The following is a transcript of Episode 64 of the Identity/Crisis podcast. Note: This is a lightly edited transcript of a conversation, please excuse any errors.

Talia Graff:
Hello, and welcome to Identity Crisis, a show about news and ideas from the Shalom Hartman Institute. My name is Talia Graff, and I’m the director of programs at Hartman. Yehuda is away this week. And so today’s episode is brought to you from one of the programs that we ran a few weeks ago as part of our summer of learning. For this conversation. Elana Stein Hain,, director of faculty and Mijal Bitton, scholar in residence sat down to talk about the most recent Pew study and the future of American Jewish life. For today’s episode, we’re featuring an edited version of that conversation.

Elana Stein Hain:
So I want to start by using some of your expertise. Start us off with the following: What’s the difference between the findings and not just the findings, but even the questions, in Pew 2020 and Pew 2013. And one of the reasons I ask this is because I feel like Pew 2013 is like a firestorm and there were so many conversations about it, public forum and Pew 2020, just sort of it landed. And there have been a few conversations, but not too many. So what are the differences? What are we looking at here?

Mijal Bitton:
Yeah, it’s important to note that pew which was released in 2021, but reflects data collected in 2020, that there’s some differences, some similarities to pew 2013, the methodology changed a little bit from random digit dial to address web sampling. And there were some questions that weren’t present in Pew 2013 that were actually new in Pew 2020. So for example, there were new questions about anti-Semitism. There were new questions about how Jews feel towards other Jews or towards belonging to the Jewish people. There were new questions about like different cultural activities that Jews do. There were new questions about politics, reflecting the Trump years and different political shifts in the American Jewish community. There were new questions around race and ethnicity and like a whole richer and thicker understanding of the diversity in our communities. But Elana like you, you know, when pew came out, it was really interesting because I have no idea how you experienced this. I would love to hear your perspective, but in my world of like sociologists, there was so much hype before this last pew came out and there was so much excitement and anticipation. And there were also people almost like gearing up for battle, like remembering with Pew 2013 was like, I don’t know if you remember that, but there was like, you know, so many debates and so many, almost like different themes of interpretation. And there were people gearing up for rigorous debate. And the way that I experienced it was that actually that hype didn’t fully live up to it, when actually the results came out. There was like you said, almost like silence in the sense that there wasn’t really much rigorous debate or even disagreement over to understand or interpret certain data points from pew. Now I’ve actually been thinking about this for some time and I’ve been trying to diagnose the different receptions. Why was there such a loud reception in Pew 2013 compared to the recent release? And one reason I think it’s quite obvious is that there was very little time when we think about like significant changes in population, there were only seven years between these two surveys. So not that much change. Most of the big trends that we saw in 2013 continued in the same trajectory. So there was nothing surprising there. The war erupted in Israel at the same time as Pew was released. So I think that kind of took American Jewish attention. And I also think, and I think we should engage in this conversation. I think that there’s probably been some shifts in the intellectual and communal waters in our community in terms of what questions are thought of, what are areas that are important for debate in terms of how we think about Jewish normativity, Jewish continuity and things like that.

Elana Stein Hain:
If I can just process what you’re saying, are you saying there are things that people are concerned about talking about? Meaning I remember that after Pew 2013, there was a big conversation and there was a debate among sociologists. And you’ll tell me if I’m getting this right, is that you had people who were asking, do the Jews determine what Judaism is or are there particular standards of normativity for what Judaism is? And that, that was actually a live debate and a live conversation. Are you saying that that conversation is not happening because people are concerned about taking one side or the other of that debate or say people are afraid of talking about normativity?

Mijal Bitton:
Yeah. I think the way you’re explaining is almost like the philosophical underpinnings of the reactions. I think of course, Elana, you’re going to go there.

Elana Stein Hain:
That’s where I’m at.

