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Month: June 2015

Argentina and Peronism

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, February 1997

I loved Evita. I loved the musical. I loved the movie. And, I thought that Madonna was an extraordinary Eva Peron.

But seeing Evita made me reflect on the politics of the modern world. After all, the fascism of the Perons was a unique fascism, an alliance between the army and the labor unions. Historically, in most conservative countries, the army allies itself with the clergy and the upper classes. But not in Argentina under Peron. As we can tell from the frustrated oligarchy in the Webber musical, singing in their upper class accents, the old ruling class were not happy with the Perons. Eva hated them. She was happiest when she was mesmerizing the descamisados, her shirtless workers.

Fascism is on the Right. But it is not conservative. It is a radical response to the traumas of modern capitalism. Unlike Communism which glorifies the industrial worker and the international working class, fascism glorifies the peasant, the soldier and the patriot. The soldier, in particular, is the hero of fascist intellectuals. The soldier is also peasant and patriot. In a capitalistic world he is seen as the victim of the masters of money, the corrupt politicians of democracy and the effete and indifferent upper classes. His rescue can only be effected by a soldier of honor, a leader who embodies the will of the people, a hero who will turn the whole nation into an army of virtue and mutual support.

Both Hitler and Mussolini hated the upper classes. They played to the lower classes, to their sense of victimization in a cruel capitalistic world, to their hatred of urban life, to their fear of foreigners, to their yearning for self-esteem through military glory. Both Hitler and Mussolini were veterans of the First World War. Their first followers were lower class unemployed veterans, filled with hatred of the rich and the privileged, and open to any conspiracy theory that featured foreigners and Jews. The gauleiters of the Nazi Party were not aristocrats. They despised aristocrats. They preferred German leaders who talked like Huey Long, George Wallace and Pat Buchanan. Unlike the old conservative ideologies of pedigree and property, fascism had the power to mobilize the masses.

But neither Hitler or Mussolini succeeded in winning over the leaders of industrial labor. The urban workers voted against fascism. In the end, both dictators were forced to make alliances with the aristocrats they despised. It was the Perons, in the very hour when the forces of fascism experienced their terrible defeat in both Europe and Asia, who succeeded in making an alliance between the army and the labor unions. Behind the songs and biography of Evita lies an extraordinary and frightening political development.

Argentina had become a rich country by the beginning of the twentieth century. British investment, the invention of refrigeration and the European demand for Argentine beef and wheat produced enormous wealth. But this wealth was very unevenly distributed.

A small number of landed aristocrats controlled most of it. They indulged themselves with excessive luxury and monopolized all positions of political power. Needing workers for their economic empire, they imported large numbers of Spanish and Italian immigrants who transformed the port city of Buenos Aires into one of the great metropolitan centers of the world. Many of these immigrants created a new middle class who struggled with the aristocrats for political control. For a short time in the 1920’s the middle class prevailed. But most of the peasants and urban workers remained excluded, oppressed and ignored. They were the ‘losers’ of an emerging modern economy.

The key to the success of Juan and Eva was that they spoke to the ‘losers’ in a language that the lower classes could understand – language of paternal and maternal love, a language of patriotism and lower class resentment. The turn-off language of intellectual socialism and sophisticated atheism never burdened their communication. The lower classes did not want democracy. They wanted jobs, recognition and revenge. Eva understood them. That is why in poor neighborhoods in Argentina she is still remembered as ‘Santa Evita’.

In time, without Eva, the Peron regime collapsed from its own economic mismanagement. The upper and middle classes rejoiced. The army returned to its traditional alliance with the rich and the clergy. But the new government, including the present one (which is ironically Peronist without any of the programs of Peron) had not found the solution to the problem of the unhappy ‘losers’, the workers that modern capitalism so easily displaces.

Evita makes you think. In an America where so many workers are discovering that their standard of living is falling, that their jobs are disappearing to automation or to foreign competition, where foreigners abound in ethnically, mixed cities and where the separation between the winners and ‘losers’ is growing wider – is it possible that disgruntled labor could make an alliance with undemocratic politicians and soldiers in an outburst of impulsive resentment. L think not. But Evita makes me think of the danger of a world where the winners indulge their right to self-absorption and where the ‘losers’ are cast aside, alienated from the economic game, and consumed by envy and anger.

The problem of Evita will not go away.

Jewish Book Month 1987

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist,  November 1987

November is Jewish Book Month, a time to honor the literary creativity of contemporary Jewish writers – or to honor the writing of talented non-Jews who choose to write about Jews.

The best way to celebrate this special month is to read Jewish books – not just any old Jewish books, but good ones. In a country like America, where the Jewish literary establishment is very powerful, where Jewish culture and Jewish identity arouse widespread positive interest, and where successful writers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, vie for the attention of the large Jewish reading public, there is no shortage of appropriate books.

During Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur I chose readings from five new books to illustrate my presentations on ethics. Each of them is a book worth reading and discussing.

Here they are.

Power and Powerless by David Biale. Biale is a professor of Jewish history at the University of California in Berkeley. He proposes a provocative thesis that many modern Jews are not comfortable with, because it does not conform to the image of the Jew which they wish to present to the Gentile public. Jews usually see their historic experience as one of weakness and powerlessness, a continuous story of suffering and humiliation. This perception feeds into the need to appear as victims of powerful enemies and to solicit sympathy and pity. But Biale disowns this perception. He maintains that for most of Jewish history Jews were indeed powerful in the environments where they chose to live or found themselves. The power was usually not military. However, it might be economic. The history of the Jews, according to Biale, is not one long tale of woe. It is a story of the effective use of -talent and connections to make useful changes and to provide strong defenses. Although we Jews are often more comfortable with losing than with winning, we cannot understand our roots if we insist on projecting our present anxiety onto our past experience.

Out of Step by Sidney Hook. This book is the autobiography Sidney Hook, one of America most prominent humanist philosophers – and one of America’s mc controversial intellectuals. A child of Jewish New York, Hook became a Marxist radical during his student days at CCNY (the training ground of so much of the Jewish intellectual elite). In the decades that followed, as established his -credentials as philosopher and an academician, he repudiated his Marxist ideology and embraced a more moderate social democratic liberal posture. Throughout his career, given his strong Jewish attachments, he fought for the legitimacy of his Jewish atheistic position. Controversy entered his life during the Vietnam era and the radicals and championed the old liberal notion that a school of higher learning should be open to hearing all opinions, right and left – and should not become a political instrument of political radicals. Hook’s autobiography reveals that he still retains his feisty and acerbic style in his 80’s

Anne Frank Remembered by Miep Gies. This memoir is the story of the woman who befriended the Frank family in Amsterdam and supported them in their hiding place. An employee of Otto Frank, Miep was confronted with a terrifying moral choice. Should she risk her life and the life of her family to rescue Jewish friends? Her response was without hesitation. Even when her friends were arrested, she recklessly ran to Gestapo headquarters to appeal for their release. Her story dramatizes the moral courage of many Gentiles, who, to no personal advantage for themselves, chose to save Jews. What makes her memoir so powerful is that it is told with no self-conscious heroism.

