Posted on 01/25/2005 11:35:24 AM PST by stevejackson
Until the 18th century, there was basically only one kind of Judaism, that which is now called Orthodox. It meant living by the religion's 613 laws, and doing so suffused Jews' lives with their faith. Then, starting with the thinker Baruch Spinoza (1632-77) and moving briskly during the Haskala, or "enlightenment," from the late 18th century, Jews developed a wide variety of alternate interpretations of their religion, most of which diminished the role of faith in their lives and led to a concomitant reduction in Jewish affiliation.
These alternatives and other developments, in particular the Holocaust, caused the ranks of the Orthodox to be reduced to a small minority. Their percentage of the total world Jewish population reached a nadir in the post-World War II era, when it declined to about 5%.
The subsequent 60 years, however, witnessed a resurgence of the Orthodox element. This was, again, due to many factors, especially a tendency among the non-Orthodox to marry non-Jews and have fewer children. Recent figures on America published by the National Jewish Population Survey also point in this direction. The Orthodox proportion of American synagogue members, for example, went from 11% in 1971 to 16% in 1990 to 21% in 2000-01. (In absolute numbers, it bears noting, the American Jewish population went steadily down during these decades.)
Should this trend continue, it is conceivable that the ratio will return to roughly where it was two centuries ago, with the Orthodox again constituting the great majority of Jews. Were that to happen, the non-Orthodox phenomenon could seem in retrospect merely an episode, an interesting, eventful, consequential, and yet doomed search for alternatives, suggesting that living by the law may be essential for maintaining a Jewish identity over the long term.
These demographic thoughts come to mind upon reading a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, "U.S. Haredi Leader Urges Activism," by Uriel Heilman, in which he reports on a "landmark address" in late November 2004 by the executive vice president of Agudath Israel of America, Rabbi Shmuel Bloom. Agudath, an Orthodox organization with a stated mission to "mobilize Torah-loyal Jews for the perpetuation of authentic Judaism," has a membership ranging from clean-shaven men to black-hatted ones (the haredi), from Jews educated in secular universities to full-time, Yiddish speaking students of the Talmud.
Rabbi Bloom told an Agudath audience that Jewish demographic trends imply that American Orthodox Jews can no longer, as in the past, bury themselves in their parochial interests and expect non-Orthodox Jewish institutions to shoulder the major burden of communal responsibilities. Rather, the Orthodox must now join in, or even take over from their non-Orthodox coreligionists such tasks as fighting anti-Semitism, sending funds to Israel, and lobbying the American government. "The things we rely on secular Jews for," he asked, "who's going to do that if the secular community whittles down? We have to broaden our agenda to include things that up until now we've relied upon secular Jews to do."
He exaggerates, in that some Orthodox Jews in America have been prominently involved in both national (think of Senator Joseph Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut) and communal affairs (Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America comes to mind). But he is accurate insofar as Orthodox institutions have generally stayed out of the American fray except to pursue their narrow agenda.
Others in Agudath agree with the need for the Orthodox to broaden their ambitions. The organization's executive vice president for government and public affairs, David Zwiebel, notes that, "With our growing numbers and the maturing of the community and the greater self-confidence that comes with that maturity and those numbers, there's no question that we need to at least recognize that there may be certain responsibilities that now have to shift to our shoulders."
Mr. Heilman understands this intent to assume a greater role in national and Jewish life as "a sign both of the success of the American haredi community in sustaining its numbers and its failure to translate that success into greater influence in the community at large."
It also could portend a much deeper shift in Jewish life in America and beyond, being a leading indicator of Orthodoxy's political coming of age and perhaps even its eventual replacement of non-Orthodox Judaism.
http://netwmd.com/articles/article868.html
And then, on July 27, 1656, Spinoza was issued the harshest writ of cherem, or excommunication, ever pronounced by the Sephardic community of Amsterdam; it was never rescinded. We do not know for certain what Spinoza's "monstrous deeds" and "abominable heresies" were alleged to have been, but an educated guess comes quite easy. No doubt he was giving utterance to just those ideas that would soon appear in his philosophical treatises. In those works, Spinoza denies the immortality of the soul; strongly rejects the notion of a providential God -- the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and claims that the Law was neither literally given by God nor any longer binding on Jews.
Actually, it is possible that if you are orthodox, you may become Christian.
If you want to know the future of Judaism, you only need look to the seventieth week of Daniel, Ezekiel and the book of Revelation.
It was taught to me by a very great teacher that at one time the 'Sadducees' represented a majority of the Jewish population, and at a later time, 'Karaites' represented a majority of the Jewish population.
Of the Sadducees, no one remains. Of the Karaites, the number remaining is in the thousands, and they are irrelevant to Judaism whether or not they are considered Jews.
http://tarkus.pha.jhu.edu/~ethan/jFAQ.html
"...the genetic evidence supports the notion that the Ashkenazim are descended from a small ancestral population...estimated by Risch et al. (1995) to have been as small as several thousand people about 500 years ago..."
If half the Jews alive today come from as few as 5000 Jews as recently as 500 years ago, it does not matter who is currently in the majority or even considered 'normative'. Whose descendents will be Jewishly thriving 500 years from now?
Ron
PS. Although not Jewish, I find it reassureing that there are about 750 Samaritans left.
Not true... the Karites consider themselves Jews -- it's the Orthodox who don't. I went to the Karite museam in Jerusalem a few years ago -- all 1 room of it.
I think you misread my post. Of course the Karaites consider themselves Jews. They are Jews. Its the Rabbinical orthadox who have a problem with them, for the reasons mentioned above. You might also like to know that the Isrealis consider them Jews and they have their own Synagogues in Isreal that they had to fight the orthadox to get built.
There are also a large number of them in the Washington DC area, and also in California. They just don't like to draw attention to themselves, so they usually just say they are Saphardic Jews and leave it at that.
The reason the museum is so small is that most Jews are taught that the Karaites died out centuries ago, but they are still around. I wonder if any religion or branch of religion really ever goes away completely.
read later
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.