Trudy Gold
The Key to Jewish Survival
Trudy Gold and Jeremy Rosen - The Key to Jewish Survival
- Hi, Jeremy.
Hi.
Seemed to be somehow or other jinxed at times, but anyway, thank God I’m here, and I’m sorry for the delay.
All right, Jeremy, so shall we start? Yeah, let’s start.
You and I, our role tonight is to begin a conversation. What is the key to Jewish survival? And I think I’m going to start by interrogating you. I’m going to give you a few ideas and to see which ones you want to go with first, but before I start-
Let me just make a note so that I don’t forget
Yes, get a pen.
what it’s that you’re telling me.
Okay. Don’t worry. Jeremy and I have worked together for, is it 40 years, Jeremy? And whilst you’re getting your act together, can I tell a story about you?
Please, yeah, yeah.
We were teaching the greats of history alternately, and it fell to Jeremy to talk about Jesus, and I’ll never forget. He walked into the classroom and he said, “I’ve decided I don’t want to talk about Jesus. He’s not interesting. I’m going to talk about Hillel.” And I’ll never forget that. That must’ve been over 30 years ago, but that’s what he’s like to work with. I’d like to start, actually, by recounting a rather strange incident. As you know, I spent a lot of time working in China, and it was a very, very successful period of activity. We used to run seminars on Jewish history at different Chinese universities every year, and, in fact, my colleague Jerry Gotel was made a professor over there, and his students were absolutely fascinating because you had some of his students doing PhDs on aspects of the Talmud. One was looking at the philanthropy of Moses Montefiore. It was very obscure, and, in the end, one of our boards said, “Look, if you’re going to work in China, you really should have contact with the Chinese government.”
So we were taken to meet the Chinese ambassador, and it was extraordinary because he actually said to us, “I like the Jews. They’ve never hurt China. Your history is almost as long as ours. You respect the family. You respect the family, you’re very good at business,” all the stereotypes, and he said, “But what is more interesting to us, you look after your diaspora better than we look after ours.” But it was the first comment, “Your history is almost as long as ours,” and I think this is the key because everything that has been thrown at the Jews through the generations, I was talking about this yesterday. We are the people of memory, and I suppose, Jeremy, the ideas that I’ve come up with, and I’m sure you’re going to add to this, on one level, after the destruction and with the build and with the creation of the Talmud, would you say that the rabbi has built a wall of law around the Jews, number one? My other comment is are we the people of history? And I want to quote later on Simon Dubnow at you. Another rather chilling response is, of course, that particularly in the Ashkenazi world, can you say that anti-Semitism is one of the reasons for Jewish survival? And, of course, the fourth is our absolute obsession with education. And when we talk about education, I’d like to deviate on that one. It’s not exactly on the key to Jewish survival, but it’s something that’s always fascinated me. What may a Jew study, okay? And I suppose the last point that I’d want you to talk about is what do you think is the greatest threat to Jewish survival today?
And let me just finish with that extraordinary comment of Zalman of Liadi. If you remember when Napoleon’s forces were invading Russia, and, remember, Napoleon had issued the Grand Sanhedrin, “The Jews now are all part of the French Empire,” et cetera. Zalman of Liadi, the leader of Chabad, he actually went with the czar’s army. He actually died on that terrible march, and he wrote to another rabbi where he said, “I would rather my people suffer under the czars than live in peace under Napoleon because Napoleon will be the end of the Jewish people.” So that’s really about assimilation and the law of the outside world. So where do you want to start, Jeremy? I’ve thrown a few ideas at you.
- Okay. Well, I want to start with a very generalised reaction, and that is anybody who thinks there is one answer to any problem is seriously misled, and this desire in Western philosophical tradition to find the answer, the explanation, I think is a vain pursuit. As in any area, there are lots of different factors that come to play. You get any successful man or woman and you ask them what the secret of their success is, it contains an element of hard work. It contains an element of basic talent. It contains an element of utter chance, being at the right place at the right moment, taking advantage of opportunities. There is no single answer, but there are some explanations which I think are more persuasive than others. There’s no point in going back to who in a sense is older than whom because we’re all descended from the cavemen, all descended from one of the various streams of Homo sapiens. We’ve all developed through stages, and every culture, every culture builds on earlier cultures and modifies them, and that process goes on and on and on.
What I can do is I can look back at texts, at sources, and at history and see where certain ideas come from and how they’ve developed over time. If we were to go back very roughly, and, of course, this is very roughly, three and a half thousand years, this is an era where we’ve already got codes of law. Hammurabi lived roughly the time of Abraham, if such a man existed. We’ve got structures of culture and civilization of Egypt between Mesopotamia and Egypt. There’s an argument about China, of where China fits into this, but probably at round about the same sort of time, we’re beginning to see the emergence of a structured form of alternative to paganism with its advantages and disadvantages. So the contribution, for example, of Moses or whoever was Moses or whenever Moses was, is that, clearly, for over two and a half thousand years, we have seen a kind of a constitution that believes in civil equality between males, females, strangers, and locals, provided they adhere to certain basic moral ethical laws, and you have, in Judaism, what is unique is a system that I would describe as a behavioural system. There is no actual command to believe theologically in the Torah. God is there, very powerful there. God is the inspiration, but there is no phrase there of, “You must believe.” The emphasis is on, “You must do,” behavioural, and that is a genius because, in behavioural terms, all human beings are the same. They all get up in the morning. They, well, brush their teeth or whatever it is. They have their breakfast, whenever it is. They go to work. They eat. They sleep. They procreate. They function in a similar way. But different cultures have different music, different ideas, different scripts, different ways of looking at things, and if you were to try to impose only one system on the universe, you would get nowhere, and the genius of Judaism in its early forms was that it was both a national movement but primarily a behavioural movement, not national in the sense that we understand national.
