Jewish Lists: What They Say About Us

Jeffrey Goldberg's recent column in Bloomberg, is a very powerful argument for canceling the recent proliferation of media-inspired “Jewish Lists.” This article is a must read. It also got me thinking about what the lists that we create today say about our generation, because lists are a valuable insight into our culture.

Whether we are aware of it, published Jewish lists have been around at least since the sixth century when the scholars and leaders of the Jewish community in exile in Babylonia directed the academies of Sura and Pumbedita. These leaders, collectively called the Geonim, were charged with making hard decisions and protecting the safety and welfare of Jewish communities. As such they worked hard to help keep continuity by making complex law and philosophy more easily understood. The famous scholar Sa'adya Gaon made a list of commandments in the Torah. He was followed by other rabbis, and the Ramban and Ramban both wrote lists identifying what they felt were the exact listing of biblical commandments. Later the Sefer Ha Chinuch made a list of mitzvot, this time with a beautiful explanation of each mitzvah and this is still popular today — eight centuries later.

(And let's not forget the most cherished list, The Ten Commandments.)

More recently, it became popular to make lists of Jews in sports, music, film, writing, Nobel Prize winners and other public Jews who are part of the tapestry of 20th century Jewish life. List making became a new who's who directory of famous Jews. (Even the “Book of Lists ” was written by a Jew.) What these lists have in common is a desire to highlight to the world and the Jewish community itself that we are making a positive contribution to society. We should be proud of our collective contributions to America, for example.

Within the community, it seems another reason for these lists is to inspire our children with Jewish role models — even if some of these Jews were never open or proud of their Jewishness. It seems as if the people making these lists think it will energize a listless Jewish community or perhaps make the community more inviting to any Jew standing on the margins.

Of course there are insidious Jewish lists as Goldberg so eloquently points out, such as the lists put together by Nazis, Communist regimes, other totalitarian regimes, Senator McCarthy's infamous political enemies list, American White Power movements, Islamic radicals — just to name a few.

Recently, popular list making is being scrutinized as doing more harm then good, as pointed out eloquently by Goldberg. There is also