Jewish Historian Warns US Jews Must Confront Their Identity Crisis; Women Seek Greater Role in Refor

A leading Jewish historian warned here that American Jews must confront the unique identity crisis created by their increasing role in the nation’s service and knowledge oriented economy or face an even more massive defection and attrition. Dr. Ellis Rivkin, historian of the Hebrew Union College-Institute of Jewish Religion in Cincinnati, told the 3,000 delegates at the 51st biennial General Assembly of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations that although each of Judaism’s three main branches–Reform, Conservative and Orthodox–claim a million or so communicants, some 2,8 million persons of Jewish background are relatively remote from their religious cultural and ethnic antecedents.

Such "post-industrial economy" Jews are involved in major merchandising, banking, insurance, professions, computerization, and they have a high quotient of "individuality," he said. Dr. Rivkin observed that gravitation to these areas of personal and professional involvement are inevitable among Jews whose college and university preparation is at a peak of some 80 percent, virtually double that of the non-Jewish population.

America’s post-industrial phenomenon and the high level involvement of the Jewish sector has created special identity problems for Jews whose organizations and synagogues have not developed a realistic "post-ethnic" program to match the changed situation, according to Dr. Rivkin.

Instead of remaining geared to the out-of-date belief that the drifting Jew must "return" to the synagogue, Dr. Rivkin suggested the synagogue must "listen to the highly individualistic Jew, the defecting Jewish youth, in terms of the new situation, in order to convince him that Judaism still holds values for the new self-developing individual" who feels he no longer needs "labels." The Jew in America, like the national economy, is ready to "go global" and stop relying upon narrower, though once necessary, attitudes that confronted the ghetto or ostracized ethnic Jew, Dr. Rivkin asserted.

At another session of the five-day assembly which ended yesterday, demands were voiced for greater participation by women in the decision making problems confronting American Reform Judaism. Mrs. Norma Levitt, president of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, told delegates that "women were already using their talents and initiative carrying on activities of the congregation, adult education, youth, community affairs." She added, "They are not being utilized commensurate with the use of their talents and numerical strength.

Mrs. Levitt, of Great Neck, New York, estimated that there are 250,000 women among the one million Reform Jewish members. She said, "We need all the help available to cope with such issues as the disaffection of our children, restoring a Jewish identity and returning the synagogues as the center of Jewish life." Earlier this year a special committee of the UAHC’s Board of Trustees rejected a proposal for a minimum of 25 percent women representation but agreed to intensify and search for qualified female leaders. At the present time two women serve on a Board of 160. Three additional women were named to the Board at the convention.

Mrs. Calvin Weiskopf, Chicago, chairman of the Reform Federation’s Education Committee, expressed amazement that such conditions could exist in the liberally oriented branch of Judaism where Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the late founder of the principal institutions of Reform Judaism fought to assure that women play an equal role in religious services. She said, "We permit women to sit on the bima, read from the torah and open the ark doors, and are even ordaining our first woman rabbi in June of 1972, yet we still respond in Orthodox fashion towards the feminine leadership role."

Jane Evans, New York City, executive director of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, observed that both the secular and religious educational systems build a "male dominated society from early childhood." Miss Evans called attention to "textbooks in the public schools portraying the non-equal position of the girl, starting with the nursery age, and the religious school books, which despite the biblical books of Ruth and Esther glorify the masculinity of Bible figures."

Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler, vice-president of the UAHC, conceded, "the balance has been wrong," and promised that the Union would engage in an intensive search not only for new qualified feminine leadership but young men and women.