Family ties

YORAM SYMONS – Melbourne has an official (Census 2006) population of 41,000 Jewish people – a moderate number compared to other ethnic groups in Australia, a minnow in comparison with other Jewish communities across the globe. Yet this small bunch can boast over 160 officially constituted Jewish organizations including:

Nine schools that consistently post in the top five for VCE scores in the State, 54 shuls representing ideologies, cultures, age-groups and suburbs, 32 Zionist groups, 12 care and welfare organisations, 44 other entities including religious infrastructure, government liaison, political lobbying, security, libraries, museums, media channels, an entire university department and a Glick’s in Southland.

And that’s just officially. Once you include the businesses, commerce groups, retail operations, property portfolios, social networks, shiurim and singles groups the energy and vibrancy of this community is, even by Jewish standards, off the charts.

Now, chances are that if you’re reading this article here in The AJN then you are directly involved in at least one of these organizations and indirectly involved in about five! If you are reading this article then you are partly responsible for all that energy and vibrancy.  You are one of the community’s bright stars.

So guys – what the hell is going on?

Why was there a tombstone on the front page of the newspaper of the most vibrant community in the Diaspora? Why did the most important and respected research of its kind tell us that despite all of our exuberant Jewishness, the community is beginning to show preliminary, yet unmistakable, signs of failure. Why do you, the involved and engaged members of this community, think your community is doomed?

Some of you will say it isn’t. The future is bright. It’s just fear-mongering. But most of you aren’t that naïve. Some believe that the gravity of modernity is naturally and irresistibly eroding traditional identity. Others feel we are sinning against God, desecrating his Torah; and that the eradication of Jewish identity from our descendants is the karmic consequence of collective neglect. Others will say that God doesn’t care and others will say nothing at all. In short, every Jew will have his answer and every Jew will stubbornly refute everyone else.

So given that you are generally pre-disposed not to agree with me, let me advance one single idea of my own as to what is actually going on in this community in which I grew up.

It is not Judaism, or any of the myriad sub streams, that are failing. Nor is it the particular beliefs, practices or lack thereof of any individuals. These are but symptoms of a deeper disorder. The Melbourne Jewish Community is not a religion or an ideology or a stream, those are things all of us have, but they are not what we collectively are.

What the Melbourne Jewish Community actually is – is one, big, extended family. That’s right, a family. From the Adass to the Bund, from Friends of Likud to Friends of Meretz, from the Sasson Yehuda Sephardic Synagogue to the Association of Katzetlers Partisans and Fighters – we are one, big, extended family. But before you start getting warm feelings of sentimental fuzziness punctuated by emotional refrains of My Yiddishe Mama let me add one extremely important caveat – we are a dysfunctional family. Highly dysfunctional.

We fight, squabble, hold grudges, play mind games, harbor jealousies, come with agendas, plot against each other, hide things, hold back, steal credit, guard fiefdoms and sometimes even refuse to acknowledge each other’s right to existence – and we are all related!

This is what’s crazy. We are now gripped with fear that the cold and mechanical historical process of assimilation will wear us down and wipe us out. Yet we can barely sit around a table and not have it degenerate into a farcical screaming match worthy of the most ostentatious episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

If the family is to survive then it has to start thinking like a family and acting like a family. And here is one simple place to start – not at the governance level or the organizational level or the funding level, but at the personal level.

Conduct a brief survey on yourself, a survey that would go something like this: Which denomination, sect, sub-group, cultural breakdown or ideology of Judaism do I feel that I most subscribe to? (Answers here could include Orthodox Jew, Traditional Jew, Mt Scopus Jew, South Caulfield Jew, Russian Jew, Progressive Jew, BRW 200 Jew, Lubuvitcher Jew or you-know–just-a-regular-Jew-nothing-fancy-leave-me-alone-already-Jew!) How many people in my close friendship circle identify in the same or a highly similar way?
How many people in my extended friendship circle identify in the same or a highly similar way? Do I have any real, actual friends who are Jewish yet hold genuinely and substantially different ideas and practices to my own?

Well each of you will answer question number one slightly differently – but I am going to go out on a limb and guess that most of you will answer the following three questions something like this:

1. Almost all.
2. Most.
3. Not many.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem right there. The family is divided and generally incommunicado with itself.

So now let’s play a new game. Let’s accept the premise of this argument (even if you don’t, it’s just a game so you only need to pretend that you do) and move on to the fun part. And that’s right, it’s another self-survey question:

What can I do to become friends with another Jewish person who is totally outside my usual comfort zone, for the sole purpose of seeing whether or not building friendship bridges across the community might have some value?

Answers here could include: Attending a shul I have never attended before; going to an event that is put on by an organisation that isn’t really my cup of tea; calling that one friend on the ideological fringe of my personal social network and going out for coffee with them; writing a comment at the end of this piece outlining a better and more effective way of doing this than any of the above.

So to leave off, yes assimilation is a problem. And yes, if nothing is done it will get worse. But the family has been through worse and has still pulled through. We are a good family, a strong family, a family that will, when the chips are down, fight for each other and even die for each other. But let’s not wait for the chips to fall down before we realize the one truth that all Jewish people can agree upon.

Family is not the most important thing. Family is everything!