And that’s one of the crucial differences because, again, when the children of Israel came out of Egypt, they came with a mixed multitude of other people who joined in and they were happy to have them with them, and they had all these laws which says, “The stranger has to be treated equally and given equal rights and looked after and so forth and welcomed them. The only condition is that you abide by our constitution,” and, in the case of the stranger, it was a very basic one. It wasn’t the total ritual one, but again, in the temple, anybody from anywhere could bring sacrifices. So there was a certain universality to it, and there was a certain behaviourism to it, which I think was the genius of Judaism long before the rabbis turned up and started modifying in the light of the collapse of the temple. So to put this down to the rabbis, I think, is not correct. It is something that was built into that.
Can I come in here? Because let’s talk about the Babylonian exile though. When the people were taken into Babylon, and, of course, this is way before the period of the rabbis, only 10% go back. The law of Babylon. Do you want to comment on that?
Yes. Well, first of all, what happened going back in history a little bit are two remarkable things. First of all, the Babylonian exile didn’t come in one go. It came in two stages, Jehoiakim and then later on when Ezekiel rebelled. In the first case, only the elite were taken. They were taken, the upper classes, the elite and the skillful. They were taken and they were plopped in one place whereas the 10 northern tribes who had been captured by the Assyrians, it was the Assyrian policy to scatter them and replace their homeland with other people, different culture altogether. So first of all, they were plopped there. Secondly, with a change of dynasty, and so when the Jews came from Babylon with a second, the famous exile in 586, there was already in existence hierarchy in a community there, and not only that, within a short period of time, that same king, Jeconiah or coniah was brought out of jail and elevated and sat at the king’s table, and he was made the head of the Jewish community there.
He was given status. So the Jewish community, small as it was, had a standing. It was able to perpetuate itself, it still had priests, but it absorbed a tremendous amount from Babylonian society as well in the way that our genius has always been to absorb from Babylonia, from Greece, from Rome, indeed from Christianity, and Islam to some extent in certain areas. So we’ve always been adaptive, and that’s another phenomenon. I think a factor is why was our location so special? Between the Tigris and the Euphrates, the crossed paths into which all the dominant powers were going to come in and invade and go out again, that was bad in one sense but good in another that we were always being exposed to different ideas, to different cultures, to different forms of government. So-
And you think that- So that adds to the vitality.
And it did, definitely. Now, of course, there was always the desire to come back home, the thing that we are being denied now, but there was always, and so, although most Babylonians stayed in Babylonia, a small number wanted to go back home, and they were allowed by the Persians to go back home and rebuild the temple. And so then, similarly, when all the further conquests took place, whether it was Rome or whether it was Christianity or whether it was Islam, the Jews were always finding ways of keeping in touch, going back wherever they were and thinking of their base, and here’s another interesting difference. The interesting difference is this, that when Christianity emerged to say, “Look, we are a more popular form of this narrow religion that you have with all its strict laws and regulations,” the Jewish position was, “You may be right in terms of spreading the word around, but we still feel the need to preserve our, if you like, specific identity.” And an example of this is something we make fun of all the time, and that’s all this reference in Jewish prayers to the temple and the temple and the sacrifices, which, frankly, to most of us don’t mean very much.
But Christianity said, “You don’t need the temple anymore, right? You don’t need all these rituals anymore. Come and join us and be part of the universal world,” and we said, “No thank you. We’re sticky.” Although it’s true the temple has been destroyed, we’re never going to forget the rituals. We’re never going to forget these things that we did. We’re going to study them. We’re going to keep them going. We’re going to think back as well as thinking forward, and that’s another genius. Everybody says, “Ah, Jews, you’re always looking back to the past.” No, we invented this idea of Messianism, that there’s a great future for the universe, for the world, not dependent on a person but dependent on an idea. So both in terms of our outlook within the world, we were able to look forward, but, at the same time, notice this. Our heroes, even at this early period, were Jews who were off track. Somehow or other, we managed to keep a connection with Jews who were not religious. I mean, one can give the example of Queen Esther, who, you know, sort of spent the night with a king with no guarantee she’d have another night back with him.
Not the sort of thing a nice Jewish girl would’ve done, and what did she eat in the palace? Did she have supervised food sent in by a kosher caterer? And she was part of that tradition in which she is a heroine, and look at the Maccabees. Apart from the initial oomph of the Maccabees, most of the major leaders there were not what we would call religious Jews, and, in many cases, certainly in the case of King Yannai, attack religion virulently and wanted to demolish it. And so it’s these factors both within and without of recognising that Judaism is not just defined as we like to think it now, some do, as halachically, but it’s defined by association, by involvement, by identity on some level or another. So all these factors play in to how Judaism was able to survive. Now it’s true. We were decimated from being something like some people claim even 10% of the Roman Empire, but more likely 1% of the Roman Empire. We ought to be hundreds and hundreds of millions today, not just hanging on by our bootstraps with 50 million. So clearly the number of Jews who were both destroyed, who abandoned Judaism, who left Judaism has always been a phenomenal amount, tremendous amount, and not only that, but even in the Amidah prayer, the prayer that was introduced 2,000 years ago, they decided to put a special prayer in saying, “We don’t want to be identified with those Jews who were betraying us!” So Jews, the Malshinim, as they were called, that has always been a problem. We’ve always had a problem.
