Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Ideas, December 2011, p 9-10.

“Authentic? Get Real” read a recent New York Times headline (in the Fashion & Style section). The article highlighted the obsession with authenticity in our popular culture (one example cited Katie Couric claiming, “I think I love to be my authentic self.”) The piece concluded with a snarky critique of the authenticity trend as a highly calculated form of self-presentation more akin to stage management than thoughtful introspection. Whether or not authenticity is authentic, its cultural prominence plays a significant role in the vocabulary and practices of Jewish identity formation. How can we understand the impact of this turn toward authenticity as a mode of self-discovery?

The first thing to realize is that the search for authenticity is not a new phenomenon for American Jews. The Jewish embrace of authenticity reflects a much larger cultural preoccupation with the concept of a shared ancestry that links the individual to a stable origin. Charles Lindholm’s recent book, Culture and Authenticity, explores the emergence of “authenticity” as a touchstone of identity. The search for authentic roots emerged, he argues, in the 19th century. A new concept, authenticity addressed the individual and collective needs sparked by the disruptive economic, social, technological, and political changes that overturned a far more stable and clearly stratified society. With roles transformed, hierarchies rejected, and novel possibilities for social advancement offered, origins became increasingly in doubt and up for grabs. The resulting sense of disorder and status confusion sparked a popular interest in tracing an authentic lineage to bolster individual and collective identities.

American Jews, like other ethnic groups, created a narrative of authenticity rooted in geographic and genealogical origins. The popularity of “Fiddler on the Roof” illustrates the power of this trope. Tevye’s “tradition” emphasizes a geographic origin, ancestral roots, and clear outsider status fueled by antisemitism and persecution. Tradition for the sake of tradition fulfills the need for an authentic lineage. At the same time, a tradition stripped of its content, practice, or beliefs addresses other social needs of immigrant communities. For instance, by focusing primarily on ancestry and not content, Fiddler’s tradition avoids the internal fragmentation that would arise from any attempt to define Jewish identity itself. Plus, identification with the tradition is largely symbolic. Individuals are free to shed those aspects of the tradition that might retard the acculturation process. It thus allows Jews to be clearly different without crossing socio-cultural norms of behavior.

The legacy of authenticity linked to ancestors and a symbolic tradition can still be seen in communal conversations around “continuity” and “intermarriage” (and more recently in the emergence of DNA testing). This emphasis on descent as a road map for both narrating the past and moving toward the future reflects an enduring preoccupation with Jewish authenticity based on genealogical and geographic origins. Jewish identity in the future, this perspective implies, will share this mode of authenticity. The clarity of descent has displaced the ambiguity of Jewish belief and practice as the primary criterion for authentic Jewishness.

As someone whose early identity was shaped by a passionate if off-key performance of “If I Were a Rich Man,” I am sad to acknowledge that changing notions of authenticity may have finally caught up with “Fiddler on the Roof.” The popular concepts of authenticity discussed in The New York Times article eschew inherited criteria (ancestry, geographic roots) that preserve stable individual identities and collective borders. Today’s search for authenticity underscores the need for self-discovery and meaningful engagement with ideas, communities, or practices. What’s deemed authentic, to use Lindholm’s language, has shifted from establishing “origin” to exploring “content.”

What are the implications of today’s modes of authenticity? The shift from “origin” to “content” adds another layer to explaining ongoing shifts in Jewish identity. Individuals shaped by the authenticity of origin feel understandably anxious about the rootlessness and subjectivity brought about by the shift toward content. On the other hand, young adults shaped by an authenticity of content perceive the emphasis on descent as akin to racism. Thus, competing notions of authentic Jewishness contribute to a growing rift in communal values — from collective origin to individual journeys, from affirming historical unity to embracing contemporary diversity, and from a focus on stable boundaries to the recognition of highly porous borders.