The History of the Jews by Philip Johnson. Johnson has become a well-known popular historian, whose conservative opinions on the malaise of modern society have been enshrined in a series of successful books. Whether you agree or disagree with his conclusions his style and the force of his opinions are of compelling interest. Given his ethnic background, it was surprising that he chose to devote such extensive research to the history of the Jews. But he is obviously fascinated by us and by our achievements. While his presentation of the early history of the Jews is dominated by a naive reliance on the truth of the Biblical myths, his analysis of the evolution of the Jews in the Diaspora is nothing less than brilliant. He is not troubled by the economic role of the Jew in both the Middle Ages and in the contemporary capitalist world. He finds it fascinating and deals with it realistically. This history is written by an admirer of the Jews – but not one overly sentimental or fawning.

To the Land of the Cattails by Aharon Appelfeld. Appelfeld is an Israeli who spent his youth in Bukovina in Eastern Europe. He is intimately familiar with the Holocaust and has devoted his writing career to dramatizing the devastation of his people through short somewhat surrealistic novels. Badenheim 1939 made him famous. And this novel follows in the same tradition. A Jewish woman is accompanied on her ill-omened trip to death by her adolescent son. Neither she, nor the people with her, are willing to acknowledge what is happening to them. All is denial. And this denial, in the midst of the most ominous warnings, is Appelfeld’s commentary on the Jewish response to the inconceivable horror of the Holocaust.

If you are looking for good Jewish reading, any one of the five will do.

Eight Years of The Religious Right

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, October 1988

Eight years ago Ronald Reagan was running for President for the first time. And it was quite clear that – given the difficulties of Carter – he was going to win.

Eight years ago a sinister new political force presented its face to the public in the presidential campaign. The Moral Majority, under the leadership of evangelist Jerry Falwell, made its national debut in support of Reagan.

Eight years ago the Voice of Reason was born at the Birmingham Temple. Aroused by the danger to our civil liberties in the Falwell success, many of our members decided to respond in an organized way to this organized threat.

The Voice of Reason was an important chapter in our twenty-five year old history. It was an expression of our commitment to a liberal democracy and to the separation of religion and government which it implies. For that reason we have chosen to honor the Voice of Reason as part of our anniversary celebration.

Eight years later, at the time of another presidential election, it is appropriate for us to look back at the Falwell phenomenon and assess its successes and failures.

The religious right has been successful in mobilizing a large minority of the American people as a permanent activist lobby for fundamentalist causes. Some ten to fifteen percent of the American population is fanatically committed to tearing down the “traditional” barrier between church and state. Never before in American history have so many been so focused on this issue.

For many of the people in this political lobby the entrance of religious symbols and religious values into the public sphere is the most important political goal they have.

The religious right has been successful in assuming the mantle of moral defender in our troubled society. Sensitive to the concern that so many Americans have about the decline of traditional ethical values, especially those having to do with family and sex, the fundamentalist preachers have tuned into this anxiety and provided a simple and dramatic remedy. Secularism is now identified by many Americans with either immorality or moral permissiveness. Secular state schools are now regarded as neutral or negligent in the development of either patriotism or personal character. Private religious school systems are flourishing. And millions of non-fundamentalist parents have now come to accept the argument that religious education is moral education.

The religious right has been successful in encouraging a fanatic hostility to the decisions of the Supreme Court, especially those with regard to school prayer, school Bible readings, the integrity of science and abortion. The devotees of the right are determined to replace the justices on the court who espouse any liberal or moderate views with their own spokespeople. The chief criterion for the admission of these candidates to the court is their stance on the place of religion in public life.

The religious right has been successful in intimidating public educators and forcing them on the defensive. Cautious teachers, principals and superintendents are now reluctant to offer clear and direct support to secular education in a secular state.

Hoping to appease the “nudges” of the right, they have often consented to replace scientifically respectable textbooks with more timid alternatives. They have eliminated meaningful sex education. And they have allowed fundamentalist recruiters into their schools to seduce non-religious students into religious activity.

The religious right has been successful in putting science and scientists on the defensive. Building on the new fashionable anti-intellectuality of the past two decades and the stress that new information and new technology place on the public, the fundamentalists have compelled scientists to defend tried and true scientific conclusions that were no longer challenged forty years ago. In many places the theory of evolution is experiencing the same trial as Darwin experienced over a hundred years ago in England.

The religious right has been successful in making abortion freedom as a central issue of American political life. More determined than most conventional Catholics, they have elevated their answer to this question to be the moral litmus test for all politicians. Even Jerry Falwell, borrowing a page from the left and Martin Luther King Jr., has proposed a campaign of civil disobedience to undermine abortion freedom in this country. With assaultive demonstrations at abortion clinics, the debate is heating up to explosion.

The religious right has been successful in infiltrating the Republican Party and moving it to the right. Even though Pat Robertson did not succeed in remaining a viable candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, his followers and the devotees of other fundamentalist preachers retain a strong influence on Republican decisions and strategies. The near-win of Robertson in Michigan may portend similar events in other places. For sure, no secular sentiment ever passes the lips anymore of any successful Republican candidate.

Well, as you can see, the successes of the religious right are quite impressive. But there have been several significant failures.

The religious right has failed to turn its propaganda into effective legislation. Despite the promised support of both Reagan and conservative Congressmen, most of the agenda has failed to become reality. While some abortion restrictions have passed into law, very little has been achieved with school prayer, Bible readings and anti-evolution. While the Supreme Court has helped, the ambivalence of both moderates and many economic conservatives have prevented the energies of the religious right to be transferred to the legislators.

The religious right has failed to win the support of a majority of the American people despite the title of its most powerful national organization, (Moral Majority). On the contrary, its leaders have become some of the most hated figures on the American scene. While Falwell is adored by his followers, he is feared by almost eighty percent of the American population. The intensity of the fundamentalists has produced a counter-intensity of disgust and loathing that serves as an effective wall to fundamentalist ambitions.

The religious right has failed to unite its forces or discipline its leaders. The recent delicious fiascos with Bakker and Swaggart have revealed a world of unseemly competition and hypocrisy under the moral platitudes. We now know that fundamentalists and charismatics do not like each other and that kinky sex is a prerequisite for television evangelism. People are now beginning to laugh at what they used to revere. A lot of devotees have departed the fold.

The religious right failed to win its most ambitious attempt to control the Supreme Court. Although Bork is an atheist, his staunch conservatism and sympathetic feeling for religious symbolism in public life made him a test case for fundamentalist aspirations. His defeat was an enormous disappointment to diehard conservatives and a ray of hope to frustrated separationists and civil libertarians.

Now these failures were due to a variety of causes. One was the basic centrist position of most of the American people. The second was the internal feuding among the fundamentalist leaders and the stupid and embarrassing behavior of their most visible spokesmen. The third was the dichotomy between the programs of economic conservatives and lifestyle conservatives, the former of which see no connection between free enterprise and anti-science. The fourth was the determined political effort Of the American Civil Liberties Union, the People for the American Way, and smaller organizations like the Voice of Reason (now renamed Americans for Religious Liberty) to mobilize opposition to the agenda of the religious right.

Despite the failures of the fundamentalists the successes of the “enemy” of our constitutional liberties means that we must continue to be vigilant, continue to stay organized to respond to danger. That vigilance is the meaning of our tribute to the Voice of Reason.

