Tuesday, February 20, 2018

How to Make Sure Your Grandchildren's Name will be Horowitz.

How to make absolutely sure that your grandchildren's name will be Horowitz.

I am torn in my kishkes over what I perceive happening to American Jewry. To the shores of the Goldena Medina fled my grandparents in search of a haven for you from the Jew haters of Europe.

It started, they told me, when the Easter Church bells began to ring.  A crowd of towns people broke into Jewish homes and shops, stealing what destroying everything in sight. The police stood by and did nothing. They watched and observed.  By nightfall the looters turned into murderers and fell young Jews with knives and clubs torturing and killing them. Only once did the police interfere. A group of Jews were trying to defend themselves with sticks. So the police stepped in to disarm them.

So it was with Golda Meir.  So it was with our great grandparents.  En masse, hundreds of thousands fled toward freedom and the hope of a better life.

Has been more than good to us. It is given us everything we have ever dreamed up: freedom, food up Sunday, and claimant, and entrepreneurial opportunities. Even the non-Jews have been good. Sure, there is anti-Semitism but it is a polite, well-mannered prejudice not the kind we became accustomed to in the old country. Frankly, anti-Semitism is not a major issue or preoccupation of most American Jews.

I have met some parents who have inculcated their children with the idea that they are hated just because they are Jews.  This is convoluted.  Worse, it is a lie. They know that gentiles do not hate them.  Our children’s lives have likely never been touched by anti-Semites.  The net result of being told that they must be Jewish because of Hitler will probably end up becoming the dismissal of their heritage because Hitler is long dead.  “Why then be Jewish?” they reason.

Not only has America been good to Jews, that there is little anti- Semitism, but America is a good place. That is, most Americans are beacons of morality. You can wear your keep out on the street and not be accosted. What does this say?

Gentiles in America are on the whole moral people. So, if being Jewish means not having a monopoly on the goodness why be Jewish?  Second point: let’s face it, you raise your kids to believe that Jews are better because we are kinder, more considerate and God-fearing people. Our children recognize that to be another lie. We are no better than they.

Children in the religious school are often perplexed over this issue. What does it mean to be part of the “chosen people”? They are taught by their parents that being Jewish makes them more moral. But they are struggling with that obvious lie.  Their Gentile friends are good. Net result: there is no moral argument to convince her children to grow up to be

A new paradigm needs to be inveighed.  Do we have the courage to say what makes us really unique?  The heritage of Israel?  The binding of a people to God with mitzvot, commandments?
We have an ancient tradition that needs to be rediscovered.

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