Mijal Bitton:
I think that let’s say the surface binary that our marriage was between people who looked at certain demographic trends in the Jewish community and the conversation after 2013, particularly centered on classical notions of Jewish continuity, like fertility in marriage versus intermarriage, Jewish childbearing. A lot of the focus was on that. And there was group of sociologists that looked at the trends and said, oh no, the sky is falling. Things are really bad. We should do something. And there was a group of sociologists and I’m simplifying here and observers who said, actually, we shouldn’t be pessimistic because of XYZ. And some of the reasons were as you noted, maybe those standards are actually outdated and Jews are doing different things now and you shouldn’t hold this standards. So I do think that there has been a shift for some people either because they changed their commitments in the way they think about the current reality in the Jewish future. And perhaps for some people, there is a certain concern to bring up certain questions in public because they’ve become much more fraught in a way that they weren’t before. So you’re kind of like entering a minefield. Yes.

Elana Stein Hain:
What are those questions that are fraught, meaning let’s be very Hartman-y. This let’s say the things that people don’t want to say. Meaning are we talking about certain conventional aspects of Jewish life that had to do with institutional affiliations, that had to do with raising children Jewish, that had to do with Zionism? Meaning what are the core issues that we’re talking about, that, this is really interesting, what you’re saying. It sounds like is that it’s not that there’s robust discussion around them. It’s that maybe people are concerned about having robust discussions around them and let it ride and let’s see what happens.

Mijal Bitton:
Well, either they’re concerned or they’ve changed their minds and their way of thinking about this. And let’s make it less abstract. Let’s give some examples. I’ll give some, and you’ll give some from where you’re sitting. So I know for example, for where I’m sitting, that kind of like discussions which were more common, let’s say seven years ago, around fertility or Jewish childbearing or marriage patterns. There’s a certain sense right now that it is not up to the community to pass judgment over the individual and how they decide to construct their family, right? That it is not up to self appointed Jewish leaders or rabbis or scholars to kind of come and say, oh, you are loving the wrong person. You’re married to the wrong person. You have the wrong family. And there’s different reasons why people would give as to this being wrong. Some would say most Jews are doing this. So Judaism has changed and you have to stop having outmoded standards. Others would say by doing so, you’re passing judgment in a way that causes pain and causes harm, and that actually does painful things. Others would say like it doesn’t maybe align with notions of social justice. We can tease those out. So I don’t think it’s a full monolithic, but that’s one example of, at least from where I’m sitting, the sort of conversation that maybe 10 years ago was more likely to happen. And I think it’s part of what gave life to so much of the conversation after pew 2013. And that right now, like I said, the tides changed and individuals or leaders either have incorporated this critique. And they say, you know what, I’m not saying this anymore. Or for whatever reason they think strategically, this cannot be a position that I take in public. So that’s from where I’m sitting, right?

Elana Stein Hain:
I mean, it’s not just examples. I think it’s actually a whole way of thinking, right? Anyone who’s read Andrew Solomon’s Far From the Tree where he looks at families and identifies that there’s a vertical identity and that’s the identity you inherit. And then there’s the horizontal identity, which that’s the identity that you choose. I mean, there’s no question that what’s in the water in our American sovereign autonomous self approach. It’s really difficult to establish norms and to talk about norms because people really do want to be able to make their own choices and have those choices, not just tolerated, but validated. And I definitely do see this question of what do you do when the autonomous self meets communal conventions. And I think there is a lot of pain actually that happens there. Meaning I don’t think it’s something that either of us, as people who are both empathetic and traditionally minded people, like you have a high EQ and you also appreciate traditionalism and community, the collective, I think there’s a real difficulty now of being able to say, well, these are some of the core commitments, the core communal commitments. And by the way, we’re seeing this around zionism right now as well, right in the conversation of, well, really do I have to think about Judaism as like a people? Can I think about it as a religion and I’m going to do my piece, or, I don’t really like the norms of the community around Zionism. And therefore I’d either like to start my own thing or I’d like those norms to change, right? There’s something in here about the authority and power, which is actually very natural for the 21st century. We live in a right space in society. Of course, that’s the way that people are going to think. But what I’m hearing from you is that we’re kind of a little bit worried about stifling debate. How do you actually look at that as having values intention rather than assuming by definition that one trumps the other, whether it’s the autonomous individual self and those decisions, or it’s the traditional communal, and I think it’s getting harder and harder to hold those two, you kind of have to pick a side. That’s the way that I’m seeing it, the way that I’m feeling it. And there’s a moral valence to it, which I think is really complicated.

