How About "Converting" All the Non-Jews to Judaism? : An Outreach Rabbi Says It's a CRAZY "Idea" !
By Ephraim Buchwald (Summer 1999)

EPHRAIM Z. BUCHWALD is founder and director of the National Jewish Outreach Program and rabbi of the Beginner's Service at Lincoln Square Synagogue, New York City.

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0411/3_48/64507446/p1/article.jhtml
Conversion and the American Jewish Agenda.

I'D LIKE TO STATE CLEARLY AT THE OUTSET, THAT I AM NOT opposed to conversion or to converts. To the contrary, the National Jewish outreach program, which I direct, has offered thousands of converts, potential converts, and intermarried couples classes in Hebrew reading and Basic Judaism.

I'm delighted to have been invited to the "Conference on Proactive Conversion: Opening The Gates for Non-Jews to Become Jews." Even more flattering than the invitation to this august forum, is the deep honor paid me by being quoted on the very first page of Gary Tobin's challenging new volume, Opening The Gates. Dr. Tobin cites me in the context of the hysteria that has gripped the Jewish community concerning Jews marrying non-Jews. He quotes me as saying, "There are no barking dogs, no Zyklon-B gas ... but make no mistake: This is a spiritual Holocaust."

First of all, for the record, that statement was said about general assimilation, not intermarriage. Besides, I am not so hysterical about Jews marrying non-Jews, whether it's 52% or 42% (By the way, had a zoo keeper been losing 40% of his sea lions, he would be hysterical too!) I'm much more agitated that I have not been able to mobilize or even sensitize the American Jewish leadership to do what needs to be done-to nurture the next generation of Jews in America. I'm far more exercised that we're spending billions of dollars on Holocaust memorials, rather than investing our resources in joyous, Jewish outreach for our young people. I'm worked up because there are millions of American Jews who desperately want to be a part of the Jewish community and they have nowhere to turn. We have failed them.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the reality: Our children are drowning. If I may continue the metaphor, while our children are drowning, the non-churched gentiles of America are floating on an air mattress in the water. It's true, they're not swimming with God. But they're not drowning. Gary Tobin suggests that we throw the life preserver to the gentiles.

Have we lost our minds?

What Gary Tobin is proposing, is another step in a long line of proposals that have been guiding the Jewish community of America in the wrong direction.

At a time when we should be embracing our sons and our daughters, Professor Tobin cries out in a well argued, cleverly delivered package that the nations of the world are waiting for our embrace.

At a time when we should be extending our hands to our brothers and our sisters, Dr. Tobin argues passionately that non-churched Americans should be our priority. With all due apologies, to my mind, this proposal for Proactive Conversion is just another false elixir of quickie, simplistic, and sexy solutions that we keep feeding the American Jewish public. Proactive Conversion merely continues the devastating trend (which is now deeply ingrained in the Jewish establishment's thinking) of neglecting our sons and daughters, our brothers and our sisters, simply because there may be some easier, more marketable, more palatable, but not necessarily more effective, way of addressing the devastating loses that the American Jewish community has experienced since the end of World war II.

Is this not the same path we've been following that's led us to such disaster? Is this not just another aspect of the absurd decisions of the past to build Jewish swimming pools when our Jewish children can't even walk Jewishly? We've reached the absurd point today where Jewish post-post doctorates can quote pages of Swahili poetry by heart, but aren't familiar with the basic nomenclature of the Bible, have no clue what Deuteronomy 5:6 might mean, and couldn't find it if their lives depended on it.

Judaism is the tradition that teaches l'fum tza'ara agra, according to the effort, is the reward. It was Pauline Christianity which announced that mitzvot were no longer needed, that Shabbat observance was no longer relevant, and kashrut extraneous in our efforts to get close to God. It was the Christian Apostle who said that mitzvot corrupt, that through faith in Jesus and Baptism alone, you can get close to God. Is that what we're looking for--a "quick fix"? When our community is hemorrhaging, is it not absurd to call on non-churched Christians and others to join us.

Let us announce: "Unchurched ladies and gentlemen, our ship is sinking, welcome aboard! Pay no attention to the fact that our young people are abandoning their Judaism by the myriads. Come gentiles, see the beauty of our system, embrace our Torah, behold the revolutionary ideas of monotheistic humanism in our tradition. Don't be afraid that the ship is leaking. Welcome aboard!"

We have failed our children. We have not exposed them to the positive joyous optimistic side of Judaism. We and our children know only too well what it's like to be holed up in an attic in Amsterdam, to be shot in the head or buried alive at Babi Yar, and to be tortured at Ravensbruck. But do our young people know what it means to fervently sing L'cha Dodi, to welcome the beautiful Sabbath Bride?