 

Brussels 1988 – International Federation Conference

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, November 1988

Brussels 1988. An important place and time for Humanistic Judaism.

The second biennial meeting of the International Federation of Secular Humanistic Jews produced an important document. The question “Who is a Jew?” was answered boldly, generously and with a unique voice. Never before had any Jewish movement drawn the parameters of Jewishness so broadly. Hopefully, the issuance of this statement to the Jewish press and to the Jewish world will challenge the traditional establishment and arouse useful discussion.

The meeting in Brussels also provided for emotional highs. Two hundred people from thirteen countries, speaking Hebrew, English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Yiddish, created an environment of international excitement. Some came – out of secular Yiddishist backgrounds. Some came from active Zionist organizations. Some were children of the kibbutz, imbued with the results of over seventy years of humanistic experiments. Others were members of secular Jewish schools and secular Jewish culture clubs. Still others, like us, were the products of full-fledged humanistic congregations. Even famous free-floating Jewish intellectuals, like Albert Memmi and Amos Funkenstein, added to the variety of flavors.

The- main setting for the conference was the Centre Communautaire Laic Juif, a secular Jewish community center in the heart of Brussels. Established over twenty -five years ago by a charismatic couple, Simone and David Susskind, it has emerged as the major humanistic Jewish voice on the European scene. Its programs reach thousands of Jews in Brussels. Its publications, especially its French magazine Regards are read by over ten thousand Belgian Jews. Its special conferences embrace the famous leaders and intellectuals of the Jewish world and bring them together to discuss important issues.

There were many special moments. There was the triumphant conclusion of the day-long attempt to reach consensus on the Who is a Jew? statement, with regional delegations cheering and applauding-. There was the warm and inspiring message of Albert Memmi, famous writer and the honorary president of the Federation, who challenged us to respond creatively to the real world of assimilation and intermarriage. There was the simple and compelling acceptance speech of David Susskind, who received a special award for distinguished service to the cause of Jewish humanism, and who shared with us the passion of his commitment. There was the powerful challenge of Yehoshafat Harkabi, former Director of Military Intelligence for the state of Israel, who demanded that we dismiss our destructive illusions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and called us to confront the reality of Israel’s present position and the necessity for dramatic compromise. There was, of course, the incredible sense of solidarity and closeness as we all sang Hebrew and Yiddish songs with Jews from many places and many nations.

The conference made us an aware that, despite our differences, we were part of a growing world movement and that we needed to work together to make it strong. But we also recognized that context made a difference. The problems of North America were not the same as those of Europe. And the problems of Europe were distinct from those of Israel and Latin America. We discovered that we had to listen to each other very carefully so that we could really understand from where each one of us was coming and what each one of us needed.

Out of the conference came an agenda of tasks that we needed to undertake if we were going to be successful in serving the needs of secular and humanistic Jews. We needed to provide popular essays about our philosophy – in at least four languages – so that unaware secular Jews could identify with our ideology and our movement. We needed to strengthen our Institute in Jerusalem so that trained teachers and leaders would be available to serve struggling communities all over the world. We needed to develop the aesthetic and emotional side of our humanistic commitments so that shared celebrations and shared symbols would give us a heartfelt sense of Jewish identity. We needed to reach out to the thousands of Jews who had no knowledge of us but who belonged with us, especially the cultural Jews of the Soviet Union and the unaffiliated Jews of North America and Europe. We especially needed to map out an effective strategy to counter the militancy of the new orthodoxy and to help rescue the Jewish world for sanity and openness.

We left Brussels with the determination to undertake these tasks and with the comfort of knowing that we would undertake them together.

The closing event of the meeting was held at the Holocaust Memorial in Brussels, an outdoor shrine in the heart of the old ghetto where twenty-six thousand names of Nazi victims are inscribed in bronze. We stood in silent tribute and then sang the defiant song of the Jewish partisans. We felt the sadness and despair for all that was lost. We also felt deeply our connection to the suffering and survival of the Jewish people. We knew that, ultimately, we could not rely on the kindness of God. The future of the Jewish people and of humanity lay, in some small way, in our hands.

The Fatwa Against Rushdie

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, March 1989

A brilliant and creative writer, by the name of Salman Rushdie, has been condemned to death for writing a book that his accusers have not even read.

Ayatollah Khomeini has re-entered the political spotlight by ordering the execution of a secular intellectual of Muslim origin. Rushdie, an award-winning novelist of international fame, has been declared guilty of blasphemy, a crime worthy of death in fundamentalist circles. His book, Satanic Verses, innocently plays with Muslim myths, including the stories of Mohammed and his wives, in order to demonstrate the ambiguity of good and evil. To the secular reader the presentation is subtle, creative and brilliant. To the pious Muslim reader it is nothing short of an assault on God.

In the post-Enlightenment secularized world of the West such a book has a right to exist, even though it causes pain and discomfort to pious believers. Free speech is a fundamental liberty which even traditional religious people have come to accept. After all, it simply evens the score. For countless centuries religious leaders have had complete freedom to speak and write scurrilously about atheism and secularism, defaming its teachers and philosophers in the most outrageous way. “Blasphemy” can go both ways.

But in the Muslim world, which never experienced a true Enlightenment and where religion has never had the opportunity to adapt to a secular democratic world, free speech is difficult to comprehend. Insulting God, by denying the infallibility of his prophets and scripture, endangers not only the individuals who are guilty of blasphemy but also the society that tolerates it without adequate punishment. If the guilty are not removed all will suffer the wrath of Allah.

The crafty Khomeini is using the opportunity of this scandal to re-assert his pre-eminence in the Muslim world, especially after the debacle with Iraq. However it is a diversionary tactic, which runs counter to the recent attempts of some of his lieutenants to cozy up to the Western powers in the hope that Western financial help will now be available to rebuild the economy of Iran. Khomeini cannot have it both ways. He cannot threaten the West and seduce them into assisting him at the same time. Right now, being the angry voice of a militant Islam is more appealing.

Interestingly, his new terrorism is working. Booksellers, like Waldenbooks and Dalton, are refusing to sell Rushdie’s book. Governments, like Canada, are forbidding its import. Religious leaders with a few exceptions are choosing silence. The author has offered an abject apology (which has humiliatingly been rejected). Even the American president, who is hardly a favorite in Teheran where he enjoys the status of a condemned Satan, has chosen to speak softly. Only the European community has responded with some courage, although it still continues to import Persian oil.

At stake in this encounter is the future of free speech as well as the future of art and science. If intellectual and literary figures, whose creativity deviates from the norm of religious prosperity, can be placed on death lists by fundamentalist governments and the Western public – then free speech will be an ultimate victim of international terrorism.

The attitude that assumes that Khomeini is a passing crazy and does not deserve our courageous defiance is dangerous. When Khomeini dies, others equally crazy and fanatic, will follow. But once the posture of surrender is begun, once the defiance is mild rather than bold, the battle will be lost. It will just be easier to comply then resist. Dignity will seem less important than physical security.

It is, therefore, very important that we, as secularists and humanists, who will suffer most from fundamentalist intimidation, should not yield to these threats. It is important that we encourage publishers and booksellers not to yield and that we denounce and embarrass those who do. It is also important that we encourage the American government to speak out boldly against this intimidation and to institute sanctions. America’s caution will neither protect American hostages nor encourage pro-Western elements in the Iranian government.

