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Pag* Savwi
Friday, Sept. 5, 1969
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AMERICAN NEWS REPORT .... by Ben Gallob
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Student Activists Seeking
To Create a ‘New Judaism’
A Yale University graduate ha*
reported that a “new Judaism"
which is “activist-oriented and
communal, rather than middle-
class and congregational,” is being
created in many parts of the
United States by young American
Jews disenchanted with the
Jewish “Establishment” but de
termined to find life-styles within
a Jewisl^framework.
The report was made by James
A. Sleeper, in an article in the
current issue of “Conservative
Judaism,” published by the Rab
binical Assembly, the associa
tion of Conservative rabbis, and
the Jewish Theological Seminary
of America, the Conservative
school. The report is believed to
be the first in an official publi
cation of a major Establishment
organization on the growing num
ber of efforts toy such young
Jews to create their own groups,
some of them religiously-ground
ed, some entirely secular but all
repudiating ties to the organized
Jewish community.
Mr. Sleeper, who himself is or.e
cf the Jewish activists, said the
widespread discontent and exper
imentation among American col
lege activists in search of new
life-styles as adults has not found
its way into the Jewish commun
ity because “thus far Judaism
offers no help whatsoever to
young people struggling along
the new frontier of human re
lations and self-development.”
He declared that “if we use the
term ‘rabbi’ in its best sense as
‘teacher,’ than it is perhaps
Rabbi Eugene McCarthy, Rabbi
Herbert Marcuse and Rabbi Wil
liam Sloane Coffin, who guide
the young most effectively, and
even they not very well; young
people l'.ave had to find lew di
rections for themselves. If we
speak of prayer and its goals,
then rock and other music has
replaced liturgy and text; the ex
perimental basis and gut feel
ing of the maxim ‘love thy neigh
bor as thyself’ may be generated
more effectively for youth by a
Jefferson Airplane love song. If
we speak of priorities, it is the
Cathedral of St. John the Di
vine—and not the modem syn
agogue —which decided to leave
its million-dollar bell tower un
completed, scaffolding and all,
as a symbol of the anguish of
the slums, and which proceeded
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to convert its status dollars into
soul-saving dollars.”
He asserted that college stu
dents were disillusioned with
college but “they stay in college
and struggle for reform there be
cause college has potential and
is crucial for societal change”
end they protest “in the political
arena because America is full of
potential and is crucial for the
future of man. But when it comes
to the Jewish community, they
shrug their shoulders and walk
away” because that community
has become so identified with the
status quo “that it is indisting
uishable from it.”
Asserting that an institution or
a religion “which cannot attract
the strongest energies and stir the
deepest emotions of its finest
youth is bankrupt of future purp
ose and doomed to extinction,” he
declared that “unfortunately, Ju
daism has become too much a
part of the old society that youth
is trying to change, for it to speak
to its young people.”
The “new Judaism,” he report
ed, has its roots in urban centers
and seminaries where young
rabbis and Jewish educators, he
added, have created summer
camps, youth movements, experi
mental schools and have “infused
them with deep personal involve
ment and love.” These new in
stitutions, he asserted, have pro
claimed "that one who accepts
the fact of his Jewishness with
out embarrassment holds the key
to a vast reservoir of treasures
providing self-identity, moral im
peratives for social involvement,
a new language of esthetics and a
set of historical symbols.”
Under this influence, he re
ported, “many young Jews have
become aware of Judaism’s rel
evance tx> the struggles of youth.
At places like the Ramah camps,”
which are sponsored by Conserv
ative Judaism, “the potentially
alienated high school and social
drop-outs were exposed to a sense
of warmth and community which
drew them out and gave them
new relationships and ideas.
Today, on college campuses in
the East, a small number of Jew
ish youth have created exciting
alternatives to the drab, nation
ally-funded Jewish organiza
tions.” He added that this “new
Judaism” probably will not bring
its members back to “the empty
suburban temples,” but rather,
if it succeeds at all, “will chan
nel them into new and vibrant
urban Jewish communities, near
academic centers and near cen
ters of social change and strug
gle.”
He reported that “one of these
communities, composed of Ramah
Camp ‘veterans,’ is strung loose
ly between Philadelphia and Bos
ton. A magazine called ‘Response’
is published by some of the stu
dents. It is the only college-age
Jewish publication of national
scope, enjoying a circulation of
seven to eight thousand.”
Mr. Sleeper, who is an editor
of “Response," reported also that
“in Cambridge, a community
seminary offers studies and ex
perimentation in Jewish ritual to
graduate students. In Great
Neck, New York, a Hebrew High
School meeting in the late after
noons and evenings attracts over
200 high school students who
find Jewish studies more vital
and interesting than their public
school classes. It too is run by
members of the loose ‘commun
ity.’ An activist group of Jewish
college youth has been formed in
Philadelphia.” He added that
many of these college students
formed “the backbone of the
Ramah Camps’ staff, are youth
group advisors and fill other in
dispensable educational positions
upon which the future of Amer
ican Judaism Depends.”
Other groups whose existence
has been reported in recent
months include Concerned Jewish
Youth in Los Angeles, the Jew
ish Liberation Project in New
York, Havurah in New York and
the Radical Jewish Union at Co
lumbia University.
Mr. Sleeper declared that, as
with student movements in the
general society, the future of the
new outlook in Judaism being
created by student activists “will
depend on whether it Is opposed,
ignored or supported by the rest”
of the American Jewish society.
He predicted that “its develop
ment will help to determine
whether the American Jewish
community will vanish or whether
Judaism will become a vehicle
through which young people can
create a new society and find
meaning and happiness within
themselves” as Jews.
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