Okay, can we move on to the diaspora now? Because this is what really interests me. It’s what a lot of historians call the Bar Kokhba-Ben Zakkai debate because would you go as far as to say that, once it’s all destroyed, the Jews move mainly into exile? That’s the real riddle because, without a land, how are they going to keep together?
But what about the Jews of Babylonia? That was still the biggest Jewish community. They were going strong. We only think in European terms, but that’s where the problem comes from.
What’s the difference?
Well, the difference is the Babylonian community was, the Persian community today is the longest surviving Jewish community in one general location, and they had their scholarships, their academies they passed on. For thousands of years, it wasn’t until really the rise of Islam that the beginnings of European Jewry began to sprout, really, but basically remember that the Sephardi world, which was based on Babylon, reached across its authorities reached across to Egypt, and the first rabbis in Spain came from Babylon, so Spanish Jewry was Babylonian. That was the hub. We, the Ashkenazi-orientated Jews, have missed half of the plot.
But it’s interesting because you’re talking about a far more tolerant society, aren’t you, that allowed the Jews to survive and flourish. And then, of course, the Ashkenazi, the Jews in the diaspora have to face Christianity.
Yeah, that’s hard.
I think there’s a huge difference between, I’ve always found, between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews. In many ways, I think Sephardi Jews, I’m making a huge generalisation here, but in many ways, they managed to see God in the whole world whereas I think the Ashkenazi Jews, with our strange history, very much a history of oppression and persecution, I think we’re much more inward and frightened.
Well, yes or no, yes, but there was another important difference between them, and that was that they were always more holistic, whereas Europeans, based on the Greek idea of body and soul, ghost and machine, we were always more inclined to the rational. Now, the mystical, which emerged in southern France and emerged in Spain, moved more successfully across to the east through Lauria and through Safford, and so mysticism played a greater part in Oriental Jews.
Now the bad side of that is that superstition played a much greater part because most of mysticism, a lot of mysticism is superstitious based, and so, although frankly, everybody in the world at the moment seems superstitious to me, the Oriental Jews still to this day, by and large, are more superstitious, but they are also much more connected to the mystical tradition and their mystical rabbis, and so that was what kept them together. But in both cases, remember, they were treated as second class citizens, and, although it is true that, in general, the Islamic world treated Jews better than the Christian world did, that was not true of all of them. The Shia were much more aggressive, were much more intolerant. At different cases, the North African Muslims, when they invaded Spain and drove up Maimonides and others out of Morocco, there were fanatics all over the place, and this is one of the bad features of religion in general, that they generate fanaticism. So they struggled wherever they were, but they adapted. They learned how to adapt.
And I think another point with the rise of Christianity and the rise of Islam, I think Jews did pretty well feel that their culture was superior, be they in the world of the Sephardi or the world of the Ashkenazi. Talking now about Ashkenazi Jews, it’s when Europe burst in on them and allows them to be part of it. You know, it’s like going back to the time of Hellenism. I think when the outside world appears more attractive than your world, that’s when I think you’ve got a problem, and it’s almost as though in the modern period, I go back to that statement of Zalman of Liadi because if you look at, in many ways, the sadness of French Jewry, German Jewry, Anglo Jewry, trying to be more English than the English, more German than the German, more French than the French, in many ways, I mean, German Jewry, the intermarriage rate, the assimilation rate was running up 45% by 1920.
Trudy, this was true with the Greeks. It was true with the Romans.
Yes but it’s the same class.
They assimilated into this more attractive, more successful society, but there was always a body that kept the flame alive.
Exactly. So do you see parallels in that? Because with the, oh yes, the analysis of the Greeks is absolutely perfect for both of us, I think. We both of agree with that, that the Greek culture was terribly appealing to a certain section of society, but there was always the pious or those who want to believe the land or the zealots. They wanted to keep the people together who rebelled against that, and, in the modern period, though I think you can draw certain analogies except, of course, you’ve had this what we see today is how you’ve got this dreadful rise of anti-Semitism in the world, and I think if you think about the Shoah itself and the rise of anti-Semitism again, I think it’s making a lot of Jews question their identity again, and in many ways, you can be a cynical enough to say, “Well, perhaps it is the opposition.” When we are in opposition, when we’re in trouble, we do become tribal again, and where does Israel fit into this whole notion of Jewish survival for you? I know I’m throwing a lot of questions at you, but to understand.
No, no. They’re all interesting points.
We have to Jeremy because I think the point is, as you said, there’s no one answer. There’s lots of answers, and the other question I really want you to talk about is the tradition of learning.
Okay, yes, I was going to come to that except you raised now the question of Israel, so-
All right, leave that. You’ve got five minutes. I love it. But at least if we open the debate up.
Okay, so-
Which we both touch on in our lectures anyway.
I think that, inevitably, the Jews took pride in the fact that study was terribly important and that the mark of a successful man was a man or a woman who studied. Now it’s more women than men. Thank goodness it’s catching up and overtaking, but the idea of study was always crucial, and remember, under Christianity, all the universities were close to Jews. They weren’t under Islam, but under Christianity they were, and the only way Jews could use their brain power was within the framework of Talmudic study, which generated such genius. And there’s an argument as to whether that gets transmitted somehow through some genetic transference or not, which is a highly debatable and controversial point. So study is absolutely assertion, and it’s very interesting because in English, you talk about studying. In Hebrew, you talk about learning. Learning is this isn’t just an academic study.