Whether you approve or disapprove of Salman Rushdie is not the issue. Free speech is. And now is the time to defend it.

Jews and Christmas

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, December 1976

A local Reform rabbi recently described to me his act of heroism and integrity. Invited last December to a family dinner at the home of a wealthy temple member, he was astounded to find, in the middle of the den, a small Christmas tree festively decorated. Although, as he clearly pointed out, his host was a large contributor to the building fund, m former vice-president of his congregation, and a Jewish community leader of immense power, the rabbi refused the holiday egg-nog and, in the presence of amazed witnesses, proceeded to denounce “this tasteless sham.” He reminded his host that fawning assimilation was no vehicle to Jewish self-esteem and excoriated him for having- failed to set a proper example as a leader. The next day his embarrassed member indignantly resigned and withdrew his financial support. Despite congregational pressure to make the rabbi recant and apologize my friend bravely refused to comply. “I will not sell my integrity for money,” he announced.

A cousin of mine confided in me last year that her neighbor, whom she had always regarded as intelligent and sensitive, had sent her a Christmas card. Although the card contained only some, innocuous poetry about the winter season, my cousin was deeply troubled by this religious boorishness. After all, Hanukkah greetings are easily available. It would have been so nice to have her Jewishness acknowledged in the same way that she took great pains to respect the “Christian” character of her neighbor’s home. (Of course, her neighbors never went to church and despised all of organized religion. But Christmas as Christmas is not Hanukkah.)

Several winters ago one of my Sunday School teachers chastised me for having referred to the annual winter recess in the presence of the children, as Christmas vacation. She protested that Jewish students are always assaulted by the barrage of Christian propaganda through the mass media and the programs of the public school. – The Temple, of all places, should be the one haven where the individuality of their own tradition is affirmed. “Christian vocabulary,” she asserted, “has no place in a Jewish school. We ought to make our children proud of their own holidays.”

These three incidents reveal a fundamental sociological truth. Christmas is a problem for most American Jews. In a culture where Jews are rapidly becoming an assimilated minority, this holiday season is never for us what it is for our Gentile friends – a time of family reunion and community goodwill. It is usually a season of guilty anxiety when our Jewish loyalty and commitment are publicly tested. Christmas decorations confront the Jewish parent, not as objects of beauty, but as devilish enticements, too seductive for the Jewish good. If only Christmas carols were not such lovely musical threats. If only Christmas trees could be uglier. It takes immense strength to resist such pleasant temptations, and we are bound to resent what is so delectable but forbidden.

Rabbis used to express their ritual concerns by denouncing violations of dietary laws and Sabbath rest. But in a milieu where dietary laws are for caterers and Sabbath observance is an activity of grandparents, the Christmas tree is the new -bite noir. Reform rabbis who have long since abandoned any form of Jewish ritual discipline and who eloquently announced the priority of ethics over ceremonial trivia, reveal a righteous indignation about the Jewish observance of Christmas that even civil rights, Vietnam, and a nuclear holocaust could never evoke. The Christian “enemy” must be resisted at all costs, even at the price of glorifying the ordinary. The deification of Hanukkah is a tribute to our fears. A minor winter festival, with its roots in a pagan fascination with lights and with its historical justification tied to a shabby battle between two kinds of religious fanatics, has been elevated in America to the highest of ritual heights. Yom Kippur pales before its current splendor – Passover cannot touch its expenditures. As the Jewish answer to Christmas in a child-centered culture, it has wildly succeeded. It has become the annual badge of identity.

My rabbi friend, who preferred integrity to money, revealed in a recent temple bulletin the reasons why Jews should have nothing at all to do with Christmas. It is clear, he says, that Christmas is a Christian holiday, intimately tied to the story of Jesus’ virgin birth and ‘inevitably bound to the dogmatic beliefs of the historic Church. To celebrate Christmas is to symbolically affirm one’s identity with this tradition, as well as one’s agreement with its principles Christ is not separable from Christmas. In fact, Protestant and Catholic clergymen are valiantly resisting the efforts of the religiously indifferent and the crassly commercial to turn the occasion into a mere secular holiday of goodwill, devoid of any theological meaning. They want to “put Christ back into Christmas.” And we as Jews ought to respect their effort. We ought to help them in their struggle for religious purity by keeping our “unbelieving Jewish hands” off their sacred festival. We have our own holiday. We don’t need theirs.

In fact, the rabbi says, Jewish observance of Christmas only excites Christian contempt. Many obsequious early Reformers imagined that, if they imitated their Gentile neighbors and pretended to be less conspicuously Jewish, they would more readily win the social approval they desired. But just the opposite occurred. The more they imitated, the more they tried to affirm their identity with the majority culture, the less they achieved the respect and admiration they craved. Without authenticity they were contemptible beggars of community acceptance. The authentic Jew, who proudly affirmed his difference, was much more likely to be successful at finding approval.

The classic Reform indulgence of a Jewish Christmas, our bulletin writer suggests, was an expression of the immense self-hate that pervaded the psyche of an insecure and vulnerable minority. Self-respecting people are not afraid of difference and are not obsessed by the need for community acceptance. Christmas decorations in a Jewish home are pitiful, not so much because they violate religious requirements, but especially because they reveal the fear and self-contempt of their owners. Jewish dignity is always expressed in the willingness to assert Jewish identity under all conditions. Proud people do not hide behind, another person’s inheritance. They use their own.

It is certainly true, the rabbi maintains, that there are major religious differences between Judaism and Christianity. For Jews to celebrate Christian holidays, or for Christians to observe Jewish festivals, is to ignore these historic distinctions` and to treat religion lightly. The Jewish refusal to observe Christmas is an expression of, an ideological reality. To pretend to agree when .there is no agreement, to express unity when there is no unity, is to indulge futile gestures that feebly hide the truth. Honesty requires us to subscribe to no false brotherhood.’ We are honor bound to affirm our difference and the symbols of our difference.

Nor can we forget, the writer continues, the immense suffering our people have endured at the hands of official Christianity. Peace and goodwill may be the propaganda of Christmas; but they have nothing at all to do with the reality of Christian behavior toward Jews. The holidays of the Christian calendar are too intimately identified with the blood of our martyrs for us to practice them without guilt and hostility. We cannot erase the memories of two thousand years and reverse our conditioning. If we are sometimes angrily parochial, we are amply justified.

Perhaps. Yet the answers of our bulletin writer rest on a false assumption. It is assumed throughout his discussion that Jews have an option that they are free not to celebrate Christmas. But no option exists. All Jews in America must celebrate Christmas in some fashion or other. Since our whole American culture makes of this holiday a national festival, more Jews abstain from work on Christmas (through no choice of their own) than stay home for Rosh Hashana. All work stops; all business closes. Even Jewish families are forced to be together and to eat together. Some of our people celebrate the day with uncomfortable hostility, wasting its potential. Others relax in the pleasures of family reunion and hospitality, savoring its secular opportunities. Like the Sabbath in Israel, even nonbelievers have to observe it as a day of rest. If we are honest about the holiday question, we never ask: should American Jews celebrate Christmas. We rather inquire: how should American Jews celebrate Christmas (even if it means spending the whole day making invidious comparisons with Hanukkah or self-pityingly denouncing anti-Semitism).

