Jewish history is replete with episodes in which enemies of
the Jews circulated, and often acted upon, canards fabricated
from whole cloth against the Jews in their midst.
Those who follow current Jewish events have just witnessed
the latest appearance of a pernicious, contemporary libel,
in, of all places, federal district court in Brooklyn.
The World Union for Progressive Judaism, the international
body of the Reform and Reconstructionist movements, like many
other organizations, has put forth a claim for a share of
restitution monies soon to be paid by a consortium of Swiss
banks.
In its official submission to the special master in the case,
however, the World Union rests its claim, in part, on the
fact that those Holocaust victims who were Liberal Jews
"would certainly have been appalled to see funds deriving
from their losses given to institutions who question their
Jewishness or that of their descendants . . . "
The unambiguous import of that statement is that Orthodox
Jews and Judaism write Reform and Reconstructionist Jews out
of the Jewish people.
Leaders of the liberal movements have had great success with
this accusation in recent years, with hardly a month going by
without a letter-writer or columnist in one or another Jewish
newspaper inveighing against the Orthodox for delegitimizing
some, or all, other Jews. And so, these leaders have decided
to employ this falsehood to support their claim to part of
the Holocaust restitution pie, roiling the until-now
admirably civil tone of the restitution negotiations.
To understand why it is not hyperbole to characterize this
claim about the Orthodox view as a true libel in the
historical sense, one need only consider the three elements
of classical anti-Jewish libels.
First, such canards were utterly, demonstrably, false. It is
nonsense, for example, to assert that Jews would ever use
human blood, or any blood, as an ingredient in their matzos.
And it's no less farcical to suggest that Orthodox Jews, from
the most "modern" to the most chareidi, regard their fellow
Jews -- those either born to a Jewish mother or converted
halachically -- as anything other than fully Jewish.
Rabbi Yaakov Perlow, the Rosh of Agudath Israel,
pleaded with the press to "please print that the following
words were heard at the convention of Agudath Israel: It is
an absolute falsehood that Orthodox Judaism and its
standard-bearers seek to delegitimize other Jews. Every Jew,
whatever his or her persuasion, deserves the love, the
respect and the concern he or she is entitled to as a human
being and as a member of our holy people. No Jew is a second-
class Jew, in Israel or anywhere."
Unfortunately, his words were largely ignored.
Beyond the stated positions of Orthodox leaders, can there be
a more eloquent testimonial to how the Orthodox view their
Jewish brethren than the millions of dollars and tens of
thousands of hours that Orthodox groups and individuals spend
each year to better the physical and spiritual well-being of
Jews of every conceivable stripe around the globe?
A second feature of the historical libel is that its
propagators, ironically, were often themselves guilty of the
very crime of which they accused the Jews.
In the contemporary context too, this aspect is glaring. Non-
Orthodox Jewish leaders have impugned the very Jewishness of
the Orthodox -- while no Orthodox leader has or ever would do
the converse regarding non-Orthodox Jews. There was no
uproar, for instance, when in 1996, Simeon Maslin, then
president of Reform's Central Conference of American Rabbis,
said the following at the annual meeting of America's Reform
rabbis: "Let me make it clear that when I say we, as `we are
the authentic Jews,' I refer to the two great non-Orthodox
synagogue movements of America, Reform and Conservative. My
we . . . does not include those who act and think today as
the Sadducees acted and thought 20 centuries ago."
And the Reform movement has not limited its delegitimization
of other Jews to mere verbiage; since 1983, it has denied the
Jewish status even of any Jew born of a Jewish mother who did
not receive a Jewish upbringing.
The final component of the age-old libel is that it was
designed to capitalize on deep-seated emotions; in the past,
the fear and loathing that a thousand years of anti-Jewish
teachings had planted in the hearts of Europe's Christians.
There is a good deal of Jewish self-doubt among the Reform,
Conservative and Reconstructionist laities, born of rising
assimilation and dwindling levels of religious observance in
those communities. As a result, though Orthodox Jews do not
equate minimal or even total nonobservance with forfeiture
of Jewish status, some non-Orthodox Jews may be all too
willing to believe this to be the Orthodox position.
And so, some members of the heterodox leaderships portray the
Orthodox as self-consumed, hateful caricatures who actually
say about Reform and Conservative Jews the things the latter
fear most to hear. This enables these leaders to energize an
otherwise disinterested laity into supporting their own anti-
Orthodox agenda.
Despite all the similarities between the more recent lies and
the calumnies of yesteryear, however, there is one important
difference, and it is a tragic one: whereas the libels of
yore were the work of visceral enemies of the Jewish people,
the contemporary slander is being perpetrated, sadly, by
fellow Jews.
And that is something that should sadden us all.
Eytan Kobre is a lawyer residing in Queens and part of Am
Echad's pool of writers.
