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Jewish World Review Jan. 29, 1999 / 12 Shevat, 5759
Jonathan Rosenblum
Keep the money
The truth is that a strong argument can be made for redirecting a good deal
of Jewish charitable giving currently going to Israel. The rule of Jewish
charity has always been: the needy of one's own city take precedence.
And American Jewry surely does not lack for pressing problems.
Intermarriage is above 50% and rising, fertility rates are below replacement
levels, the unaffiliated constitute the largest group of American Jews, and
10% of those born Jewish list their religion as "none'' or "other.'' Given
that profile of a community headed towards extinction, the energies devoted
to religious pluralism in Israel border on the insane.
There is surely much room for devoting increased communal resources to
Jewish education. Study after study shows that a day school education is by
far the best protection against assimilation. Yet the cost of tuition places
such an education beyond the reach of many parents who would like to send
their children to Jewish schools. A hundred million dollars could provide a
lot of scholarships.
Even if Reform and Conservative donors were to use money withheld from
Jewish federations for projects specifically identified with their movements
in Israel, no one could object. Everyone is entitled to direct his
charitable giving to projects close to his heart.
It is high time that the Reform and Conservative movements tested the
enthusiasm for such projects in the fundraising market rather than seeking
to extort money from the federations with threats of donor boycotts. That
would allow the federations to return to their proper business of supporting
social welfare projects in Israel for which there is a consensus of support
across the Jewish spectrum.
Unfortunately, the Reform leaders made no attempt to place a positive cast
on their threat to withhold vast sums from charitable giving in Israel. They
spoke neither of the need to address the crisis of American Jewry or of the
desire to concentrate on particular projects in Israel. The threat to
withhold funds was wielded as a club plain, pure and simple.
That negativity has characterized the entire pluralism campaign, and is
itself a reflection of the crisis in American Jewry. Anger generated by the
false claim that Israel and/or Orthodox Jews do not consider the
non-Orthodox to be Jews has proven by far the most potent tool for
mobilizing Reform and Conservative constituents in recent memory.
Yet if the heterodox movements had ever succeeded in arousing their
constituents spiritually, they would not now be so obsessed with religious
pluralism in Israel -- an issue of no consequence to any American Jew and of
little interest to Jews in Israel.
Ultimately the biggest losers from the call to withhold funding from the
social welfare projects of the federations will be the non-Orthodox
movements themselves. Jewishness plays an ever declining role in the
self-identity of the movements' constituents, and a sharp drop in charitable
giving would only exacerbate the decline.
The more one's self-identity revolves around one's Jewishness, the greater
the bond with other Jews; the more attenuated Jewish self-identity, the
weaker the bond with fellow Jews. Today that bond has weakened to the point
where only 17% of Reform Jews claim to identify strongly with the fate of
Jews in Israel, and 42% say they would not view the destruction of Israel as
a personal tragedy.
Edgar Siskin, a Reform rabbi, has argued in this vein that waning
American Jewish support for Israel has little to do with opposition to
right-of-center governments or concerns about religious pluralism, but is
attributable to larger patterns of assimilation. (Indeed it is the very
tenuousness of the connection to fellow Jews that lends credibility to the
Reform leaders' threat to punish poor Jewish children in Israel.)
For many of the Reform movement's constituents giving to projects in
Israel is their last connection to their Jewishness. That giving reinforces
whatever tenuous sense of connection to fellow Jews they still possess, and,
in turn, increases their Jewish self-identity.
Even today the money raised by Jewish charities dwarfs that raised by such
community-wide charities as the March of Dimes, the American National Red
Cross, and the American Cancer Society. Charitable giving and concern for
those less fortunate than themselves remain the most defining Jewish traits.
Yet talk to any Jewish fundraiser and you will hear a rising sense of panic
about the future. Our parents and grandparents, whether religious or not,
viewed charitable giving as an obligation. Money for tzedakah came off the
top, like income tax. The younger generation of Jews is increasingly likely
to view charity as money to be given only after the kitchen is remodeled
and the car updated.
The great danger of the threat to cut off funding to Israel is that it will
legitimize reduced charitable giving. Rather than wending its way into
communal coffers in America, much of the money withheld from social welfare
projects in Israel will go to paying Club Med dues and the like.
That would be a
tragedy.
AMERICAN JEWS WILL WITHHOLD one hundred million dollars in annual giving to
Israel if the Knesset does not adopt the Reform position on religious
pluralism, threatened Reform leaders at a January 5 press conference.
JWR contributor Jonathan Rosenblum is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.