|
|
November 20, 1998/ 1 Kislev 5759, Vol. 51, No. 9
Jews' status in America among issues at symposium
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
Chutzpah personified, Professor Leonard Dinnerstein offered a humorous caricature of the contemporary Jew who has surmounted the "otherness" of past generations and assumed his or her place in modern America.
Chutzpah deconstructed, Professor Jack Kugelmass offered an incisive analysis of Alan Dershowitz's 1991 best seller "Chutzpah" and a scholarly road map for navigating today's complex social and political landscape.
The duo were presenters at a session of a Valley symposium on Jewish cultural intersections Nov. 15-16, sponsored jointly by the Jewish studies programs at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University in conjunction with several other university departments, held at Temple Beth Israel, ASU and the Hillel Jewish Student Center. Dinnerstein is the director of Judaic studies at the UofA; Kugelmass is director of the Jewish Studies Program at ASU.
Drawing on his own evolution from a Jewish youngster growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, when social, educational and professional opportunities were limited by religious identification, to a tenured professor at a major Southwest university with an image of acceptance and legitimacy, Dinnerstein suggested that the perception of a Jew as inside or outside mainstream American society depends upon the age of the observer.
Dinnerstein explained that he grew up "on the cusp," old enough to know the fears and insecurities of his parents and grandparents - in his household, anything said in Yiddish preceded by the word goyisha (gentile) was a negative, he confided - and young enough to be able to surmount the obstacles of religious and cultural discrimination.
"The older the person is, the more likely he or she will believe that the Jew is other, that he is outside the mainstream and that he can't trust gentiles," said Dinnerstein, tracing anti-Semitism back through the ages. He noted that Jews always lived "on the edges of Christian society," and like children with their noses pressed against the window hoping to be invited in, they strived to "do the right things to make them (the gentiles) think well of us."
Clearly, says the professor, using himself as an example, times have changed.
"When I do something people respond to me as an individual, not as a member of a group."
Dinnerstein further bolstered his argument with statistics of Jewish dominance in politics, academia and business. He also turned the skyrocketing intermarriage rate into a positive, suggesting that it is the most compelling evidence of Jewish acceptance.
"People will not intermarry if they think that it will lower their social status," he said.
Kugelmass took up where Dinnerstein left off, delineating the inherent tensions in determining where Jews are situated in society. Using the inside/outside characterization to define the parameters of the discussion, he suggested that Dershowitz offers a road map, or guide to the perplexed as the author called it, to help Jews balance inherent class interests with their larger interests as Americans.
Kugelmass explained how Dershowitz used his own history as context for the discussion, showing how his family gradually moved away from the strict Orthodox practice that defined his great-grandfather's life to the Jewish political consciousness that defines his. It was not an easy passage, noted Kugelmass. Dershowitz confided that the journey from the insular Brooklyn neighborhood of his youth to the elite Ivy League enclave at Harvard University was "almost as traumatic" as his great-grandfather's voyage from Galicia to the lower Eastside of New York.
Yet, suggested Kugelmass, Dershowitz's otherness bolstered his sense of accomplishment and enhanced his sense of entitlement to entree into even the most elite enclaves of power and influence. It also heightened his resolve to use that power for causes that are singularly Jewish.
"Chutzpah," both the book and the characteristic toughness it embraces, is a call to "flaunt rather than mask Jewish difference," said Kugelmass. "It coincides with the emergence of a national, multicultural agenda in which difference is no longer a liability but an asset."
The Monday afternoon presentation featuring Dinnerstein and Kugelmass was titled "Jews in America." Other programs in the two-day symposium, which was open to the public, included a look at Jews in other geographic areas and in the worlds of law, religion, the arts and science. Presenters were drawn from the state's three public universities.
Joel Gereboff, chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at ASU, termed the gathering a success because of the partnering it inspired - both within the university system and with the general community, and the wealth of insights it provided.
"It helped people get a fuller picture of the Jewish experience," he said, enhancing understanding of "how Jewish culture developed in context with other cultures."
The talks on both days were well-attended by university faculty and students, organizers said. Approximately 150 people attended the Sunday sessions at Temple Beth Israel; another 75 participated in the Monday sessions at the Tempe campus and at Hillel.
|