Given the fact that Christmas is a holiday for Western Jews, however imposed, rabbis cannot close their eyes to its presence. Even Reconstructionists wax eloquent with programs for Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving. But Christmas as a national day of leisure is conspicuously ignored. It is as though the experience is too painful to acknowledge or too embarrassing to admit. After all the protestations about the virtues of Hanukkah, no one takes off for Hanukkah, but Christmas ends up as our day of rest. Even the dullest child can see the power of that difference. One fact is clear. Hanukkah is no substitute for Christmas. First of all, it rarely ever falls on Christmas Day. And secondly, after one has finished with eight days of candles, dreidels, gifts, potato pancakes, and holiday-streamers, Hanukkah is a second-rate aesthetic experience next to its rival. As a winter festival for northern climates, Christmas with all its greenery, lights, and snowy songs is incomparable. Not even Judah Maccabee and his brave brothers can change that reality. (If only they had been a ski patrol and worshiped evergreens)

As long as we Jews have to celebrate Christmas, we might as well enjoy it. Instead of moping around with useless guilt and sour-grapes jealousy, we ought to make Christmas as comfortable for Jews as possible. In this regard the “religiously indifferent” and the “crass commercialists” are our allies. It is absolutely ludicrous and masochistic for Jews to attempt to reverse historical evolution and to “put Christ back into Christmas.” Why should we want to encourage a parochial mythology at the expense of a universal ethical message? Why should we allow stuffy and irrelevant clergymen to wreck Christmas? Is it not enough that the historic Church took-a perfectly charming Roman festival of the winter solstice and ruined it by identifying it with a myth about gods and mangers that had to be taken literally? Are we then to regret the death of the story? Ought we not to rejoice that young American children (despite their priests’ and ministers) prefer Jingle Bells to crèches? Japan has evolved a Christless Christmas which has become one of the major festivals of its calendar year. The Japanese have made of the holiday what they wanted to make of it – to serve their needs – without guilt or anguish.

Just as Christianity took the Roman “Christmas” and transformed-it to serve Christian needs; so can modern secularists use it to express humanistic needs. With millions of non-Christian Christmas observers in Russia, Japan and in Western Europe, and with the inevitable assault of the scientific age on all mythologies, our winter festival ought to inevitably evolve into an aesthetically charming holiday of international goodwill devoid of any serious theological implications. Of course, the Christian legend will linger indefinitely. But it will be on the defensive. A delicious irony will have evolved. Like Chinese food, the holiday will become more pleasurable for the tourists than for the natives. If such a procedure hardly seems “cricket”, the Christian traditionalists, given their past record of sympathy for others, richly deserve it.

Nor can the argument of Christian contempt be a telling one. Jews who observe a secular Christmas are no more contemptible to the hordes of Gentiles who are equally secular than Jews who •indulge Halloween, Valentine’s Day, or Thanksgiving. Christmas trees are no more religiously compromising than painted eggs for Easter. The charge of self-hate is equally absurd. On the contrary, the desperate attempt to avoid “contamination” with Christian symbols is the sign of self-doubt. It is no affirmation of self-esteem. Unwilling to forego the pleasures of assimilation, Jewish parents feebly protest their tribal loyalty every Hanukkah by the vehemence with which they resist Christmas. A self-confident Jew has no fear that a secular Christmas will destroy his identity. He is terrified by no ceremonial trivia and is afraid of no cosmopolitan experiment. As a Jewish humanist, free to demythologize whatever is aesthetically indispensable, he feels no need to be restrictive. He can celebrate and enjoy both Hanukkah and Christmas.

The either-or alternatives of distinct ideologies are quite irrelevant to the realities of contemporary religious belief. Educated Jews and Christians are much closer to each other in their humanistic dispositions than they are to the more traditional uneducated members of their respective denominations. Jewish and Christian belief on the university level are not very distinct. Hanukkah and Christmas emerge only as aesthetic options identified with childhood memory and family loyalty. To convert them into irreconcilable symbols is to distort the truth. It is to turn ideological molehills into ceremonial mountains.

Nor is Christian persecution a sufficient reason for the rejection of Christmas. If the holiday season had retained its historic theological significance, the reaction would be appropriate. But as the official winter festival of a secular Western culture, it survives primarily as a ceremonial opportunity for cozy goodwill. Despite the pleas of a vocal pious minority, its humanistic evolution is inevitable in the end it will turn out to be a repudiation of the very myth that sponsored it. It will slowly transfer its attention from the vocabulary of divine-grace to the reality of human love.

The Jewish hang-upon Christmas is a function of Jewish guilt. Ambivalent about assimilation and yet committed by his ambition to total integration, the modern American Jew finds it difficult to mediate between his past and future. His aggressiveness for Hanukkah and against Christmas is an expression of self-delusion. It helps sustain the fantasy that he has preserved the religious uniqueness he has long since abandoned. It makes him feel terribly Jewish without any real effort – and without any real insight.

A rational Jew accepts the fact that he celebrates Christmas. Since this ceremonial truth neither disturbs him nor frightens him, he desires to evaluate it fairly. He knows that, as a universal holiday Christmas has no peers. It transcends all national boundaries and unites millions of Christians and non-Christians in a worldwide celebration of goodwill. As a humanist, he is delighted by this development and works to make Christmas less Christian. As a Jew, he also celebrates and enjoys Hanukkah, but is wise enough to realize that it is no adequate substitute for its sister holiday. He does not view these festivals as mutually exclusive but sees then as complementary companions. If he is a parent, he will not deny his child either opportunity and has no objection to the celebration of a secular Christmas within the framework of his Sunday School, temple, or public school. He even welcomes humanistic procedures for Christmas as he welcomes then for Thanksgiving. In short, he is aware that he is more than Jewish, and accepting that “more” makes him feel a more effective and more understanding person.

American Diversity

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, February 1999

February is Brotherhood (and Sisterhood) Month in America. It is a useful time to celebrate the diversity which is part of American life. Our country, like most of the nations of the world, is no longer ethically or religiously uniform. It is a composite of people from all over the planet.

The original concept of a nation was that of a community of racially identical people with shared ancestors and shared memories. The Israelites of the Bible conformed to this model. Birth was the only legitimate entry into the nation. If strangers lived in the midst of the community, they were merely tolerated aliens. Modern Japan preserves this hostility to foreigners.

When America began, the nation was overwhelmingly homogenous in both race and religion. Anglo-Saxon Protestants predominated. Native Americans were excluded. Africans were viewed as sub-human. And the few Germans in Pennsylvania hardly counted. Jews and Catholics were too few in number to make any difference.’

Two hundred years later America is vastly different. Anglo-Saxon Protestants are a minority. Native Americas and Africans have been absorbed into the body politic. Catholics have become the largest religious denomination. And the largest Jewish community in the world is settled in the major cities of America. Over the last two centuries millions of immigrants from Europe, Asia and Latin America have come to live in this country. Their descendants have changed the racial and religious face of the United States. In many parts of our nation it is impossible to find any ‘original’ Americans.

