JEWISH SCHOOL CHOICE : PLURALISM OR EXISTENCE? :

Playing the Yeshiva Card : National Review appeals to Jews on school vouchers, but it won't work. (Richard Just, 7/198/02, The American Prospect)

America was the first modern country to offer Jews the opportunity to be secure in their identity while participating fully in an open, democratic, pluralistic society. That is why since 1948, Jews have immigrated to Israel en masse from Europe, Russia, the Arab world and Africa -- but not from America. It's not that American Jews don't support Israel; they do. But America in 1948 was already offering what Zionism was promising: a normal life among nations. And one could argue that America was offering a better version of it: For Zionists, a normal life among nations meant the ability of Israeli Jews collectively to play a role in a pluralistic world, but it still meant living their physical lives primarily among each other. In America, a normal life meant Jewish children going to school and sitting in classrooms alongside Catholics and Protestants, Asian Americans and African Americans.

To be sure, American Jews have always believed that Israel needs to exist; but they also believe that to be Jewish while being fully, unapologetically and patriotically American is to participate in the greatest experiment in pluralism the world has ever known. So yes, there are Jews who would like to shut themselves off from the rest of America and live in places such as Kiryas Joel and Borough Park and send their children exclusively to Jewish day schools. But they mangle the spirit of Judaism as surely as Christians who seek to withdraw from American life mangle the spirit of their own faith. And if National Review and friends think the path to secular Jewish votes lies in lining the pockets of Hasidic schools with taxpayers' money, they should think again: Most Jews are pluralists at heart.

That's why conservatives are going to continue to experience frustration with mainstream Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, both of which oppose vouchers. Leibsohn and Finn lay into these groups, but they fail to understand how deep the American Jewish commitment to pluralism runs. Having Ralph Reed as a temporary ally on Israel may be convenient enough, but that does not undo decades of Jewish experience in America and centuries of Jewish experience in the world. This experience teaches Jews that they benefit from living in pluralistic societies. As a result, they are likely always to see the defense of pluralistic principles as being in their self-interest, broadly defined.

Mr. Just avoids the much deeper and more problematic issue here. He concedes that "American Jews have always believed that Israel needs to exist", but he fails to consider whether they think Judaism needs to exist. That is the question that will face them in the not too distant future.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 18, 2002 9:50 PM