This matters. This is my life, my spiritual heritage. The difference between intellectual activity in Cambridge and intellectual activity in Jerusalem is almost impossible to compare, which is, although people criticise the ultra orthodox world for only studying Talmud, the discipline you get from studying Talmud is such that when you apply that to anywhere else, you’re streaks ahead. You’ve got a real lump on the head. So study is crucial, and that’s why I think Israel is so crucial. We have never, ever had a time in our history when there’ve been so many people studying not only Talmud but Jewish law, Jewish history, everything, phenomenally, exponentially whereas, once you could look to America and say, “America is the hub of Jewish intellectual life.” Not anymore. It’s Israel that has these universities and these professors, and it’s there you go to to really know and mastering the language of Hebrew, to know the sources and the texts, and there are so many different varieties of religion there across the spectrum, so many more dynamic ones you’ll find in any other place, anywhere, even in America. So I think the miracle of Israel is, for all its problems and for all the hatred between the secular and the religious and all the difficulties, it is the dynamo of Jewish life. The diaspora needs Israel for teachers, for rabbis. Hey, where’d you go? Why did Jews college shut in England as a rabbinical training? Nobody wants to train for the Rabbinic in England, but Jerusalem, oh, that’s where we want to go. And so Israel, in my view, culturally, historically, from every point of view, is absolutely crucial. Now the big question is do we bend to the opposition? Are we going to bend to the left-wing narrative that we are colonial imperialists? ‘Cause they don’t know any history. They’re ignoramuses, right? Are we going to bend to the left-wing pressure, which is now turning America right away, actually, in danger of turning America right away from Israel? Are we going to capitulate? Are we going to assimilate? Well, yes. It’s always been like that way. The majority have assimilated. The majority have always said,“ I don’t want this hassle. I don’t want it anymore. Let me get away. I suffered enough. I don’t want my kids to suffer enough. Let’s fit into our society and let’s not keep the fight.” And you’ve had these nutcases, these crazy ones who want to keep the fight, not by jihad, not by fighting it, by sitting in the Talmudic academy and studying.
So basically, your thesis is that we have a small number have survived from generation to generation, and that’s what matters. But going back to the assimilation in America, how much do you think it’s, I’m more interested in young Jews who do swallow this left, this liberal left woke and who, as a result of that, are themselves turning against Israel, finding being a Jew totally embarrassing. Has that got an awful lot to do with the fact that we’re not teaching our kids enough? You can talk about the great Yeshivat, you can talk about the great study centres, but what about the average Jew?
Look, if you live in a secular world, who’s going to teach you?
Not in your secular school?
If you live in England-
So it’s got to be the parents are going to teach you. It’s going to be the parents are going to decide if you’re going to go to a Jewish school. Of course, we can argue about what’s taught in a Jewish school. That’s another thing I agree with on the importance of history, but nevertheless, if the parents don’t give something to their children. I mean, every rabbi knows you get all these parents that come to you and say, “Oh, my daughter’s marrying out. My son’s marrying out. What am I going to do about it?” And I said, “Well, what did you do about it for the last 20 years?”
But they didn’t know. I mean, I can talk-
No, that’s right.
Talk a lot about Anglo Jewry because, in many ways, the products of it, and frankly, they very much took on the attitude of the English. The majority of Anglo Jews that I know are far better secularly educated than they are Jewishly educated, so consequently, there’s bound to be an overbalance.
That’s true, and not only that, in England particularly, you had those young men who went away to war, First World War, then the Second World War. There was no Jewish education. Really, Jewish education significantly only entered when, under Lord Jakobovits, the state got involved in supporting Jewish schools significantly. Otherwise, there was a JFS in London. We won’t talk about the other smaller schools like Carmel College and elsewhere, but generally, it took off when the state funded. Now in England, more and more, Jewish kids get a Jewish education more than they ever did before.
I’m going to come in there.
Now’s never a guarantee.
I’m going to join you, Jeremy. It’s going to be another great debate for us, but honestly, I’m very worried about the syllabus, but we won’t go there at the moment. So you see that as a positive sign. I mean, in England now, 70% of kids who affiliate go to Jewish schools, and yet-
Yes.
Apart from the small number and I’m going to say the elite educated, it’s not really cracking it, but so I want to go back to that other point. What on earth do we do about the negative image of all those young Jews who, to put it crudely, buy into “The Guardian” and what they have to say about Israel?
You can’t persuade them because they are subject to dogma, to Marxist dogma, to left-wing dogma. No argument, nothing which is not based on logic can be counterbalanced by logic. So they have adopted it, the universities have adopted it, they breathe it in, they breathe it in through the schools, and the only Jews I know who have a totally non-Jewish education have come through in one piece have been those whose families, those kids that go City of London, haberdashers and others, many of them come from religious families, and they make sure they’ve got a good Jewish education, and they survive and thrive and do brilliantly. But without that, without either the home or the school, and neither is perfect, we’re not going to get anywhere. These American kids haven’t had it for generations. Most of their parents came more secular when they came, a lot of, you know, the the metrics and the Jewish Marxists the bond and so forth. So that’s been embedded for years and years, and now when you see a Jewish name, whether it’s Whoopi Goldberg or Goldstein or whatever it is, they haven’t been Jewish for a long, long time.
So basically, what you’re saying now is the future of Jewish survival is resting mainly with the state of Israel.
I think so, with the state of Israel as the generator of Jewish knowledge, Jewish learning, Jewish religion and something to be proud of. But, you know, the people who, as a result of Israel, give up and abandon, whether it’s Israelis or others. But yes, I strongly believe that.
Have you any truck with cultural Judaism? What about-
I’m truck with everything.
