The future of Diaspora Jewry

Book review by Rabbi Raymond Apple

RABBI Dr Yehoshua Kemelman’s book, Diaspora is Jewry’s Graveyard, is powerful stuff. First published in Hebrew in 2003 by the World Zionist Organisation, the material has been expanded for this English edition. The author’s message, not unknown to antipodean Jewry from his Australian sermons and speeches, is that the Diaspora is shrinking and unless more Jews come to Israel, the Jewish people will be almost halved by mid-century.

The statistics he quotes suggest that contrary to what was predicted — that there would be 11 million Jews in America today — 70 per cent of American Jewish youth “has no tie to Judaism” and the situation is even worse in other places. In Sydney he estimates mixed marriage at 40 per cent and in Melbourne 25 per cent.

He quotes cases from The Central Synagogue in Sydney, in which Holocaust survivor parents were shocked at their children’s abandonment of their Jewish heritage, though some youngsters complained that their parents themselves were less interested in Judaism than in making money. Around 60 per cent of Jewish children attend Jewish day schools but are hardly ever seen in synagogue. Australia and other communities welcomed Jews from the former Soviet Union, but these Jews are now “in an advanced process of spiritual and national eradication”.

After the Holocaust, says Rabbi Kemelman, we said, “Never again!”, but we did not heed our own words. We opened ourselves to an “epidemic of spiritual loss of identity and biological assimilation … The Diaspora Jews are dancing upon the Titanic, while the Jews of Israel who take care not to offend the pride of Uncle Sam, appear as if applauding them”. The Jewish leadership is deafeningly silent, believing that doomsday will never come and we need no strategy to save Jewish souls. He believes that no “Jew in Diaspora lands exists who is able to rise and state assuredly that his grandchild, and certainly not his great-grandchild, will be Jews”. There are Jewish schools, but “the home ruins what the school aspires to repair”.

The author’s prescription is to bring the Jewish people to Israel. He quotes the talmudic statement that living in the land is equivalent to observing all the biblical precepts. Realising that some will say that this is pure dreaming, Rabbi Kemelman comments that living in Israel “would preserve the Jew and enable and inspire him to observe all the other commandments of the Torah”. Since “the Jew who dwells in the State of Israel benefits from full Jewish existence”, he wonders why religious Jews in particular “continue to live in exile, when the gates of the Land of Israel are wide open for them”. The rabbis are shepherds who lead the people astray, when they should be urging aliyah and accompanying the olim.

To his credit, Rabbi Kemelman has always emphasised the positive aspects of Israel. In fact, he points out that when he addressed United Israel Appeal meetings, the campaign organisers criticised him for being too optimistic. Whether they are right or not, the fact is that Rabbi Kemelman refuses to be anything but a optimist about Israel, but his book does not properly address Israel’s failures when it comes to the propagation of Judaism. Nor does it fully acknowledge the positive sides of the Diaspora picture: surely not everything in the Diaspora is bad for Judaism. Nonetheless, he has a valid point when he urges the establishment of a Va’ad Hatzalah, a Jewish Rescue Council, charged with the duty “to lay out the complete picture before our fellow Jews” and to go on the offensive to save Judaism both demographically and spiritually.

Despite its forceful language, sections of the book could have done with some editing. But despite some linguistic and even typographical failings, the book ought to be thoroughly read and digested.

Emeritus rabbi of The Great Synagogue, Sydney, Rabbi Raymond Apple currently resides in Jerusalem.