America is filled with potential Jews

San Francisco (JTA) — A study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that Americans are switching religions more than ever. As many as one of every two adults does not practice the religion in which he or she was born or raised.

As an aging religious group, it is time for Jews to heed the changes affecting religion in America because they are Americans, too, and no major trend passes them by.

Pew refers to the ”marketplace“ of religions in the United States, and that is exactly right. People shop around for the religious theologies, practices and communities that suit them. Some may try on a number of faiths until they find the one that fits.

This is one of the great benefits of the First Amendment, freedom from the government sanctioning any particular religion and allowing many faiths to thrive. The result has been a healthy competition, and a country relatively free from the religious strife that plagues so many societies.

How wonderful that there are so many choices available and people can find the religious home they seek — or choose nothing at all if that is where they land.

Turning inward

At a time when other religious groups are seeking adherents and promoting their religious faiths, Jewish organizations and institutions generally are so afraid of decline and loss that they turn inwards.
The result, however, is that these insular approaches end up ensuring that decline and loss occur.

The reason is that Jews, like other Americans, crave free choice. We are more likely to retain more people because they feel they want to be Jews, not because they have to be.

The Jewish communal response to this expression of religious freedom is locked somewhere in another time or place — Europe and North Africa in the 1700s, for example.

We keep having the same tired discussions about “preventing intermarriage” or “strengthening Jewish identity” or saving the Jews from assimilation with the right kind of, or enough, Jewish education.
We repeatedly respond with rhetoric, ideas and programs in the same orbit — how do we keep Jews in?

Hundreds of years of discrimination, violence and murder take a huge toll. They create a psychology of fear that results in Jewish isolation, a construct of us and them, Jews and enemies.

And with unabashed and straight-faced boldness, as if no one else is listening, we ask how do we keep strangers — meaning all non-Jews — out of our families, out of our synagogues. Out.

We don’t want to be part of the marketplace of religious ideas and practices, thank you. We just want to be left alone to marry each other and keep everybody inside, safe and secure.

This, of course, is an illusion. Still, we fantasize that if we inoculate our young people with enough Jewish education, then they will reject the 98 percent of other Americans they might fall in love with or not be attracted to Zen Buddhism. What nonsense.

We all have seen the numbers to prove that the head in the sand, return to the ghetto and hope that non-Jews will go away strategy is not going to work.

It is time for Jews to join every other group in America and quit obsessing about who is being lost and start acting on who might come in.

Right now it is largely a one-way street because we cling to dangerously obsolete ideas, attitudes and practices about conversion.
We do not welcome people with open arms but rather we stiff-arm.

We still question people’s sincerity — do they really want to be Jewish? We make people jump through hoops.

Yes, of course we need standards and procedures — and to say that making Judaism more accessible means abandoning rules of admission is a straw argument to cover up how suspicious, off-putting and unfriendly we often are to those who want to be part of the Jewish people.

Spiritual seekers are looking for meaning, content and purpose.
Becoming a Jew can be a deeply intellectual and emotional experience, and spiritual seekers are willing to engage in rigorous education about Jewish life, rituals of conversion and rites of passage to become Jews.

Some rabbis do a great job in dealing with potential converts; many do not. Our synagogues often are less welcoming than we think. And our newspapers, sermons and sociological literature are filled with hysterical reprimands and dire predictions about the demise of the Jews that result from non-Jews breaking through our traditional walls.

We have a theology that has no intermediary between the individual and God. We have daily, monthly and yearly rituals that provide guidance and purpose. We have rich liturgy, beautiful prayers, deep roots in Israel, a strong communal system. All appealing.

By being attractive to others, we will also be more attractive to born Jews. What are we afraid of?

Pew tells us that Americans are switching religions like never before. Do we want to enter the competition armed with our wonderful 3,000-year-old history, or kvetch about assimilation, intermarriage and our dwindling numbers?

It is time to embrace the America in which we live. We must abandon the paradigm that our children and grandchildren are potential non-Jews and promote the new belief that America is filled with potential Jews.

Gary Tobin is president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research in San Francisco.