Yeah, but do you see-
I’m truck with anything, but I don’t think it solves the problem.
Is It sustainable? Is it sustainable from generation to generation?
Much as I respect the people who fund cultural Judaism, secular Judaism, and scholarship, and I value that, and I think it has an important place, I don’t think that that has a secret of continuity 'cause continuity comes from commitment!
Yeah, I get it.
Study comes from a mental process, not the heart.
So basically, there is a place for these characters because many of these characters have actually changed the world, well, what Isaac Deutscher calls the non-Jewish Jews. There is a place for them, but we cannot say they are anything to do with Jewish survival. These are people who contribute as outsiders. It is that lovely quote of Freud’s where he said, “Because I didn’t belong to the compact majority, I could do what I did,” and there are hundreds of characters like that in whatever field you want to go to, but their children very seldom and their grandchildren do not go to Jewish-
That’s right, or indeed, the secular Zionists or the main secular Zionists of the previous generation that should have married out practically, so.
Yeah, but face it. But with the Jewish state now, you have a different kind of Jewish identity.
You do, but it’s volatile, and I’m glad that it’s volatile 'cause out of volatility comes creativity. The world was created out of , out of chaos, and I think trying to impose limits.
Okay, so let’s try and sum up because I know there’s going to be a lot of questions. How do we sum up when we’ve only just begun? But basic-
Well, that’s right.
So basically, have you got much, we’ve come to some sort of consensus as we’ve survived as a people somehow for a long, long, long time, mainly a small group of us. I think that’s what you’re saying, and now that we have a Jewish state, you would say that it makes it much more rosy in terms of Jewish scholarship. You’re very much linking Jewish education to Jewish survival, aren’t you? That anti-Semitism might put us together for a while because we’re scared. The Holocaust and the way the Holocaust is taught is another debate that we won’t have now, and it’s a linking of Jewish identity. So it’s got to be in Israel. But what about the Jews of the diaspora?
They’re strong. They’re strong in New York. You’ve no idea. Parts of New York and Jewish settlements in New Jersey, and now they’re expanding out to Texas and to Florida, all over. Anglo Jewry small in numbers but much more committed than it ever was in my youth, much more going on there.
But I think it’s mainly committed because it’s running scared, Jeremy. That’s the problem with Anglo-
Well, I don’t agree with you. I don’t think a religious person is running scared.
No, I’m talking about-
I think somebody who doesn’t have the confidence of the religious side is going to run scared. I think we have to take precautions. We’ve always had to take precautions. We’ve always lived under pressure, whether under Islam or Christianity. We’ve always done that. We’ve always survived. We’ve taken care of ourselves. So I’m not worried about the people who are committed.
I agree with you, actually.
I care about , and I want to bring them in.
Yeah. It’s the bulk, actually. It’s the bulk, and I think one of the tragedies is that the children don’t have any knowledge anyway of Judaism, Jewish history, and that’s where we are failing them because you’re coming down pretty strongly in saying, “Really, Judaism itself is the key to Jewish survival.” That is what you are saying. That’s how I’m reading you now.
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.
Okay. I say without any question it is, but I’m not denying the other factors. There are lots and lots of other factors. It’s a silly little example I’ll give, but you know, golf. You’ve got your professional golfers, you’ve got your amateur golfers, you’ve got your course designers, you’ve got your equipment designers, you’ve got the machine makers, you’ve got all these people associated with golf, but in the end, it’s a success of the professional golfers that make it attractive and make people want to join it.
Okay, as you’re nailing it all to education, let me ask you the last question before we turn it off, bearing in mind that we’ve only touched about a quarter of this, but nevermind.
I know.
It reminds me of the old days. So going back to this other question, what may a Jew study?
Well, I think a Jew should study everything. That’s what Maimonides said. Maimonides said it in black and white. “You must study everything.” But I think it’s valuable to have a home base in your own tradition first. Now I totally disagree with the Lebovic rabbi who was against Napoleon. I think we should not be frightened of culture. It represents a danger, and it could be attractive and people could assimilate, and people would do particularly when it was so attractive in those days. You know, look at all those people who are converted because they wanted to get on in German society. Nobody needs to convert to Christianity to get on in American society anymore, so people don’t bother with that. So I think this fear is the fear that says it’s so negative. We can only survive if we’re pushed into a ghetto. We can only survive if we are narrow minded. I don’t buy that at all, and ironically, in some sense, his descendants have taken an opposite view. They’re out there in the marketplace like mad, but I think we should study everything. My father insisted. He said, “You know, I want you to get the best of secular education. Go to Oxford. I want you to get the best of Jewish education. Go to Jerusalem. I want you to be like a grandfather clock that swings from one to another so that time in the middle is correct.”
But you went to Jerusalem first, though. Like you were seated in Jewish-
No, no, no. I didn’t go Jerusalem first. I didn’t go to Jerusalem until I was a teenager.
But presumably, your father had given you- But my father was a wonderful man,
And he gave you an education.
It was atmosphere. It was the atmosphere of enjoyment, of culture, the song and everything like that, and it wasn’t a rigid compulsory thing. And also his example, he was such a charismatic man. You could not not love my father.
Yes, but one of the problems is I think there’s a lot of the ultra orthodox in now who are running scared of the outside world, and they will not take it on at all in any way, and, in a way, to me, that’s very unattractive.