Do they know what it feels like to be embraced by a Jewish parent on Friday night, in the traditional blessing of children, to be in such high spirits on Purim that they don't know the difference between Mordechai and Haman? Our children know well the names of our oppressors, Pharoah, Titus, Hitler, and Eichmann, but have they ever heard of Akiva, Maimonides, Yehudah Halevi, or even Bialik for that matter? They know what it means to sweat blood over a Bar Mitzvah and still after many years find it hard to suppress the trauma of Hebrew school, but have they ever experienced an intellectual epiphany, while studying a n uance in Rashi's commentary? Are we going to starve our children religiously and culturally for 18 years, and then spend billions of dollars to send them for a quick two-week fix on an Israel Birthright program? Can a two-week intravenous feeding repair the metabolism of a child who has been abused and malnourished since birth?

Why are we so afraid? Why are we so terrified to do what needs to be done and to make quality Jewish education the number one priority of Jewish life in America? Why are we so incapable of inspiring our brilliant young people (those who become bankers, lawyers and doctors) to make their careers in Jewish youth work, Jewish education, Jewish outreach (kudos to the Steinhardt Fellows program)? At this critical juncture it is far more important to nurture the next generation of Jewish leaders, than it is to support or open a Jewish nursing home, or a Jewish hospital, or a Jewish swimming pool. How could that be you ask? Because-and this I learned from Rabbi Yitz Greenberg-by educating our young people about Hesed, Bikur Kholim, Hachnassat Orkhim, the next generation will be inspired to continue support of these vital institutions and to open up new Jewish hospitals, new Jewish nursing homes, and even new Jewish swimming pools. But if we don't nurture the next generation now, there will be nothing-no donors and no hospitals-it will be, as the Talmud says, keyreakh mi'kan v'keyreakh mi'kan, bald on this side and bald on that side, bereft and bereft.

Over the past decade the tide has dramatically turned in Jewish philanthropy. In the greatest bull market in American history most local Federation campaigns are flat or down. It's obvious that secular charities are far more attractive to the young generation of Jews than Jewish philanthropy. The sculpture garden at the Met has far more panache and is far more appealing to a Jew who's never been nurtured, whose Jewish heartstrings have never been tuned (let alone fine tuned), than replacing slums for poor people in Netivot, Israel.

A child who's never been nurtured to put a nickel, a dime, a quarter into a pushka on a regular basis is unlikely to feel anything special for the Jewish homeless in New York, Chicago, or Israel. A child who has never felt the Shabbat embrace of his parents on a weekly basis will be far more attracted to Pavarotti singing "Ave Maria" and Celine Dion singing Christmas carols. A child who has never been taught to sense the inner beauty of the Sabbath candles will be easily mesmerized by the sparkle and tinsel of the Christmas season. A child who's never felt the sense of adventure of making Kiddush in a Succah will be easily swept away by the drinking and ribaldry of New Year's Eve and the coming Millennium celebration scheduled for Friday night, December 31, 1999, which of course marks the 2000th year since that famous little Jewish boy, born under the star in Bethlehem, was circumcised.

The true tragedy is that we don't recognize that our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters are inches away from coming back, through joyous Jewish experiences. Jewish tradition teaches aniyeh irkha kodem, that when dispensing charity, the poor of our own cities, of our own families must be our first priority. Our resources are limited. Yes, it's true that there are heartthrob causes that can attract far greater resources. But those who are really familiar with the process of winning Jews back know that there's no easy road, there's no short cut.

Every few years the American Jewish community is confronted by a new study documenting the wasting away of American Jewish life. Inevitably, another group of leaders or scholars will challenge the alarmists, announcing that everything is fine, after all we're still here.

Well things are not fine, and it doesn't take a demographics wizard to realize that. Things are worse than we ever imagined. Consider the following: Since 1945, while the American population has more than doubled, growing from 133 million to about 270 million, the jewish population in America has remained the same at about 5.7 million. In effect, during the last 50 years 6 million Jews have disappeared in America. But even this is not the full picture! We've lost more than six million. After all, since 1945, over one million Jews have immigrated to America from Russia, Israel, and a host of other countries.

We've lost closer to 7 million jewish since 1945!

And even if every Jew in America would remain fervently and actively jewish, due to the critically low jewish birthrate alone, our American jewish community will shrink by 200/0 every 25 years.

Combine the impact of fertility and assimilation, even with a zero drop out rate, and it is clear that more than 1/3 of our numbers will disappear. In just two gene rations, two out of every three Jews will have vanished. Don't be hysterical, Buchwald, you will tell me, only six of your ten children will be missing.

Have we lost our minds?

How dare we debate over whether it's acceptable to have 420/0 or 520/0 intermarriage. Is 50/0 OK? Is 1% acceptable? These are our children. I say that as long as there is a single jewish child or adult who needs to be reached, it is immoral, I insist on the word, yes, immoral to expend jewish resources trying to convince a gentile to put on a Yarmulka.

I'd like to close with a quote from Gary Tobin, from p. 186, Opening the Gates: "There is no guarantee that welcoming converts will work in the long run. Indeed, we may invest hundreds of millions and then billions of dollars in a communal debacle." Those dollars could save our children. Let us choose life for them.
- posted by Izak @ 5:01 AM