[NGFP-BookClub] organised religion

[Barry]

It is interesting that I had a similar experience to Aron, although less
colourful and in a different sphere.

I attended a Jewish boarding school in Oxfordshire for five years.
Religious observance was compulsory and part of the curriculum.  We came
mostly from semi observant families following minhag Anglia  but from
all parts of the UK and around the world.  Few of us would have
voluntarily attended a religious service   But services and religious
observance were part of the curriculum.  

It was enforced so strictly (by the non-observant headmaster) that you
would be expelled for example for making a slice of toast or listening
to football on the radio on Saturday.  One group of 18-year-olds were
all caned (well, it was an old-fashioned English public school!) and
then expelled because they sneaked out of school and were caught eating
non kosher chicken at a nearby restaurant.  

The outcome, like in Arons account, was that most of us became less
observant as a result.

But also like Aron's story, we were experiencing Judaism as imposed
rules without any attempt at conveying to us any understanding, love or
ruach of Judaism or Jewish culture.   So I learned that imposing Judaism
without any understanding or any expression of the joy to be found in
it, is a real turnoff and will fail except perhaps when it is imposed
from the outset as in haredi families whose children do not have the
luxury of being able to question.

 

But when I visit Israel, it pains me that in the Jewish state I have to
search to find a kosher restaurant.  It pains me that there are Jews
making pig meat in Israel.  This is the paradox for many in the Diaspora
- we expect the Jewish state to maintain publicly a higher standard of
Judaism than we do at home.  If it doesn't, what is it for in the 21st
century?

It is a state where the non-observant despise the observant for not
taking part in their society and for wanting to intrude into their
lives, and the observant (echoing of Palestinian children and others who
also despise our state) stone the non-observant for Sabbath desecration.
This  doesn't seem to me to represent a state founded on Jewish values.

 

A word about kashrut in public.  Some years ago the Association of
Jewish lawyers of which I was a member was run from Israel by those
whose focus was firmly shoah based seeing that as our common thread, and
who felt that the religious aspect of being 'Jewish' lawyers was
insignificant.   A major rift was caused, which never properly healed,
when delegates arrived at one international conference to discover that
nonkosher food was provided as standard.  Those who wanted kosher were
required to ask for it separately and to sit on their own at a 'ghetto
table' for kosher food eaters at the edge of the room.  The observant
(mainly from outside Israel) felt that this was an unforgivable insult
to them, to their religious beliefs and to the very concept of what we
had in common as Jewish lawyers. The Israelis couldn't understand what
the fuss was about, saying in that laconic Israeli fashion 'You want
kosher - we have given you kosher - sit over there'.

 

The state of Israel could yet be the cause of, if not the demise of
Judaism as we know it, the end of a particular kind of Jew, leaving the
chilonim who have some kind of identity but Judaism is not part of it,
and the ultra orthodox who in their enclaves but who will surely implode
when they become so numerous that the chilonim will refuse to bear any
longer the financial burden of supporting the territories and yeshivot
by their taxes. 

 

I hope that some kind of inclusive Jewish state that we are discussing
will come about one day , but I don't see any signs of it today.

 

 

Barry

 

Barry Abrahamson

Abrahamson & Associates

10 North End Road, London NW11 7PH

barry at abrahamsons.co.uk

Regulated by the Law Society.  Registration Number 48568.  VAT No GB 653
2737 32

 

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