But they’re not running scared. They’re making meetings on it. They do business in it. They interact in it. They are active in it, but what they have are two things. One of them is they have this massive, massive neurosis of the Holocaust that really almost destroyed us completely. We almost totally wiped off the map. The only answer to that has to be we’ve got to refill those springs of great Torah geniuses who were killed and murdered in Eastern Europe, and that is our priority, and secondly, don’t talk to me about the secular world. All they want to do is kill the Jews, right? Their record is pretty awful. “So I’ll be damned,” they say, “if I’m going to get any advice from those people out there whose moral ethical standards are different to mine.” So that is their mindset. Now I think that is a mindset that will modify. We already see it modifying. We already see more and more. I see it here in New York, people coming from the most ultra-orthodox world, beginning to move, some of them move away altogether, but most of them are modifying. They’re adopting. They are participating in life. You’ve got Haredi lawyers and their professors and everything else. So, you know, I’m hopeful.
So basically, before the Enlightenment, the European Enlightenment, decisions were more enlightened, and post Shoah, of course, it’s completely tightened up. So you are optimistic on this one.
Yes, I am. I am because I see them mixing. You know, I see people assimilating, but I see them adapting. You know, I’m not happy. You know, I love their passion and I love their commitment, but their ideology is totally alien to me, as was Shneur Zalman of Liadi’s ideology, totally alien to me, which is why, intellectually, I can’t identify, even though emotionally and spiritually I can. But I do think coming back to it, to end on this point, education is so important, and the more tools we can offer, the better, which is why I think what you do in education is so important and which it needs to be spread out and spread around. And I agree with you that the curriculum in Jewish schools is nowhere near broad enough and expansive enough to appeal to this wider range that you and I want to appeal to.
So maybe our next debate should be on what is the curriculum in our dream world. Jeremy, thank you for this, opening it up. Let’s see what questions we have. So right, okay. Got a lot of positive thoughts at the moment, just people wishing us happy New Year.
Oh, that’s nice.
That’s lovely. Loads and loads and loads of people. I’ve got some questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Q: Oh, yes, yes. “Question on how do we survive?
A: Love each other, tell each other, cling to our Judaism, whatever way is meaningful.” That’s lovely. That’s lovely, Audrey.
Q: Oh, this is from Peter. “When and how did the tradition of fasting on Yom Kippur begin?”
A:- Oh, that’s a very good question. I mean, in the Torah, Yom Kippur is simply said, “A day when ,” when you should, shall we say, make yourself suffer a little bit in order to atone for sins between you and God, not to atone for sins between you and other people. And this is something, ironically, that you can do any day of the year, any day of the year. If you’ve offended somebody, you’ve got to put it right. But what Yom Kippur was was a day to atone for everybody, for the nation. It was a national day of atonement. We as a nation have got to come together, and actually, if you look how originally it formed in the Bible, after everybody went into the temple and there were ceremonies of forgiveness and atonement for the masses, they went out and they started dancing in the vineyards on Yom Kippur itself, boys and girls together. That’s what the Mishnah says. So in a sense, it was a celebration of the nation, a realisation that we’ve got to do better, that we’ve made mistakes, and that’s originally what Yom Kippur was. Now somewhere, this oppress your soul became fasting. We don’t know when exactly. Sometime during that period, the oral law, which commented on the written law, said, “This obviously means this,” and you’ve got a lot of that in the Bible. For example, the Bible says, the Torah says, “On the first , take the leaves of four fruits and wave 'em around.” It doesn’t say what they are. Maybe one of them was a kumquat. Maybe the other one was a squash. But it’s tradition that then says, “This is what we understood it to mean at the time,” and whether it did or didn’t, certainly for the last two and a half thousand years, we’ve been fasting on Yom Kippur.
- Thanks for that.
Q: It’s a question for me from David. “I lived and worked in Shanghai from 2010 to 2013.” He wanted to know when we were there.
A: This was through IHRA. We ran seminars-
IHRA. What is IHRA?
It’s the old ITFB. It’s IRA, you know, the government body that 31 countries subscribed to and that Jeremy Corbyn wouldn’t. It’s about the whole issue of anti-Semitism. It was set up to teach about the Holocaust, really, throughout the world as a way, believe it or not, in fighting prejudice, very bizarre. But we used it to work in China because, frankly, we paid for by governments, and we had seminars at the, they were at universities. It’s another story, and when we come onto the history of China, I’ll probably do a session on it. Now this is from Sheila Chiat.
Everybody’s thanking us, Jeremy, and thanking Wendy,
Q: but this is a rather dark question. “What do you think Israel should do if Iran is actually only one month away from creating a bomb?”
A: - Look, I believe that Israel has to do what it needs to do to survive, and I think, increasingly, it’s clear that Israel should not think itself as being dependent on the USA. Having said that, our greatest defence is the disagreement and the tension within the Muslim Arab world, and ironically, I happen to feel that the fact that China and Russia are taking over the mantle in Afghanistan, engaging more 'cause they have to with the Muslim world, I think China knows it’s not in its interest to let Iran drop a bomb. And I believe that that will act as protective, much more than the United States of America, who I think have just lost the will to fight.
- I think also, if you think of the theories of history, that there’s absolutely no doubt that the West is in decline, and whether it’s going to be China or whether it’s going to be India, we’re moving into a completely different world, and I think we have to be optimistic in a very cynical kind of way. I totally agree with Jeremy’s analysis.
