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Jewish World Review Feb. 7, 2000/ 1 Adar I, 5760
THE 1999 SOUVENIR PROGRAM sold at Jacob's Field in
Cleveland featured a full-page ad for Best's Kosher, "the
official kosher hot dog of the Cleveland Indians."
Madonna, Roseanne, Elizabeth Taylor and Sandra Bernhard
are among the pop celebrities studying Kabbalah, a
once-obscure form of Jewish mysticism undergoing a
remarkable renaissance.
Best-selling books over the last year include "Kosher Sex"
and "Kaddish," and in "The Big Lebowski," a recent
Hollywood film, John Goodman plays a bowler who
proclaims, "I never roll on Shabbes."
What's going on here? Is it "in" to be, and "do" Jewish these
days?
The anecdotal evidence is strong. Michael Jackson attends
an Orthodox Friday night service, comedian Adam Sandler
has a hit with his "Happy Hanukah" song, kosher food
products are found in supermarkets everywhere, Barbara
Streisand records "Aveinu Malkenu" on a recent album, and
Crown Books signs Francine Klagsbrun to write a book
about the Sabbath.
Is Judaism the next big trend to sweep American society? Is
there a downside to this, and if not, why do some of us feel
vaguely uneasy about this seeming infatuation with things
Jewish on the part of non-Jews?
Richard Siegel, the executive director of the National
Foundation for Jewish Culture, notes that Jewish culture has
become increasingly mainstreamed into American society,
from television and movies to Broadway and literature. He
says that in his travels around the country, he sees more
regional theaters and symphonies and museums doing
plays and music and exhibits with Jewish themes.
"The phenomenon is in the normal integration of the Jewish
experience into American life," says Siegel. "Despite our
demographic problems, we American Jews have been
successful in maintaining our specific identity within an open
society."
We still obsess over which famous personalities are Jewish,
though we tend to be quite arbitrary and selective, claiming
popular movie stars with tangential ties to their heritage
while excluding born-Jewish criminals or other
embarrassing individuals as not really one of us.
Some Jewish leaders believe that one way to bring
unaffiliated Jews back to Judaism is to show them that
non-Jews are interested in Jewish teachings and ethics. If
Madonna studies Kabbalah and Michael Jackson goes to
shul, then maybe Jews will be impressed sufficiently to
explore their own religion, according to the theory.
But Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of the New Republic,
is not convinced that any of this adds up to a new
mainstreaming of Jewish life into American culture. Forty
years ago, he points out, Hollywood stars like Marilyn
Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Sammy Davis, Jr. were
converting to Judaism, but so what?
Americans in general are obsessed with celebrity, and like
most minority cultures, he says, American Jews are looking
constantly for reassurance from the majority. "It's pathetic
and anachronistic," he says, "like those books about
American Jewish sports heroes. We should be beyond that
by now."
Jenna Weissman Joselit, who teaches American and
Jewish studies at Princeton University, puts the issue into
historical perspective. Jews yearning for acceptance by
non-Jews is nothing new, she says, noting that an exhibition
of Bezalel art from Palestine at Madison Square Garden was
a big hit in 1914, and Jews were thrilled to see Christians
buying Jewish art.
So what are we to make of all this? The evidence is clear
that Jews and things Jewish are increasingly part of
American life, but the impact of that presence is far more
difficult to gauge, and much of the reaction is personal. Are
you filled with pride when a TV sitcom character mentions
how he or she celebrated Chanukah, or do you cringe with
embarrassment?
The deeper question is whether this mixing of cultures will
have a positive or negative effect on American Jewish life.
The fear is that if America accepts Jews and their culture
too readily, we will lose our distinctiveness as a people and
assimilate completely. That's already happening in terms of
interfaith marriage, since Christians now see Jews as
acceptable marriage partners.
The positive view is that with acceptance, Jews will feel
more comfortable with their identity and will be emboldened
to observe their rituals and maintain their distinctive customs
and lifestyle with pride.
In the end, then, it's what we make of it. We can relish the
normalcy of it all, with Yiddish words (including a few
off-color ones) commonly used by average Americans, or
bemoan the fact that we still seem to care whether Gwyneth
Paltrow is Jewish. Maybe the question we should be asking
in this context is not "who is a Jew?" but who cares, and
Is Jewish the Next Next Thing?
By Gary Rosenblatt
We seem
to have matured to the point of no longer insisting on a
"Jewish seat" on the Supreme Court (though we have Ruth
Bader Ginsburg), but take inordinate pride in the fact that the
champion of professional wrestling is a bald brute named,
simply, Goldberg.
"It's a symptom of our insecurity," she says, adding that the
increased mixing of cultures of late may be a product of the
growing rate of intermarriage and a heightened interest in
"the other."
JWR contributor Gary Rosenblatt is editor and publisher of the
New York Jewish Week. Comment on this article by clicking here.
