Who's Vanishing?

Assimilation. Conversion. Intermar riage. Secularization. Escapism. To many U.S. Jews, these sociological ab stractions represent a real threat: that American Judaism is dying out. Last week, speaking 6,000 miles apart, two U.S. Jewish leaders strongly argued that it is far too early to write an obituary for Judaism.

In Israel, at the triennial convention of B'nai B'rith, retiring President Label Katz, a New Orleans real estate investor, berated Judaism's contemporary prophets of doom for their hand-wring ing anxiety. The danger of assimilation "persists and grows," he acknowledged, but "it is also profoundly true that Jew ish peoplehood persists and grows. Jew ish life somehow thrives on its own para doxes." Since Judaism is predicated on man's right to be free, said Katz, "I can not concede -- no matter what sets of statistics or failures or problems are set before us -- that Jewish existence, which has survived and flourished in adversity, is to succumb in freedom."

Through Jewish Lenses. It may be that too many U.S. Jews are indolent and unschooled in their spiritual heritage, Katz admitted; nonetheless, the impact of Judaism on U.S. culture is so prevalent that "it is a popular pastime to probe the world through Jewish lenses," typically in a musical like Broadway's Fiddler on the Roof. For proof of Jew ish vitality throughout the world, he cited B'nai B'rith's 26% gain in operating finances since the last convention, and the presence of its educational Hillel Foundation on 253 campuses, with 268 more schools already in line applying for programs.

"The 'vanishing Jew' is a myth," agreed Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assem bly. Speaking at the Catskills' Concord Hotel to the annual convention of Conservative rabbis, Kelman argued that while in prewar Europe Jewish partners in a mixed marriage customarily abandoned their faith, the opposite is true in the U.S. now. Today, he declared, "a large number of non-Jewish part ners are willing and eager to convert to Judaism."

A New Breed. What the U.S. has today is a "new breed" of Jew "who is proud of his Jewishness even when he is vague in his knowledge and definition of what Judaism means to him" --the man who buys Saul Bellow's Herzog and "wants his children to know more about his tradition." The American Jew, said Kelman, has largely abandoned fundamentalism for ecumenism; while he wants more rabbis and religious schools, he also has "reverence for the integrity of those who hold different beliefs and he does not look on those who differ from him as wicked or deficient in character."

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