Now this is a nice compliment for you, Jeremy, from Marcie. “It’s so refreshing to listen to an Orthodox rabbi with universalist approach to religion,”
and this is one for me. When I worked in China, did I work with Professor Xu Xin at Nanjing University? Oh yes I did. He was terribly important in our work, and the reason they were interested in Jewish history, it began because of the Nanjing massacre, and what they were interested in is how did the Jews deal with the Shoah? Because the Nanjing massacre, when the Japanese murdered about 300,000 Chinese civilians, it was a shame society, so they were fascinated, and that’s how it began in that way. But as I said before, they were interested in every aspect of Jewish history. Although we’re a tiny number in the world, they’re just interested in us. It’s not good for their-
On that Chinese issue, there’s this issue of, you know, pride. I mean, the Japanese couldn’t understand in World War II why the American and the English gave up, why they didn’t rather commit suicide. That’s why they treated them so terribly. They thought they were subhuman because their concept of honour and their understanding of shame was so different to theirs. Now one of the issues in the Holocaust that keeps on coming up is why did these Jews go like lambs to the slaughter, right? Now part of it, of course, is come on. If you’ve got these guns pointed at you and you’ve got all these Nazis around, what can you do? But the other is look at those people who went with dignity, who said, “I know I’m coming to an end in this life, but there’s more to life than this.” There was pride in that confidence, and I think that is so important, and that’s if the Chinese, or whoever it was, was ashamed of that at that stage, there was a sense of shame, we have to teach them that, no, that should be a sense of pride.
That’s, again, another very, very controversial issue, which was between Israel and the diaspora as well.
Yeah, it was indeed. Yeah.
I can’t tell you, there are so many lovely comments from all of you, and this is from Michael who believes that anti-Semitism has played a part in ensuring Jewish existence.
I don’t deny that. The question is qualitatively how much, and is it a solution for the future?
Q: - “What about relevance to today?”
A: I don’t quite know what you mean by that, Mavis. I don’t quite know what that means.
Marilyn is saying, “Judaism does not encourage conversion.”
Well, it used to once upon a time.
It used to, didn’t it?
It used to very much. Nowadays, things have changed because so many people want to convert for the wrong reason. They just like wanting a citizenship, wanting a passport, and conversion has got to be, I care. Now if you care, if you really care, you’re welcome 100%! Most Jewish communities around the world have converts of all different colours and shapes and sizes. So it’s not that we don’t. We just don’t want this nominal conversion. “Oh, I want it in order to marry a Rothchild and get the fortune.”
There’s a nice comment from Arlene. This is the best of our presentations. They like us together, Jeremy.
Well, we’ve got to do more often then.
This is from Jonathan. “And can Jeremy comment on the current controversy at Harvard concerning the humanist Rabbi Epstein?”
Well, you know, I think universities now are places where, in theory, in theory, you should be able to study anything and hear any point of view. But chaplaincy, as I understand it, is advocating for your particular point of view. So in other words, there’s a difference between philosophy and theology. Now, a chaplain, for example, we have Jewish chaplains who are there to cater to the Jewish community. Some of them come from reform background to cater for reform. Some come from Orthodox to cater for Orthodox. I think Christianity ought to have chaplains catering to Christianity. That’s my opinion, but, of course, there are different brands of Christianity and different degrees of Christianity, and the only caveat I have is there must never be any rubbishing of another point of view. You must never, ever, ever rubbish or denounce or demean another point of view, and that is a condition for chaplaincy. Now as it is, I understand that any university, you’ve got all these people who are advocating for Marxism, for secularism, for everything else. So I don’t understand it. I’ve seen all these essays that have been written by clerics who support it who say we’re all in favour of it. It doesn’t make sense to me. This looks like the European capitulation of Christianity. It’s not fighting anymore, and as fighting anymore in the academic world, it’s still fighting pretty strongly elsewhere. The dynamic charismatic Christian movements in America are thriving. They’re doing extremely well, injecting by all this Latin America immigration, which is very, very pro-evangelism. So, you know, this capitulation, I think, is very sad. I’m seeing it everywhere. I dunno where it’s going to lead. I just hope that, over time, it may somehow or other evangelise the jihadis.
This is a beaut for you, Jeremy. “As a non-Jew, I’m confused by the rabbi’s uncertainty as to the historical existence of Avraham and even Moshe, yet his apparent confidence in the reliability of the historicity of the Tanakh. Wouldn’t both speakers find it sad that the whole history and experience of the Jewish people was built not on real events but on fables and stories?”
Well, that’s not what I’m saying at all. First of all, sure, I don’t think that the Tanakh should be treated as a scientific academic history book. It’s a guide. It is based maybe on myths, maybe on stories. Maybe Abraham is a story. Maybe Moses is a story. I don’t have any factual evidence. Well, all we have is some archaeological evidence to the house of David and Solomon’s stables and things like that. So I don’t treat these books as historical documents, but I do treat them as valuable spiritual documents, as documents with a message, and there is a message, even when they talk about people killing each other or misbehaving or whatever it is. It’s terribly important. So did Jeremiah exist? I think he probably did, but I have no proof that he did. Did Isaiah? But their message is phenomenal. So while Judaism is not based on historical fact, it’s based on the message, as Marshall McLuhan liked to say.
Yeah, good answer. This is from David. “Where did Ashkenazi Jews originate?” I can take that one, David. Ashkenaz, it is Hebrew for German, and they probably originated in the centre of Europe, okay?
I suffer-
And add Italians. Don’t forget the Italians.
Oh yes. Add Italians. Beg your pardon.
They’re not Ashkenazi.
You know what we must do? We must do some sessions on the Jews of Italy. In the first week in October, actually, most of the classes are going to be devoted to the Medici and the Jews of the Renaissance.
Oh, that’s great.