What has happened to America is also the story, of many other advanced nations who have attracted large numbers of foreign immigrants because of urbanization and economic opportunity. The immigrants need jobs. The hosts need cheap labor. Mobile urban communities accommodate newcomers far more easily than traditional peasant communities. The Indians and Palestinians in England, the Algerians in France and the Turks in Germany – all of them testify to the new diversity among the prosperous nations of the Western world.

But this diversity also exists in the Third World. Brazil is a stew of invading Europeans, imported Africans and natives. All over Latin America and Africa white invaders have left mixed communities. Both in Asia and Africa the national boundaries drawn by colonial conquerors ignored the historic boundaries between ethnic groups. Nigeria is a country with five significant nations. India is a coalition of at least fifteen. The Congo is a nightmare state that embraces dozens of different tribes which hate each other.

The consequences of all this mixing is the emergence of a distinction between nationality and citizenship. Your nationality is your ethnic origin. Your citizenship is your territorial allegiance, the land which claims your political commitment. Modern territorial states are different from historic nations. They are often composed of people who no longer share a long-run common history or even a single language. States like Canada, India and Peru feature more than one territorial language.

All this change is accelerated by the increasing mobility of the world population. Modern technology has reduced our planet to a global village. Air travel has shrunk distance. And computer slaves enable people from faraway places to communicate with each other as though they were ‘in the same room’. The new ‘intimacy’ reduces fear, increases the sharing of ideas and goods and encourages people to explore new venues. The incredible rise in the number of international travelers is a prelude to the more permanent migration of millions of people.

In such a ‘global’ world territorial states do not have the opportunity to integrate their ‘diverse populations’ into some kind of nationality. Instead, a new international culture is arising which transcends national boundaries and which embraces the urban residents of the world. Much of their international culture is derivative from American culture. Skyscrapers, expressways and jeans are no longer American. They bear no national identity. They are the artifacts of an emerging international community.

The evolution of territorial states and an international culture does not obliterate differences. As group conformity dissolves individual difference is enhanced. Some people eat Italian food on Monday and Thai food on Tuesday. Others choose Chinese food for Monday and Mexican food for Tuesday. Some people choose to master English as their second language. Others choose to learn Spanish. Many Jews enjoy Christmas. Many Christians find meaning in Passover and the Seder.

As societies become more pluralistic, the boundaries between nationalities and religions do not dissolve. They become softer, more flexible, more ‘individual friendly’. While many traditionalists view this development with honor, liberals see this development as a way of breaking down the age-old hostilities between groups. Once self-righteousness and the fear of strangers diminish, the possibility of building an international community emerges. What was once a utopian ‘fantasy’ is at the beginning of its realization.

Of course this new mixing has its negative diversity. Racism and bigotry thrive in environments where old boundaries break down and where traditional belief systems are threatened. Both the rise of intense nationalism and religious fundamentalism are responses to the traumatic changes engineered by this social revolution. At a time when people should be optimistic, all these fierce reactions make them think that the world is falling apart.

As we celebrate Brotherhood and Sisterhood month in America let us understand that the old monocultural America is gone. We Jews are no longer strangers in an Anglo-Saxon country. We are one of the vital options in a diversity of free and open choices. America is our home, as is the world.

 

 

1998 US Elections – the Clinton Scandals

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, January 1999

America is changing. The last election dramatized that fact. The voters of America are very different from what they were thirty years ago. The Republican Party suffered the consequences of not understanding the reality of America today.

The ‘scandal’ did not punish the Democrats. Clinton returned from the ‘dead’. The Democrats increased their numbers in the House of Representatives. They won major senatorial victories.in New York and California. They defeated two Republican governors in Alabama and South Carolina. Only in Michigan, where Fieger led the team, were the Democrats humiliated.

The Religious Right, who helped to orchestrate the Republican strategy, were slapped in the face by the voters. Two state referendums to restrict abortion freedom failed to win majorities. Two lottery proposals to finance public education succeeded.

The message to Republicans was clear. Assaulting Clinton was a political disaster. Following the agenda of the Religious Right was the path to self-destruction. The managers of this strategy were guilty of incompetence. They had to go. Newt resigned in a huff. The Democrats tasted the most delicious of victories.

What does this reality mean for us as Americans and as Jews?

It means that sexual morality in America has changed. Thirty years ago the Clinton scandal would have forced the resignation of the president. Kennedy only survived disgrace because the media were less intrusive. But, after the feminist and youth rebellions of the last three decades adultery and sexual promiscuity are ho-hum for a large part of the American electorate. Living with partners outside of marriage is respectable and homosexuality, despite fierce resistance, is gaining more and more acceptance. When behavior is no longer controversial it is called ‘private’. Most Americans believe that ‘private’ behavior, in so far as it does not produce public harm, should not be investigated or disturbed by public scrutiny. It is not the public’s business.

In a dynamic consumer culture, where individualism is triumphant and traditional families are shrinking, there is no will to punish presidents for behavior that is ‘ordinary’ in the middle and upper classes. The message for the political future is that sexual accusations are losing their intimidation power. The election revealed that the public, on sexual issues, is far more tolerant than Kenneth Starr ever imagined.

The election means that the Religious Right has power but not enough power to do what it wants to do. Their support is up to 25% of the American voters. However, that percentage is insufficient for political control. American culture is essentially a secular culture that resists religious fanaticism.

The election means that the religious Right is a liability to the Republican Party. There are two conservative agendas in America. One is economic and resists government intrusion into the work and money life of American citizens. The other is social and seeks to use the government to police the sexual and reproductive behavior of the American public. Voters on the Right believe in both agendas. Voters in the Center only believe in the first one. They are afraid of the second. Since most Americans are in the Center, parties can only win elections if they appeal to the Center. Ever since Nixon the Republicans have taken the Center and have gladly given the Left to the Democrats. But the dominant presence of the Religious Right at the Republican conventions of 1992 and 1996 frightened the Center and drove many of its voters into the Democratic camp. When Clinton embraced the economic agenda of the Republicans and rejected their social program the Democratic victory was sealed.

In some ironic way the Religious Right is the best thing that has happened to the Democrats in a long time. The people who fear and hate them have now forged a new alliance of the Center and the Left. The Democrats need a powerful enemy to mobilize their troops. And the Religious Right obliges by playing the role.

The election means that the racial composition of active voters is changing. More and more Blacks and Hispanics are voting. The Blacks helped to defeat the Republican governors in Alabama and South Carolina. The Hispanics gave Barbara Boxer her senatorial victory in California. The hidden Republican strategy to be seen as the party of white America only works if whites remain the overwhelming majority of the American people The Republican program that won political control of both the South and the West over the past thirty years no longer works.

The election means that the impeachment ‘push’ is now a retreat. The new Congress may impeach but they will not convict Clinton. Voter ‘backlash’ has already punished the Republicans. The issue now is how to abandon the campaign and save face. The determination of the Religious Right to impeach Clinton is now a political liability.

The election means that the Jews have returned to the Democratic Party. The abandonment by Jewish voters of D’Amato in New York, despite his years of support for Jewish causes, is a clear indication that Israel and reparations are not the only issues that-concern Jews. Most Jewish voters even if they are economically conservative, are in the Center. They fear the religious Right. And they fear a Republican party that is allied to them. As both Jews and Americans they do not wish to endanger a free and multicultural society that promotes affluence and opportunity. We do not need the native Anglo-Saxon ‘haredim’ running our lives.

