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July 28, 2006
Talking about identity
Keeping Yiddishkeit alive is a global challenge.
ANNA HAMER
I moved to London from Vancouver a couple of years ago and quickly
concluded that British Jews are definitely different. They don't
appear to use Yiddish at all and no one has heard about Purell (instant
hand sanitizer), either! Recently, an English Jewish friend looked
completely baffled when I asked him if he wanted borscht or blintzes
for lunch. And so it was with a great deal of interest that I shlepped
my way across Regents Park down to the Jewish Museum, a tiny, crooked
building squeezed into the back streets of Camden, to hear three
eminent professors from the United Kingdom, United States and Canada
talk on Jewish identity.
The first speaker was Prof. Jerry Cohen, the Chichele professor
of social and political theory at All Soul's College, Oxford. Known
in academic circles as a proponent of analytical Marxism, he argues
for egalitarianism via the elimination of the injustice of market
exchange.
Cohen admitted to a nonreligious life, but a strong Jewish identity.
He said he feels more Jewish than Canadian, despite growing up in
a Montreal Yiddish communist household. His parents were "militantly
anti-religious." His Ukraine-born mother was from a highly
educated, wealthy family, but, on moving to Montreal, was forced
to work and so became a dressmaker. Apparently, she was very proud
to be considered working class.
Cohen attended Morris Winchevsky, a "left-wing" Jewish
school in Montreal where he learned about secular Jewishness or
Yiddishkeit. Students were instructed in English in the morning
and Yiddish in the afternoons. Yiddish classes included subjects
such as History of Class Struggle and Cohen began to identify with
his own Jewishness via Jewish culture, history, folklore, humor
and art. The school's philosophy was to "emphasize the social
justice element of our tradition," he said, which seemed to
resonate with Cohen's own idea of the Jewish tradition. There was,
he added, a natural fit. While not referring directly to the Jewish
concept of tikkun olam (repairing the world) in the lecture,
he alluded to communist thought as highly congruent with the Jewish
idea of striving towards social justice.
Although Cohen said he "cares a lot about the cultural continuity
between that tribe in Canaan and me," he does not believe that
the secular Jewishness of Yiddishkeit is substainable. In his book,
If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're so Rich?, he writes,
"I am Jewish not because I practise the religion, but because
I descend from the people who practised the religion – the
secular Yiddishkeit in my identity will not last except as an object
of academic attention."
Lewis Elton (born Ludwig Ehrenberg), professor of higher education
at the University of London, concurred with this idea. He commented
that "cultural capital" (thinking and knowledge) defines
Jews, but wondered aloud whether Jewishness might disappear as Jews
become more assimilated and, therefore, less threatened by anti-Semitism.
Although his family fled from Germany to Prague and finally to England
in the years leading up to the Second World War, Elton commented
that he only recalls one personal experience of anti-Semitism. He
explained how a group of Hitler Youth entered his school and demanded
that Jews sit on one side and Aryans on the other. The young Elton
decided to sit on the Aryan side because his best friend was "half
and half" and was sitting on that side. Several members of
the Hitler Youth picked Elton up and moved him to the Jewish side.
In response, Elton's "half and half" friend stood up and
moved too; he decided to identify with the Jewish side.
The third lecturer, Prof. Art Miller, grew up in the Bronx neighborhood
of New York. His casual and slightly tangential speaking style was
instantly distinguishable from his more formal Canadian and European
counterparts and he warned his audience that he would use "non-PC
terms." Although he, too, grew up in a nonreligious family,
he described "a typical Jewish household, full of collections
of old books and a great respect for learning." His mother
gave him "typical Jewish mother advice," such as, "You
got a mouth? Use it!" when he was worried about situations
like getting lost in the big city.
Miller explained that, growing up, it seemed like everyone in New
York was a Jew. Although he played baseball and stickball with some
of the Puerto Rican students, most of his friends and neighbors
were Jewish. He went to synagogue on the High Holy Days but his
family "didn't do Shabbat." When an audience member asked
Miller about his Jewish identity, he referred to his love of ideas
and suggested that not only does being Jewish encourage one to respect
education, but it also teaches one to think critically. Perhaps
unsurprisingly, considering their academic occupations, the other
two speakers echoed this thought.
All three professors identifed themselves as secular Jews. They
did not marry Jewish women and their children were not brought up
as Jews. On the surface, there is nothing unusual about this choice,
but it does seem slightly incongrous that three men who passionately
explain that Jewishness is central to who they are as people should
decide against actively passing this on to the next generation.
Then again, perhaps an implicit teaching of values is unstoppable.
Elton, who firmly supports the idea that "we are People of
the Book," said that his non-Jewish son, author and comic Ben
Elton, is perhaps more Jewish in the way he thinks and writes than
his father.
Anna Hamer is a psychologist and writer based in London.
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