Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 24, No. 18, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 30, 1970 Page: 5 of 20
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THE CRISIS OF JEWISH IDENTITY:
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A STUDENT’S PLEA TO THE FEDERATION
The College Generation Examines Jewish Commitment
By GEOFFREY GREENFIELD
A Graduate Student at Harvard Medical School
W7 hen I was first asked to
come to talk to you today, I
was a little apprehensive. I
asked myself'“Why am I in par-
ticular chosen to give this talk?
What are my credentials for per-
forming this particular task? After
all, I am only a medical student,
and right now I am studying in-
fectious disease, not Jewish social
history. And I am no veteran in
Jewish social service, only recently
having become at all active in
Jewish affairs.”
But I realized that only a person
like me or another with a similar
history can justifiably and in-
telligently speak to you on the topic
I’ve chosen. I’m going to talk about
vanishing Jewish identity among
American Jewish youth, especially
college youth. The only way you can
appreciate the dynamics of this
problem is to listen to people who'
have experienced it.
I’m willing and eager to be your
pathological specimen for today,
and I am well qualified. In the
course of my life I have wandered
very far from Judaism, only
recently having returned, never to
wander again.
I hope that my example will aid
you in understanding what we, the
college generation, are feeling, why
we’re running away, and what can
get us to come back.
Let me relate to you a bit of my
history. Much of it will sound very
familiar to you. My careening away
from Judaism began when I was
about 8 years old, when I received
my first exposure to Jewish
education in a Reform temple
Sunday school in Los Angeles.
I am not a son who customarily
talks back to his parents, but I
found Sunday school so odious that,
after attending for awhile, I ob-
stinately refused one day ever to go
back again, and I didn’t.
Even at age 8 I was sophisticated
enough to realize that all was not
tickety-boo in Jewish education. I
did begin school at the same
Reform temple a few years later in
preparation for Bar Mitzvah. But
Hebrew study enabled us to send
notes back and forth in school
written in an incomprehensible
cipher which angered and
frustrated our teacher when she
would intercept.
I recall how lightly we took our
Hebrew studies. In 1959 the Dodgers
challenged the Giants for the
National League pennant and went
on to win the World Series. For a
period of a month in September and
October of that year, I think our
class had 100 percent absences.
I stuck with it long enough to be
Bar Mitzvah, but thereafter my
knowledge and interest in things
Jewish dwindled rapidly. I had
begun to study flute and piano, and
even before Bar Mitzvah, music
had almost completely displaced
Hebrew in my life. If it hadn’t been
music it would have been baseball.
The age of ignorance, once begun,
persisted throughout high school
and beyond into my undergraduate
years at Harvard College. To me,
the impetuous Ivy-Leaguer, music
was immediate.
BRANDEIS CAMP INSTITUTE
The summer after my junior year
I went to the Brandeis Camp In-
stitute in southern California for a
month. I had decided to go only
because I hadn’t lined up a good job
for the summer, and a friend of
mine at school who had gone to BCI
the summer before nudged me so
much that I decided to go just to get
him off my back.
My expectations of the camp
were minimal. I hoped at least to
enjoy some sunshine, hearty food
and good companionship, but I
didn’t hope for much more.
In a moment I’ll tell you what
happened to me at the camp. First I
want to describe what happened
after I returned. As soon as I got
back to school, I manipulated my
pre-medical program so that I
could take introductory modern
Hebrew and modern Jewish
history. Then I set about for-
mulating plans for getting to Israel
the following summer.
By arrangement with Zionist
House in Boston I flew to Israel in
June after my graduation and
proceeded to Kibbutz Hulata in
northern Galilee where I worked for
6 weeks. Afterwards I went to
to
Liberal education was
fashionable. But Hebrew and
Jewish studies remained periph-
eral, attractive but too exotic.
Harvard Square is about the most
'distracting place in the world,
a place where well-oriented
professing Jewish kids come to get
disoriented, not where disoriented
Jewish kids can come to regain
their Judaism. I certainly did not
regain my Judaism in Harvard
Square.
It is illustrative of my pre-
dicament that I emerged from a
course in comparative religion
knowing more about Tantric
Buddhism than I did about
Judaism. I was amazed to discover
in that course that my general
education had taught me more
about Christians than it had about
my own people. But I was more
amazed than dismayed.
Jerusalem td study some Hebrew,
but soon left my studies to wander
around the city and around the
country.
I returned home after 10 weeks in
Israel with two thoughts on my
mind — the prospect of entering
medical school and the prospect of
returning to Israel as soon as I
possibly could.
I presently plan to spend my
4th year elective time in Israel
participating in epidemiological
research. Upon completion of my
internship and residency in
America I plan to return to Israel to
stay.
This was a profound trans-
formation, or at least it felt
profound to me as I was undergoing
it. It took a professional dilettante,
king of Harvard epikorsim, and
turned him into a Jewish youth who
had just learned where he came
from and now knew where he
wanted to go.
I will try to analyze for you what
went on at the Brandeis Camp
Institute which achieved this
remarkable transformation. BCI is
designed for college students, and
will accept an applicant only if he
has completed at least one year of
college.
