Liberal Strains

The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society staged a national “summit” a few weeks back to discuss the latest crisis in Jewish refugee relief. The problem: not enough Jewish refugees.

It’s no joke. A decade ago, when 40,000 Russian Jews were arriving annually, a huge national infrastructure arose to care for them. Last year fewer than 8,000 came. The 1999 numbers are even lower. The question is, what to do with the bureaucracy?

Simple enough, you’d think. Axe the dead wood. Find the bureaucrats new jobs. Leave a skeleton crew to handle stragglers. Spend the money on Jewish schools or senior care.

HIAS, of course, hasn’t taken this tack. No surprise there. Jewish organizations don’t usually vote themselves out of a job.

Nonetheless, there was a surprise in store for summit attendees: a parade of non-Jews, all begging HIAS to stay in business. They came from the evangelical Christian community, from the Washington-based National Immigration Forum, from the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Each offered the same plea: The Jewish community must stay involved in immigration work. Help the Kosovars, help the Vietnamese, do more for Russian Jews — just stay in the game. If you don’t, neither will America.

It’s a startling thought. Jews aren’t accustomed to being courted for their group influence, at least not so openly. Jewish community priorities usually get debated in a vacuum. Others’ needs seldom enter in the mix. HIAS’s visitors reminded their listeners that Jews live in society, that others depend on us. It makes you think.

Jewish clout wasn’t born overnight. Fifty years of prodigious community activism — for Israel, Soviet Jewry, immigrant aid, civil rights, religious freedom — made the organized Jewish community a powerhouse in American public life. A network of allies now looks to it for support. Right now, many of those allies are worried. They sense in the Jewish community a troubling trend toward disengagement. At the peak of success, they fear Jews are getting bored and walking away.

The alarms come from immigration lobbyists, Catholic bishops and black lawmakers along with Jewish activists. They point to subtle trends. Fewer Jewish organizations get involved in coalition work. Those that are involved bring less clout to the table. Within the Jewish community, talk of social justice is increasingly crowded out by spiritual rhetoric. The reasons aren’t hard to find. First, Jews don’t feel as persecuted as they once did, so they’re less likely to identify with the downtrodden. Growing numbers of Jews, especially younger ones, want their Judaism to provide spiritual comfort and personal growth, not political messages. Rabbis and community leaders, terrified of intermarriage, are only too happy to oblige. Jewish conservatives, an increasingly vocal minority, encourage this disengagement as a way to neutralize Jewish liberalism. Community policy follows suit. Budgets and programs are tilted toward cultivating the inner Jew. Young Jews can now grow up without ever hearing the old Jewish social message. Even when they do, it’s often a shrunken liberalism of food drives and adopt-a-village. The drive for social change, which once propelled the Jewish community to the center of the public arena, is a fading memory.

Not that young Jews are no longer liberal. Polls show that hasn’t changed. They just don’t see a connection anymore between liberalism and Judaism. All these forces — affluence, conservatism, spirituality — came together this summer in a dramatic confrontation that isn’t over yet. It started when America’s two biggest Jewish welfare federations decided to clip the wings of a small Jewish agency devoted to Jewish social activism. The agency is the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, or JCPA. It’s a tiny outfit that helps other Jewish organizations coordinate their policies on public affairs. Its members include a dozen of the nation’s biggest Jewish groups, from the Anti-Defamation League to Hadassah to the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform synagogue unions, plus 120 local Jewish federations and community councils. Just getting all those players to sit together ought to be worth a prize.

Years ago, the council played a central role in the Jewish community’s biggest battles. It oversaw the drive for civil rights laws, led efforts to ban school prayer and launched the Soviet Jewry movement. Its members still issue a joint platform every year, voicing consensus on everything from Israel to abortion to health care and the environment.

But the New York and Chicago Jewish federations, which together contribute about 30 percent of JCPA’s budget, don’t see the point anymore. Last summer they wrote to the council demanding that it reorder its agenda. They want its work limited to a few issues they consider “germane.” The council isn’t going along.

On Oct. 18, leaders from both sides met in New York to narrow differences. It didn’t go well. JCPA Director Lawrence Rubin insisted any member can influence decisions by speaking up at meetings. Federation leaders, most of them millionaire tycoons, say they can’t spend endless hours at JCPA’s gabfests.

New York federation President James Tisch asked why he can’t simply wield a veto over JCPA decisions, as the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform movements do. JCPA leaders said the veto lets religious movements protect the integrity of their most sacred beliefs. “Do you equate your personal opinions with religious law?” one council leader asked Tisch. “As long as I pay the bills I do,” Tisch replied.

It’s tempting to make Tisch the bad guy here, but he’s not. Those who know him say he’s a decent fellow, genuinely committed to Jewish life. He says his request for veto power was “just hypothetical.”

No, what drives Tisch is the same thing driving community leaders nationwide. They want the community’s resources focused on Jewish needs. They don’t think that includes the environment or abortion rights. They want to maintain essential community services, like elder care and Jewish rescue. Everything else should go to ensure Jewish identity in the next generation.

It’s a curious message to the young, though: Get involved in Judaism. It has nothing to say about the things you believe in. Fortunately, it’s not just up to the leaders. Federations have a national organization, the United Jewish Communities, through which they make joint decisions. It’s only six months old, though. Nobody’s sure how it works. But we’re about to find out. Its first General Assembly opens next week in Atlanta. It’s the right place to start talking about these things.

J.J. Goldberg writes a weekly column for the Jewish Journal.