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I need the Not this Stuff Again guy, on Rosh Hashana too.

The Jacoby quote at the end gets the closest to nailing it. The comfort of secular life, moral equality, evil is guns and global warming.

But as I always do, on the micro, I answer this question like this: each liberal Jew (Jew Lite - they eat bacon and shrimp, they don’t go to synagogue, they love bagels and kugel and a few Yiddish words and call it a day) is kept on the reservation by their friends and relatives. They are brutal if you stray. There is biting sarcasm and ostracism. Pointed, horrible questions like “Are you a racist?” Etc at family gatherings. The pressure to conform to the group is INSANE. And that’s is the real reason.

Liberal Jews look down on the Orthodox. If one of their own lackadaisical Jewish relatives starts to become more shomer Shabbat, more religious, they start to belittle and shun. They want people like them around. It’s like beer drinkers when one of them starts to avoid alcohol. The Jew trying to be Jewish makes them feel bad about their bacon cheeseburgers!

Trust me, I know. I’ve been “that Jew.” It is so difficult to come out of the closet in that community. I’m about to go to services at a new liberal synagogue here where we have moved. And only because my child goes to their preschool am I a member. The preschool is awesome. But no one there knows I am a - gasp - Trump supporter. And they would all change their feeling aBout me should it be known. And even I, who am bold on many occasions, am feeling like maybe I just don’t want to get into any discussions on politics and be put in the category of evil racist. Maybe I just don’t need those looks, that ostracism right now. It’s hard.

I know black and Latino conservatives go through the same damn thing.

Hoping today the rabbi won’t say anything cringeworthy re politics. I sure miss Dennis’s Prager’s High Holiday services (though he is 100% apolitical at them, you know at least he is a conservative) but being a member here, we have to $ave. High Holiday tickets are expensive.

“I’m about to go to services at a new liberal synagogue here where we have moved. And only because my child goes to their preschool am I a member. The preschool is awesome.”

Choose a different preschool. Don’t be shortsighted. That “awesome” preschool will indoctrinate your child in many subtle and not so subtle ways to believe just the things you say you’ve outgrown and want to avoid. What are you thinking, gal? Shop around. Drive a little farther to the next town. Unless you’re living in some really remote place, you’ll find preschools that share and reinforce your values. Children are like sponges. You’re smart to have realized the state of affairs. Act accordingly.