It runs on the assumption that a
Jewish kid born to Jewish parents,
no matter how complete his
estrangement from Judaism, has
Jewish values stamped into his soul
and Jewish vocabulary built into his
tongue, and that if teased and
coaxed in just the right way he can
be brought to recognize those
values and that vocabulary as
distinctly Jewish and to delight in
that discovery. The secret of the
place is how to tease and coax.
Initially BCI employs a visceral
approach. The camp fostered a
kibbutz ethic which demanded that
we take pride in our surroundings
and maintain them ourselves. So we
did lots of gardening, weeding
vegetable patches, washing dishes,
clearing roads and maintaining
campsites.
This wasn’t fun at first, but when
our blisters finally healed we had
begun to enjoy the feeling of being
responsible for setting our own
standard of living.
We did lots of singing and dancing
of Israeli folk songs and dances, at
every available opportunity, which
everyone responds to. In the aft-
ernoons we attended workshops in
music, drama, art, and dance.
The address given in
Boston in November of
1969, which electrified
the delegates to the
General Assembly of the
Council of Jewish
Federations and Welfare
Funds.
and chose the Havdalah ceremony,
ordinarily an observance of
secondary importance, to be the
vehicle for dramatic illustration.
this Judaism, all fit into my life, all
made very good sense, somehow
was all profoundly right and wise
for me. I found I had acquired a
vocabulary for expressing the
many inarticulate thoughts and
desires which had always been
inside me but which only now could
I get out and examine.
I was beginning to know myself
and to discover myself.
It was not my intention to make
BCI the center of my talk here. But
I did want to use BCI as the
example closest to me of a program
that does work to draw ‘kids out of
the drift into rich and gratifying
Jewish life.
As I see it. BCI succeeds for 3
Memories of Havdalah are reasons. First, it approaches kids
always the most vivid memories when they’re really impressionable
which campers take away from BCI and vulnerable, not when they’re
— standing, arms around waists, tiny and would rather listen to the
swaying in concentric circles World Series, but when they’ve
around the chazan who chants, the begun to look for themselves,
flickering twisted candle, and the Judaism isn’t stuff for little kids. I
fading light outside. was 18 before I knew what Mozart
Shabbat at BCI was designed to was all about. It doesn’t surprise
make a comparable visceral im- me now that it was not until I was 20
pact. Shabbat was the primary that I began to understand what
focus of the camp and we all felt it. Judaism was all about.
Everything we did anticipated the Secondly, BCI is careful to make
day. its first appeal to the viscera.
Fatigue accumulated in the Success here is prerequisite to any
course of the week. Friday morn- ultimate success,
ing, barely able to rise, we faced And lastly, the intellectual
special Shabbat cleanup which left program offered is rich and varied,
us totally without energy and very allowing the camper to discover for
appreciative of the need for a Day himself the meaningfulness of
of Rest. Judaism to his own life, within the
Everything we did to celebrate context of whatever vocabulary he
Shabbat emphasized the special finds congenial,
quality of the day. We dressed in But this is only one example of a
white. We converted our barn- program that succeeds well. It is
dance-hall-drama-workshop into a only one example of only one
synagogue. Our tables were program affecting only one par-
covered with white. Candles burned ticipant. I can only speak for
at every table. Our food was special myself.
and we chanted over it special I am aware that BCI is not the
blessings and we rested. panacea to cure all the diseases of
WITHIN ONE’S SELF American Jewish youth. Surely for
After we had responded to the every one of me there are many
visceral appeal, the intellectual who come from different
appeal began in earnest. This in- backgrounds from me who would
eluded a regular series of morning not respond so enthusiastically td
lectures and weekly parsha study what I experienced,
sessions. This semi-formal in- But I will not minimize the im-
tellectual program, though, moved portance of BCI’s success, because
always toward a single objective; if it hadn’t been for BCI I would
to lead us to discover for ourselves never have found myself in
the relevance of Judaism to our own Judaism and my life would have
lives. been very different and much
We were addressed by a variety impoverished. I am extremely
of lecturers representing the grateful for the wealth I gained
spectrum of Jewish ideology. We from my experience there. And all
weren’t bombarded by a single kids who have undergone similar
doctrinaire line, except for the experiences must be comparably
insistence that we think for our- grateful.
selves. And you too, as Jewish public
We were visited by Recon- servants, ought to be grateful, for
structionist cosmologists and by here is an educational institution
Hasidic rebbes, and we were en- which brings wandering Jewish
couraged to engage all lecturers in kids back from the land of the dead,
active and even aggressive This achievement to me is dazzling
discussion. because I remember well where I
I remember well a “discussion” was then and I appreciate where I
between one of us who was a am now.
geology student at UCLA and a Inspired teachers have always
representative from Lubavitch figured prominently in my life. But
concerning estimates of the age of certainly my teachers at BCI
the earth. exerted and continue to exert an
There was lots of verbal influence on me more profound
aggression. We were given plenty of than I could ever gauge, and
time to sit around and talk out’ all changed the course of my life more
the complicated feelings running dramatically then I could ever have
around inside us as each successive imagined.
day brought new revelations and
new traumas.