The Humanist Institute

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, February 1985

On February 15 we shall be honoring the four members of our congregation who are students of the Humanist Institute.

The Humanist Institute is a new development in the humanistic world which is very important to the welfare and future of the Birmingham Temple.

The Institute is a graduate school for the training of humanist leaders which was established by the North American Committee for Humanism in 1982. The Committee is an international conference of humanist leaders who firmly believe that the growth and development of a humanist constituency in the United States and Canada depends on the training of competent and dynamic spokespeople who will go forth to proclaim the humanist message and to organize humanist communities.

There are seven important humanist organizations in North America today – the American Ethical Union, the American Humanist Association, the American Rationalist Association, the Bertrand Russell Society, the Council for a Democratic and Secular Humanism, the Fellowship of Religious Humanists (Unitarian), and the Society for Humanistic Judaism. None of them is strong enough or rich enough to organize a leadership school of its own. Only if they pool their energies and resources is a working school possible.

That cooperation is exactly what began in 1982. Frightened by the assaults of the religious right, the leaders of these seven groups came together in Chicago to establish an institution of higher learning which would provide visibility and training for the humanist world.

Important progress has taken place since then. A home was found for the Institute in the prestigious building of the New ‘fork Society for Ethical Culture in Manhattan. A distinguished educator, Howard Radest, was chosen as Dean. Our most energetic humanist missionary, Roger Greeley of Kalamazoo, was appointed the Associate Dean in charge of student recruitment, and student placement. Twenty-five students, from different humanist backgrounds and from different parts of the country, were selected to be the first class of the Institute. A graduate curriculum of 90 credits (three full-time years of study) was designed to provide high-quality professional training for the leadership candidates. A part-time faculty of well-known academicians from Columbia, Harvard, State University of New York, University of Michigan and the University of Southern California were recruited as teachers. And a nation-wide fundraising effort was launched to secure the funds that the Institute requires for survival and growth.

Among the 25, students of the first class are four Humanistic Jewish candidates, who want to pursue careers in the world of Humanistic Judaism and who want special training and certification for their future roles as educators and community leaders.

Why is the Institute important to us in the Birmingham Temple?

The Institute is important to us because the ‘future of Humanistic Judaism demands well-trained rabbis, educators and administrators to lead congregations and communities. Without such leaders ‘established congregations cannot be maintained and new communities cannot be created.

The Institute is important to us because, until the Institute came into existence, there was no place where Humanistic rabbis and Jewish educators could be trained. Existing Humanistic rabbis are ‘refugees’ from the Reform movement and the Hebrew Union College. Given its commitment to a theistic Judaism, the Hebrew Union College is unwilling to train openly humanistic Jewish leaders who will not provide their talents and energies for Reform enterprises.

The Institute is important to us because it is the first step in providing us with the leadership training we need.

Right now the course work is concerned with general humanism. In the near future a Jewish curriculum will be added to serve the Jewish students. This curriculum will be designed in cooperation with the new Israel Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism in Jerusalem and with Judaic Studies departments in major secular universities.

The Institute is important to us because we will be able to help design the program we need together with a sympathetic school administration, instead of being the victim of hostile institutions who are indifferent to our welfare and our future.

The Institute is important to us because it will become a visible public academic center where Humanistic Jewish scholars in North America can be motivated to dialogue and to create new essential literature.

The Institute is important to us because now we can recruit young talented people to train for leadership careers in Humanistic Judaism. We no longer have to wait passively for the ‘refugees’ trained by other movements to choose us. We can choose and train our own leaders.

Ethics and Morality

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, March 1986

Ethics and morality. They are not trivial issues. They are the very stuff out of which daily decision making is made.

Moral issues of the ’80’s will be the theme of this year’s Retreat discussion. They are bound to stir up some provocative dialogue.

Over the past 20 years, moral values in America have been radically altered. They have been molded by the traumatic political and social events which have left their mark on the American psyche.

The Vietnam War altered our view of patriotism and respect for government. The Black Power movement changed our attitudes toward civil disobedience and conformity to the law. The feminist campaign assaulted our traditional perspectives on gender inequality and the role of women in our society. The contraceptive revolution undermined our conventional vision of sexual behavior and sexual restraints. The psychotherapy “explosion” redirected our attention from historical values like duty and guilt to newer concepts like self-fulfillment, autonomy, and happiness. The persistence of affluence guided us away from an obsessive concern with work to an appreciation of leisure and leisure skills. And the cosmopolitan influence of Eastern religions introduced us to the importance of meditation and holistic health.

But the moral revolution produced its problems. In the heyday of its churning, the consequences of all this change were not clearly discerned. Many of its advocates did not reckon with the negative side of its assault on traditional values. The recession of the early ’80s dramatized the limitations of an ethics of leisure (“Finding oneself” simply became too expensive). The appalling divorce rate and the breakdown of the old family structures brought into question the feminist assault and the self-absorption of self-fulfillment.

The increasing isolation and alienation of so many citizens challenged the values of personal autonomy and sexual liberation. The fundamentalist religious revival reminded us of the danger of tearing down all authority structures and replacing them with clichés about options. And the pervasive disillusionment and pessimism among both the old and the young became an indictment of freedom without direction.

In the environment of the more sober ‘80’s, we need to assess the meaning and value of the moral revolution. Many of its changes were important and necessary. But some of its claims were naive, and many of its effects were harmful.

Because of the excesses of its proponents, we are experiencing a social and political backlash that may undo a good part of its positive achievements.

In order to get a handle on the problem, we need to focus on three ethical issues that dominate our personal decision making.

The first is the issue of risk vs. security. Conservatives have historically been concerned with safety and protection, with law and order, with evenness and stability. Liberals have usually opted for adventure and excitement, novelty and experiment, danger and the rejection of the routine. Both sides have often been carried away by their anxieties and enthusiasm. What is needed is an appropriate balance between the two.

The second issue is the issue of commitment vs. freedom. Conservatives have generally used the vocabulary of duty and obligation, of responsibility and eternal promises. Liberals have resisted with an alternative vocabulary of freedom and self-determination, of dignity and self-esteem. Their controversy has often led to pushing harmful extremes. A rational morality hovers somewhere in between their respective propagandas.

The third issue is the problem of authority vs. autonomy. Conservatives tend to emphasize the necessity of subordinating individual judgment to the wisdom of the past. Liberals are more likely to insist on the importance of personal judgment, personal conscience, and individual uniqueness. When either side is followed to its logical extreme, tyranny or chaos prevails. Neither external authority nor autonomy can be absolute.

These three issues dramatize the moral agonies of the ’80’s.

 

Jewish Book Month 1986

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, November 1986

November is the month when we think about books we should be reading, especially books about Jewish history and Jewish culture, philosophy and ethics.

During the Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services I either used or made reference to books which many people subsequently wanted to read. In response to their request I am presenting the following recommended reading list. Some of the books are easy to read. Others are painful. All are important.