I love Audrey. I love your point about the difference in English and Hebrew between studying and learning. “Learning to me means intensively absorbing and internalising our own history and knowledge.” How wonderful. Oh, this is from Marilyn. “The problem is that parents send their children to a Jewish school.” Yeah. Somebody wants you on your own, Jeremy. Let me explain. Jeremy does speak every other Tuesday, correct?
Yeah.
And you’re also going to be doing some more, aren’t you?
Yeah, I’m going to doing a weekly session on the Bible from beginning to page by page, word by word, interpreting it through old, modern, new, controversial, everything, but just to show people what’s in the book, what’s in the Holy Book. Most people don’t-
What’s going to be the time of that? Can you remember?
It’s about 2:30, I think, on a Wednesday if I’m not mistaken.
2:30. That’s 2:30-
My time, which is what? Seven yours or something? Five hours.
No, I don’t think so. I think we got it wrong. Anyway, we’re talking-
Oh no, you’re right. It was the morning. No, it’s going to be 11 o'clock in the morning.
You’re doing it in the morning, aren’t you?
Yeah, it’s 11 o'clock in the morning. See, the old memory isn’t what it was.
No, it can’t be. If it’s 11 o'clock your morning, it’s going to go straight into the other classes. We better think about this.
We better work out what’s going on then.
All right, but Jeremy will be doing this course. “To get a Jewish education, there’s often no Judaism in the home. The parents have no education.” Yes, this is coming up a lot.
Yeah. I used to get that when I was headmaster. When I was headmaster, I would sort of call parents and say, “Look, this is a Jewish school. While your kid’s in Jewish school, you’ve got to abide by Jewish rules.” And the parent would turn around and say to him, “Listen here, Jimmy, at home, you can do whatever you like. When you’re at school, jolly well do what they tell you to do.”
“Why should young intelligent Jewish kids believe in Judaism in whatever form you find acceptable if it’s not built on historical reality but the genius of some unknown and unknowable individuals?”
Well, why should anybody read Shakespeare if we’re not entirely certain how Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, was it Shakespeare, where did he get it from, and which folio we’re going to follow? We do it because there’s something valuable and passionate in it you have to encounter!
Okay. Oh this is from Jonathan. Audrey just said, “Every country gets the Jews it deserves.” Ooh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, or Lord Jakobovits’s famous crack. “The Jews are the same as everybody else except more so.”
People saying nice things again.
Thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you.
This is from Jeanette. “I live in Toronto and bought my house in a very Jewish area. Four Jewish day schools, three have closed down. One very big reason is that housing is so costly and families are choosing housing over Jewish day schools.” Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that’s a problem. Very expensive.
Q: - And this is from David. “Are you debating the impact of Judaism as a religion?
A: In my case, my connection to Judaism grew with my parents’ death and my obligation to say Kaddish for at least 11 months. The difficulty was the longevity of my parents’ life, and I had little need to be involved till I was in my 60s.”
Hmm, interesting, and that does bring a lot of people back, and that’s the value of ritual.
David, “As someone who remembers Jeremy’s father as a Carmel pupil, concur with his views in religious and the secular world and who tries to live by them, but part of the problem is the way the middle way has been lost where people live the way they want but tolerate other views without attacking.” Liberalism, yeah. The death of liberalism he’s commenting on.
It’s a problem.
Again, lots of nice people saying very nice things. There’s a lot of people saying Jewish education is the most important thing.
Q: “Can we have more discussions with some Israelis, please?”
A: Yes, of course.
- Yeah, fair enough. Why not?
Q: - “Why is the dress code so important to a Haredim?”
A: - Oh, two interesting reasons. One of them actually is identification. It’s like school uniform. You can tell each different Hasidic group from another by the way the buttons go up on one side or the other side, whether they wear a square fur, a round fur hat, or a flat fur hat or whatever it is. But essentially, the dress, the Hasidic dress developed with the Hasidic movement in Eastern Europe as a way of saying to people, “Don’t be frightened of identifying as a Jew. Identify as a Jew, be proud, and wear different clothes to the ones the peasants are using.” But it’s also a lot to do with modesty. Modesty is a very important principle in Jewish Orthodox law, both for men and for women, and the these long cloaks, as opposed to revealing your crotch, just as, you know, walking around with your boobs showing out. These are all problems of morality, religious control, and socialisation. Socialisation is very important. It’s a benefit, and it’s also a bit of a curse. It gets rid of individuality, but it helps support.
Anyway, I think we better stop there because we’ve got another presentation at half past seven.
Oh right.
Jeremy, it’s great to talk to you. I have a hunch your presentations are going to be at 10 o'clock your time.
Could be. Could be.
That will work. That works.
It’ll work for me if it is.
Anyway-
Anyway, listen, I wish you all the best, Trudy. I want to give you my blessings that you should carry on as strong and successful and dynamic as you are for as long, as long, as long, 120 years if not more. You are magnificent, and you’re a jewel, and you’re a treasure.
And what can I say about you, Jeremy? We go back years.
My God. And it’s such fun to debate with you, and I wish you a very, very happy New Year, and to everybody, and let’s hope this one will be, we’ll get through the pandemic. And I just think that what Wendy did, bringing us all together is absolutely extraordinary, and I think it’s made a lot of a difference to all of us. So God bless you all and fast well, and yes, we are on again this weekend, and then the real programme will start properly the first week in October, and Jeremy will be lecturing. He’ll be lecturing every other Tuesday, those of you who are new to it, to us, and it would appear that he’s going to be lecturing on Wednesday morning. I reckon it’s going to be at 10 o'clock this time, which will be three o'clock English time. Okay, take care. God bless.
Bye.