here that’s hard to place under the title “Jewishness” (because it belongs equally to a parallel church). But on the other hand, this has nothing to do with her Reform identity or with the liberalism of her messages. I would say the same about synagogue sermons by conservative rabbis. There is something in the method and in the reasoning, beyond the content and the values, that stirred in me a sense of discomfort. After understanding this, I concluded that this matter relates to the “Jewishness” of her words—and equally to the “Jewishness” of the rabbis I mentioned earlier, of both hues, liberal and conservative. All this simply isn’t Jewishness. These are systems of values—liberal or conservative—but they have nothing to do with Jewishness. This does not mean such matters shouldn’t be discussed in synagogue. Certainly they should. Value questions have a place in synagogue. But still, this is not Jewishness.

This brings me back to the content of the “covenant” that Buchdahl sees as the foundation of Jewishness. It is apparently not the conservative covenant, since by all accounts liberals are also Jews, even if someone disagrees with their position. The same holds for conservatives, whom liberals will also admit are Jews. That is, Jewishness is not defined by either of these baskets of values. So what is? What is the content of that covenant that defines Jewishness?

It is important to say that the question is not posed only to Buchdahl and the Reform. The question also lies at the door of Orthodox Jews. One can define a person’s Jewishness on an ethnic basis and a person’s conversion on a halakhic basis. And still the question of what Jewishness is in its value sense remains open. Who, in their view, behaves as a Jew and who does not? What, exactly, is the convert who comes to us supposed to join, and what is he supposed to declare when he speaks of accepting Jewish commitment? Incidentally, I think even Buchdahl would not be satisfied with opposition to racism as the sole criterion of Jewishness, since there are not a few people—whom she too would not define as Jews—who oppose racism. Moreover, I allow myself to suppose that even she would admit there are not a few racists who nevertheless should be defined as Jews (and condemned). So what is the basic criterion—hers or anyone’s—for Jewishness? What is that “covenant” one must join to be considered a Jew?

[1] She was a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, a liberal American Jew who contributed greatly to equality for women and minorities. RBG was considered among the leaders of American liberalism, and she passed away a few weeks ago. It seems that for liberals this counts as a disaster on the scale of corona (see Buchdahl’s words below), though with all due respect to her impressive personality, she was already 87. It’s a bit reminiscent of the desperate supplications of Haredim for the recovery of a sick rabbi at the age of one hundred—as if, because of our sins, God did to us this terrible and unexpected disaster. Let it teach you that neither the world nor a person—secular or religious—can do without prophets and rebbes.

Incidentally, part of the matter is that her passing is stirring a political crisis in the U.S. right now. President Trump wants to appoint in her place a conservative justice, and liberals are of course very angry and raise bizarre, baseless claims about his lack of legitimacy to do so (see, for example, the first debate between Biden and Trump that took place tonight, where Biden mumbled his irrelevant arguments on this topic). Sound familiar? As I said: the way of the world is one.

[2] I wondered whether one must wait “the time it would take to do” on the night after Rosh Hashanah in order to listen to this recording. True, as is known, the rule of “the time it would take to do” applies only to a non-Jew and not to a Jew, but here, halakhically, we are apparently dealing with a non-Jewish woman.

[3] Sometimes body language is more important than the content of the question, of course. There can be situations in which such questions reflect racism. But in themselves they reflect clear statistical facts: the overwhelming majority of Blacks are not Jews, and the overwhelming majority of Jews are not Black. Therefore it is reasonable that people will think he came to take an interest and see the synagogue even though he is not Jewish. Is that not expected and natural?!

[4] Incidentally, this reminds me that during my time in the holy city of Bnei Brak, I had amusing experiences of this sort at every step. I dressed like a “Mizrahi” (national-religious) type, with a knitted kippah (and at first also sandals without socks and short pants). At weddings I was kindly asked whether I was from the bride’s kibbutz (it was a yeshiva of ba’alei teshuva). On a night trip to a bakery to bake matzot for Passover, they asked me if I was the bus driver. During the aliyah laTorah in the yeshiva where I studied, every beginner and married ba’al teshuva was called up as “the Rav So-and-so son of So-and-so” (like Rabbi Elazar ben Dordaya who acquired his world in a single hour—and not only that, they even called him “Rabbi”), but I, even when I was already one of the veteran and best students in the yeshiva (if I may), and everyone knew me well, was never privileged with the title “Rabbi” (until I switched to a black kippah, for entirely prosaic reasons, by the way). In the Friday night talks after the prayer people would sometimes speak about the national-religious as if they were not Jews and so forth, and no one was bothered that I was standing there with them. Not only does my appearance mark me as national-religious (rightly), but as such I am invisible and not counted. It’s like in films about America several decades ago, where people spoke about servants and Blacks in their presence as if they were air. You might suspect that I remember these situations because I was offended. Maybe at first a bit, but believe me—principally, not at all. Usually it amused me greatly, and these are only a tiny fraction of the situations there (most I don’t remember). I learned to enjoy this transparent status (and I enjoyed surprising them no less—but that is indeed the evil inclination). Especially since I understood there is some truth in such an attitude, for I really looked national-religious (and perhaps was a bit so). So what’s the problem? Such stereotypical treatment is expected and natural. But I can understand that there are people who might be hurt by it.

[5] I have dealt with racism in several columns in the past. See, for example, Columns 10, 206, and the references there.

[6] She herself uses this phrase when she says: if it’s Jewish enough for them to kill him, it’s Jewish enough for us to save him. Note that suddenly she has no problem granting Jew-haters and persecutors the right to decide who is a Jew. Here she is willing to adopt the Nazis’ racial criterion (which was also common in the U.S. in the past, what was called the one drop rule) as a substitute for the State of Israel’s “racist” criterion.