Most enlightened of all these
provisions, though, was the weekly
expounding on the parsha. Each
week in the Shabbat morning
service 3 campers would get up and portance of Jewish education which
I participated in the drama
workshop. The director of the
workshop had transcribed portions
from Torah. Prophets, Song of
Songs, and the book of Proverbs
into dramatic form. We came to
feel the Bible with our throats, our
fingers, and with our whole body
The camp laid stress on the
sensuality of Jewish observance.
expound on the week’s parsha.
digging into their own lives and
examining the parsha and
discovering what each brings to the
other.
The invariable variety of ex-
perience and richness of response
made this event for me consistently
the most exciting thing that went on
at BCI. It served a great purpose
too, to throw us back on ourselves
and to arrive at solutions for our-
selves.
So this is what happened to me at
BCI. My viscera made the first
response. They said yes. Then in-
tellectual convictions began to
crystallize in my mind as I learned
more and studied more.
The conviction grew inside me
Its truth is borre out in a hundred
thousand examf l^s from Jewish
history, where education of Jewish
children into the values of the
civilization enabled communities to
endure through nightmarish times.
Our times, too, are nightmarish
times for Jewish youth, not because
of Cossack swords or sirens in the
night, but because of doubts which
persist and grow and won’t go
away.
Jewish youth today, at least as
much as other youth, are merciless
seekers of truth and reality in a
world which offers little truth and
reality.
We youth have a holy word —
relevance. And as we scrutinize
everything we touch, we scrutinize
Judaism to see if it’s relevant —
relevant to the problem of
discovering ourselves, relevant to
our relations with other people,
relevant in solving the world’s
problems.
If we young Jews discard
Judaism, it’s because we don’t find
it relevant. And if we don’t, it’s not
our fault but our teachers’ fault,.
because Judaism is relevant..
Judaism needs no apologies, only
Jewish education needs apologies.
Perhaps the failure of the bulk of
Jewish teachers is their failure to
feel any urgent need for Judaism in
their own lives, so they can’t
transmit a sense of this urgency to
others.
But whatever the reason, it is
certain that Jewish education is
failing to show youth that Judaism
is useful for tackling all varieties of
problems, intimate and global, that
Judaism is, as it has always been,
and has always had to be for Jews
in all ages, a problem-solving tool.
And considering the fate which
seemingly phony things meet these
days at the hands of unceremonious
youth, this potentially fatal failure
of Jewish education could within a
few years land Judaism on the
ideological scrapheap to join all the
other anachronistic philosophies
which weren’t versatile enough to
keep up with the world.
CENTRAL IMPORTANCE
OF JEWISH EDUCATION
The experiences which I have
described to you have led me to
conclusions concerning the im-
might seem to you excessive,
exaggerated, dramatic or naive.
But to me they seem the only logical
ones, and for all their drama, the
only objective ones. I'd like to share
them with you.
It seems to me that there is no
institution more necessary to the
health of the Jewish community
than education. Surely the very
survival of the Jews in America
depends upon the success of Jewish
education in America, and the
massive identity crisis which I went
through and which the majority of
Jewish youths go through, too. is
the direct result of a massive crisis
in Jewish education.
This is no insightful stroke of
genius on my part. In fact, it's an
THE CRISIS IN EDUCATION
As I see it from my vantage point,
as a young Jew and as a student,
there is no crisis in the American
Jewish community to rival in im-
portance the crisis in education,
with the single exception of the
survival of the State of Israel, and
no crisis that I can conceive of that
demands more urgent attention
from all the American Jewdsh
community.
I’d like to share with you a recent
experience of mine. At the Harvard
Medical School, the second year
class has just begun to study
physical diagnosis. A few weeks
ago a group of us met for one of
our sessions at the Hebrew
Rehabilitation Center in West
Roxbury.
In our group was a classmate of
mine who. like me, is much con-
cerned with problems of Jewish
identity and Jewish education in
America. The Hebrew' Reha-
bilitation Center is truly an ex-
traordinarily beautiful building,
set on spacious grounds, well
landscaped, built on multiple levels
which intersect and interact in a’
spectacular way. allowing yod to
walk across glass-covered bridge®
to reach the various parts of tne
Center.
It is a thoroughly exciting
building. But as we were leaving
following our session, my friend
said to me, “You know, it’s an
ironic thing — the Jews in America
perform this tireless service on
behalf of their aged and spend
millions yearly to support such
centers as this. But unless they get
smart quick and start exerting such
an effort and spending as much
money on behalf of their young in
the form of programs in Jewish
education, then this palatial
building will be empty in 50 years,
because there won’t be any old
Jews any more, because there
won't be any Jews at all.”
This is a simple and powerful
that all this which iy\as, Iqa/nm.g,,. ^a.xipn^ jn^i^putobjv^rue
Continued on Page 9
PAGE 5 POSTFEATURE THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1970 TEXAS JEWISH POST
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Wisch, J. A. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 24, No. 18, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 30, 1970, newspaper, April 30, 1970; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth753279/m1/5/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .