Comments on: 1 Million American Jews Sing “I once was lost, but now I’m found…”

By: Jewish Mother

Jewish Mother — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:57:54 +0000

I am not for gender destruction however. I am not advocating “you’ve come a long way baby” orthodoxy. No, I think we should keep the two-sexes system. It is pretty, in my opinion. I didn’t mean we should re-invent or re-tool orthodoxy, just that it is available outside the established communities, G-d preserve them.

By: Jewish Mother

Jewish Mother — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:52:16 +0000

Laya’s post 4 is interesting: she says “…leaving the already affiliated with too few opportunities to truthfully grow spiritually and intellectually, outside the orthodox world. ”

There is a lot to that.

“Orthodox” seems to mean two things. 1) One is being dati, or shomer mitzvah, being vaguely enrolled in a like-minded bunch of people who pray together regularly, but who do not know each other since childhood and are not related.

And, 2) membership in a very defined social community, probably being born into it, knowing everybody since childhood.

BOTH of these things are Torah-loyal. There are plenty of ways to be orthodox without being Orthodox!

THAT is where the study and growth are, Laya. It’s not illegal! You can keep all (well, almost all) of your friends.

Laya, that is the answer. There is not going to be anything else coming from the non-orhodox streams.. because when there is, they find themselves becoming … orthodox!

NOBODY has a copyright on the Torah way of life.

You don’t have to be just like the people who live it whom you are not crazy about. You can do it your way, if you just follow the religous rules not every neighborhood’s custom. You can eat better food. Sefardi food. You can dress attractively. You will still have a good time on Saturday. Your head will not fall off.

Let us not sit around waiting for Godot. Nobody owns the Torah.

By: Larry

Larry — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 14:43:28 +0000

Brandeis wastes too much money counting Jewish souls. For less than $100, they could have arrived at the same number by just using the equation of…

simple equation = number of passenger seats sold in 2006 for flights between the USA and Tel Aviv times 70% times 50 (since hoe many Jews actually go to Israel… pretty much only one person a year in each extended family)

more complex equation = [number of boxes of matza sold in april 2006) divided by 0.8] + [ (number of seinfeld dvd's purchased) / 2.5 ] + [number of members of aclu times 14] + [number of copies of nyt purchased on a sunday outside of nyc] + [number of people with surnames beginning with silver or gold in the nyc phone book] plus the number of hanukkah candles sold in 2005 less the number of loaves of sliced white bread sold on a wednesday in philadelphia]

By: alexbmn

alexbmn — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 05:02:18 +0000

I’g guessing the study that uncovered these
“Jews” included a criteria which defined someone as a Jew if he watched a majority of all Seinfeld episodes.

By: sarah

sarah — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 18:38:39 +0000

Sorry to be a grammar nerd but it doesn’t “beg the question,” it raises it. Begging the question is, in rhetorical analysis, a circular flaw in logic.

en.wikipedia.o...

The common misuse of the phrase is my number one pet peeve and I am trying to stamp it out. Join me, Laya, and together we will rule the universe with a rhetorical flourish!

By: Suzanne

Suzanne — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 15:57:28 +0000

So what if we are, though?

Rabbi Y – “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” is a saying that’s been around forever. Maybe, since, well, the Titanic.

By: Eitan

Eitan — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 12:59:03 +0000

“Are we a people with a mission or just a people with a shared heritage trying to live the good life just like everyone else?”

Unfortunately, it seems that the vast majority of American Jews would, if they were to be totally honest, answer the latter.

By: Laya

Laya — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 08:47:56 +0000

Rabbi and EV: One thing that was noted in articles about this new survey was that given the larger number of Jews, we now know that an even smaller percentage are being served by Jewish institutions. The Jpost has Steinhardt saying
“Has the present institutional structure in the Jewish world been responsible for the severe decline in affiliation? ”

That having been said, EV, the fact of the matter is, most of the compelling Jewish programing coming out of Jewish institutions these days is all about reaching “the unaffiliated,” leaving the already affiliated with too few opportunities to truthfully grow spiritually and intellectually, outside the orthodox world.

DK – I could argue that one, but what’s your point?

By: DK

DK — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 05:13:48 +0000

Laya said,

“into a Judaism with more history than the Lower East Side offers”

Oh, please. History for most secular Jewish residents in the Zionist Entity begins with Herzl.

By: EV

EV — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 02:02:01 +0000

These 1 million Jews are easily found by everybody in America except those who willfully ignore them — i.e., the leaders of the American Jewish community, who continue to heap scorn and ridicule on Jews who have integrated into American society. It’s no wonder past methodological instruments were designed to ignore the types of people who don’t read The Jewish Week.

The new report is important for the very reasons you mentioned. Doomsayers in the community have cited shoddy statistics for years to “prove” the community is in a death spiral, to use such fear-mongering tactics to raise money from guilt-addled Jews, and to claim that the “unaffiliated” are a hopeless lot that isn’t worth wasting our time and energies on. But if there really are more Jews out there, then it’s time the community’s leadership stopped dismissing and deriding the bulk of American Jewry. And it’s also time the community started understanding that “the kind of Jews they are” is far different from “the kind of Judaism” the community’s institutions proffer.

End of sermon.