A historical perspective on the changing relevance and meaning of authenticity indicates that neither attempt to affirm authenticity is truly authentic. Both origin seekers and content discoverers have adapted two opposing trends in the modern quest for authenticity. Realizing this may help to foster fruitful conversations among various demographic cohorts, each shaped by different cultural expectations of authenticity. Moreover, the shift from origin to content provides fruitful opportunities to engage Jews seeking a greater sense of self-understanding and meaning.

Popular culture has opened a tremendous portal for learning and discovery. The burden is on the Jewish community to take the quest for authenticity seriously without succumbing to culture’s superficial claims or to embracing simplified narratives of an idealized Jewish past.

Although it was the proverbial dark and stormy night, more than 60 people were recently welcomed by congregation president Jessica Dubey toCongregation Kol Shalom’sfirst Current Jewish Issues Forum on Bainbridge Island.

The speaker was Noam Pianko, chair of the University of Washington’s Samuel and Althea Stroum Jewish studies program. He invited his audience to “rethink the American Jewish-Israel relationship.”

Although it was the proverbial dark and stormy night, more than 60 people were recently welcomed by congregation president Jessica Dubey toCongregation Kol Shalom’s first Current Jewish Issues Forum on Bainbridge Island.

The speaker was Noam Pianko, chair of the University of Washington’s Samuel and Althea Stroum Jewish studies program. He invited his audience to “rethink the American Jewish-Israel relationship.”

Identification with Israel

Pianko’s theme related primarily to the role Israel plays in the world view of American Jews, beginning with a generation whose identification with Israel is closely associated with defining events, such as its creation as a modern state in 1948 and the Six Day War in 1967.

For these American Jews, he said, Israel was associated with:

• The concept of a safe haven for Jews.
• Morality, as American values seemed reflected in Israeli values.
• A repository of Jewish culture that would ensure its survival.

Younger generations see it differently

But the younger generations of American Jews are showing a lower degree of attachment to Israel, mounting indifference, and in some instances genuine alienation, Pianko said. Theories on this change includeobservations that the younger generation is becoming too assimilated, that young people find local issues more meaningful than global issues, and that information concerning Israel often comes from sources that are neither objective nor sympathetic to Israel.

Pianko’s view of the current decline in young American Jews’ identification with Israel adds some important nuances.

First, young Jews are the product of a more inclusive, less threatening society which mitigates, in their minds, the dangers of being Jewish. In addition, Israeli issues such as the Law of Return, which defines Jewishness as being of Jewish blood, and the powerful Orthodox rabbinate’s demand for more religious laws affecting civil rights, are in conflict with the more inclusive world view of younger Jews. Finally, the programs and information that seek to help young Jews identify with Israel are lacking in a focus on real Israeli issues related to Israeli Arabs as well as Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Final thoughts

Pianko’s final thoughts about a new direction for Israeli-American Jewish relations would require addressing the tensions in Israel, dealing with Israel as a real place with real problems. He also believes there should be reciprocal programs to associate young Israelis with current American Jewish culture and attitudes. ■

The Current Jewish Issues Forum will meet every third Thursday through May at Congregation Kol Shalom with speakers and Israeli films, followed by moderated discussions. On Dec. 15, Joseph Honick will present “The Perseverance of Yiddish Songs in American Life,” accompanied by pianist Jeremy Dupea.

Photos by Hilary Goldblatt

This current issue of the Jewish Review of Books contains a review essay that includes Zionism and the Road’s Not Taken. You can read the review at http://www.jewishreviewofbooks.com/about_us/login.asp?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jewishreviewofbooks.com%2Fpublications%2Fdetail%2Fstate-and-counterstate

Here are some snippets:

“[David] Myers and Pianko are learned historians and deeply committed Jews who write with their people’s best interests at heart and deserve our careful attention. Both of the have written books that make major contributions to our knowledge yet leave important questions hanging.”

“The Jews of the diaspora and Israel alike, Pianko believes, need to acquire a new consciousness of themselves as equal members of a nation without borders.”