Shcharansky by Martin Gilbert – This is a powerful biography of one of the genuine Jewish heroes of this century. As the son of a devoted communist, Shcharansky repudiated the life of comfortable conformity and became one of the Soviet Union’s most famous dissidents. Fearlessly challenging the Soviet government on human rights issues and demanding the right of emigration for himself and all Russian Jews who wanted to leave. Shcharansky was ultimately imprisoned and subjected to torture and humiliation. The story of his personal resistance – with its extraordinary courage and with its intensification of his Jewish identity is inspirational reading. Gilbert, the historian of the Holocaust, relied heavily for his information on the letters Shcharansky wrote to his wife Avital while in jail.

The Affair by Jean-Marie Brevin – Brevin is a successful French lawyer who is fascinated with the famous Dreyfus Affair and the political drama which surrounded it. When an obscure Jewish officer is convicted in 1894 of giving military secrets to the German enemy, France explodes into a mighty confrontation between those who think him innocent and those who think him guilty. The Anti -Dreyfusards want to use his conviction and the anti-Semitism which accompanies it to overthrow the fragile Third Republic and replace it with the elitist rule of monarchy, army and church. The Pro-Dreyfusards, like Emile Zola, want to use the case to promote a secular democratic state. The details of the story are so compelling that you cannot put the book down once you start reading it.

Shoah, a documentary with Claude Lanzman – No film has more devastatingly revealed the horror of the Holocaust than this production by this eccentric French Jewish director. Using none of the usual “body scenes” of most Holocaust presentations, Lanzmann relies only on the verbal testimony of victims and observers. The imagination of the viewer takes over from there. The most powerful scene – recorded in this book version of the movie script – is the interview with the barber from Czestochowa who is spared at Treblinka to cut the hair of other victims before gassing. The Jews were turned into the executioners of their own people.

Arab and Jew by David Shipler – Few books have revealed the di lemma of modern Israel more than this powerful commentary by the former New York Times reporter in Jerusalem. Two nations – Arab and Jew – live within the boundaries of the Jewish state. How do they see each other? How strong is their mutual fear and anger? What are the possibilities for mutual understanding and reconciliation? Shipler attempts to answer these questions through his assessment of dozens of Jews and Arabs from every walk of life and from every political and religious persuasion. The revelations are startling and frightening. The most pathetic story is the tale of love between a Palestinian radical woman and a Jewish right-wing Likudnik who discover that there is too much hate to allow for their love. No book has presented the problem of mutual intolerance more vividly and more dramatically.

Falling in Love by Francesco Alberoni – This Italian classic, recently translated into English, allows sociologist Alberoni to explore the meaning of love. He makes a very sharp distinction between falling in love with all its anguish and euphoria and love itself. Falling in love he regards as a disease. It happens to people who are experiencing strong senses of personal inadequacy and who project unrealistically on to the beloved what they themselves do not think they have but want for themselves. The result is that most romantic- love, like most revolutionary fervor, ends in disappointment. Or it may resolve itself into something healthier and realistic, which he calls love. Alberoni’s exploration is a unique assessment of an important emotion.

World’s Fair by E. L. Doctorow – A novel by Doctorow is always a treat, especially when it is a nostalgia trip. A Jewish boy in New York in 1939 (most likely Doctorow himself) is taken to that wondrous vision of the future called the World’s Fair. The naive excitement of an enthusiastic child allows the wonder and innocence of the reader himself to reawaken.

Happy reading!

The Right to Die

Posted on by Sherwin Wine

The Jewish Humanist, August 1990

The right to die.

An eccentric doctor, a desperate woman and a bizarre contraption have dramatized that issue. Ever since Dr. Kevorkian assisted Alzheimer victim Jane Adkins to kill herself, the question of justifiable suicide has received undue public attention.

Traditional religion forbids suicide, even the suicide of terminally ill patients. Since God has given us life, only God has the right to take it away. And since God is just, there must be a good purpose for the suffering and humiliation endured by the hopelessly sick. Because the limited human mind sees suffering as evil does not mean that it is evil. God works in mysterious ways.

For traditional religion there is no right to die. Only the threat of sexual violation or religious apostasy can justify the choice of death. And even then, not by one’s own hand.

In recent years the right to die issue has become important because we live in an aging society. Medicine and medical technology are now able to prolong life to the point where the quality of life hardly justifies its continuance. Thousands of -old people are attached, as helpless victims, to mechanical life-support systems. Millions of old people suffer chronic and terminal illnesses -which deprive them of any reasonable control over their fate. They are deprived of dignity and happiness and are condemned to endure a living death.

This medical “advance” has been accompanied by a quantum jump in human expectations. At one time people – expected no more out of life than suffering. Today they expect far more. They want -pleasure, fulfillment and dignity. They are – no longer prepared to settle for resignation and degradation.

The right to die derives from the even more fundamental right to happiness. Life is not sacred when it is all pain, misery and fear. It is not meaningful when all it provides, is the prospect of endless suffering. To view human existence as an irreversible prison sentence is to deprive it of all significance.

People with terminal illnesses, with unendurable pain and humiliation, have the right to die. They have the right to choose death. And they have the right to be assisted by the medical profession to achieve their goal with the minimum of pain.

Many doctors acknowledge the right to die. But they vehemently deny the right to medical assistance. If the patient wants to kill himself, he should not be prevented from doing so. But he should expect no help from his physician. After all, the doctor is under oath to save lives.

But, without medical assistance, the patient is deprived of the expertise he needs to execute the deed efficiently and painlessly. To deny the patient the help of a physician or a medical technician is an act of cruelty. The patient must suffer because the physician is emotionally unable to terminate the suffering or morally unable because of the promise he has made.

However, when morality sponsors cruelty, maybe it is not morality. Perhaps the doctors’ oath ought not to be one to preserve life. Perhaps a more ethical oath would be a promise to heal the sick and to alleviate suffering. The moral and compassionate thing to do is to enable the patient to die.

What are the implications of this morality? Should any individual have the right to recruit any physician to assist him in an act of suicide when he determines that he is suffering from an incurable and unbearable illness?

The answer is no. There is no absolute right to suicide. If there were, we would have to allow depressed teenagers, who cannot endure the pain of hopelessness, to kill themselves. We would have no right to intrude. To leave the decision of what is terminal and unendurable to the victim alone would be to surrender to the distortions of reality which many depressed people suffer from.

The decision of the patient needs to be supported by the concurrence of experts who determine that the perception of the victim is indeed accurate. (There is a terminal unendurable illness.) And these experts cannot be self-appointed (as in the case of Kevorkian). They have to be appointed by the community and be responsible to the community.

Jane Adkins had the right to die. She had the right to be supported in her decision by the medical profession. In a moral world that recognizes her right she would have been assisted by members of her own community – doctors, lawyers, psychologists and clergy. She would have died at home or in any setting of dignity that she would have chosen.

She deserved more than death in a car van. Perhaps her courage will force our society to find a more compassionate way to deal with the rational despair of needy people.

Note on sources: The Jewish Humanist  was the monthly newsletter of The Birmingham Temple. The periodical Humanistic Judaism was the quarterly journal of the Society for Humanistic Judaism. The Center for New Thinking was Wine’s adult learning program beyond Humanistic Judaism. Selections from Wine’s books are appropriately cited.
All texts, photos, audio and video are © by the Literary Estate of Sherwin Wine, whose custodian is the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism – North American Section. All rights reserved.