“This not to deny, however, that te problems to which Pianko points are real, and that significant number of diaspora Jews feel somewhat estrange from a Jewish stat that permanently relegates them to second-class membershp in the Jewish people. If Pianko’s book alerts Zionists who are by no means ‘counterstate’ to the dangers posed by this situation and motivates them to think creatively about them, it will have performed a useful service.”

Download the full review.

Here is a brief blurb–you can read the entire article on the Sh’ma website.

Recently, I have been interested in the resurgent popularity of the term “Jewish peoplehood” as a new buzzword for evaluating Jewish identity. To get a better sense of the trend, I have had Google send me a daily alert with a link to every new Web reference to the term. The alerts I’ve received in the past year indicate a highly ambiguous term referenced in a broad range of contexts. However, most references can be linked to three broad assumptions: concerns about eroding Jewish boundaries, support for the state of Israel, and affirmation of a shared basis of Jewish identity across diverse practices, geographies, and worldviews.

Given these assumptions, it is absolutely no surprise to me that young Jews immersed in what Shaul Magid describes (using a term popularized by the American historian David Hollinger) as “post-ethnic,” find the term highly irrelevant, and even morally suspect. The crux of post-ethnic thinking — the rejection of “the idea that descent is destiny” — strikes a significant blow to the centrality of familial ties in defining Jewish boundaries.1 Post-ethnic logic forces individuals to choose between two mutually exclusive approaches toward thinking about group identity: an inherently problematic interest in preserving ties grounded in blood, territory, and essentialist claims; or a more progressive desire to create communities that reject birth as the primary criterion for inclusion. Conceptions of Jewishness linked to inherited group boundaries, nationalism, and essential characteristics associate Jewish boundaries with those of the first option. This association leaves the connotations associated with Jewish peoplehood increasingly out of sync with the moral, cultural, and social ideals of American liberalism.

Did Kohn Believe in the “Kohn Dichotomy”? Reconsidering Kohn’s Journey from

Leo Beack Institute Yearbook (2010) 55(1): 295-311

The recent reprinting of Hans Kohn’s classic 1944 study The Idea of Nationalism: A Study in Its Origins and Background (2005) reflects renewed interest among scholars of nationalism in the man regarded as one of the founders of the field. In his introduction to this re-publication, sociologist Craig Calhoun explains Kohn’s enduring import as the “most influential source of both the opposition of civic and ethnic nationalism and of its association with a parallel opposition between Western and Eastern varieties of modernity”. 2 This dichotomy distinguishes two typologies of nationalism: one grounded in familial, natural and territorial ties and the second based on shared commitment to rational, humanistic and liberal principles. The two paths in modern nationalism reflect mutually exclusive choices in constructing collective identity—descent versus consent, cultural ties versus political citizenship, and group recognition versus individual equality.

Reviving the ‘Kohn dichotomy’ speaks to a pressing need today. Following the end of the Cold War, ethnic nationalisms are often perceived as posing a tremendous threat to individual rights and humanistic principles. Racial identity, religious commitments and national chauvinism increasingly challenge the hegemony of civic and universal principles of citizenship and democracy. By theorizing a ‘liberal nationalism’ Kohn shifted the meaning, function and teleology of nationalism from an emphasis on particular, cultural and even racial concerns to a force engendering greater degrees of human integration and co-existence. 3 Kohn’s theoretical opposition between ethnic and civic typologies thus offers a non-exclusivist, pluralistic and rational counter-narrative of national identity. Western nationalism, the implied telos of Kohn’s historical trajectory, reconciles nationalism and liberalism by neutralizing the particularism of ethnic ties and instead defining nationalism as the historical carrier of liberal ideals.

There is one problem, however, with rehabilitating Kohn’s work to reinforce the binary distinction between competing typologies of nationalism. Kohn, I argue in

Click here for the full article available …