Mijal Bitton:
Yeah. I think what you’re saying really resonates and I guess the way that I would think about it, and I’ve been really influenced by scholarship and like moral psychology and cultural anthropology. And there’s an anthropologist from the University of Chicago called Richard Shweder who talks about like three different moral systems in the world. One of them is centered around God, one is centered on the individual, and one is centered around the community. And I always think about that. That’s like, you know, what’s at the center of your moral thinking, is it the community? Or is it the individual? Let’s put that aside for a second. And the interesting thing there is that there’s always going to be trade-offs. If the community is at the center, then it’s assumed that the individual would have to give up certain things and sometimes even undergo tremendous pain for the sake of the community. And if it’s about the individual, then that’s going to make it much harder to actually maintain a community and to be able to maintain a sense of collectivity. I like a holistic sense of being part of a group.

Elana Stein Hain:
I’m going to bring that back in because I know it and I feel it the way we talk about God, some of us talk about God as validating the individual. And some of us talk about God as mandating collective norms. It’s just true. Meaning God is how we shape God in our imagination to a certain extent. Not that I’m making a metaphysical claim, I’m actually making a social claim as to how God is deployed in our communal conversations.

Mijal Bitton:
I’m just curious about it. Cause we brought God into the picture and just reminds me of like the many hats that you wear as the spiritual leader, as an educator, as a pedagogue, as a scholar. And I’m just curious because, because of my training and my work, I have to care about pew and I have to care about these sort of things, but I’m curious for you, right. When you were waiting for pew or when you read it, do the numbers or the data that comes out, does that shape the way that you do your work, I guess? Like it’s going to change your teaching or the people that you teach or like your communal work based on certain data.

Elana Stein Hain:
Yeah, it’s really interesting because my, my relationship to the Jewish people as a people actually comes through a religious lens. For me, the Jewish people is a concept and a fiction of sorts, but a real fiction. Right? I did my dissertation on legal fictions. I believe that they’re real, to an extent that comes through a religious requirement of really being with my people. So when I look at things in pew, like whatever the percentages were, you know, the percentages more than I do here of people under 30, where you have people who are flocking to non-denominationalism and you have people who are flocking to orthodoxy. I look at that and I ask myself like, okay, what are those people have in common? And what do we need them to have in common? And is there something we need them to have in common? Because obviously they are looking to Judaism in very, very different ways and looking for very different things. And by the way, on the individual and collective, it’s very clear that what you have, there is somewhat of a seesaw of people who are going to want to be told kind of what to do and people who are going to want to be able to shape what they do, even though that’s oversimplified. Because of course, every community has norms. Even a nondenominational community has its own orthodoxies. And even within Orthodox communities, there are people who are making their own decisions as to how they’re going to do it. But from my perspective, I’m not a big institution person for me, it’s not about the institutions. It really is about the people. And what I always wonder is do numbers matter or does conviction matter? And I’ll say what I mean, I was talking to a bunch of rabbis today, and we were talking about the fact that you have this ongoing strife between the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel. And the kingdom of Israel is 10 tribes and the kingdom of Judah is two tribes. And, you know, through our American power politics lens, we say to ourselves, oh, kingdom of Judah who cares about them? They’re just two tribes. We want the 10 tribes. That’s who we care about. And in the end, ever heard of the 10 lost tribes, we are the kingdom of Judah. We’re those two tribes. So when I think about what it is that interests me about pew, it’s not the numbers as much as it’s a question of what’s the thickness of that sense of identity. What’s the narrative, what are the convictions that people are holding about who they are and what they are and what they belong to. And I think to me, the most concerning piece is when you have people saying, well, I’m not really sure that I have conviction about what I am. That to me is a problem because it’s not about numbers. I don’t need 80% of Jews to do X for what I’m looking for. I need whoever does X to really believe in X, whatever that is, that it really matters to them. And I know that that’s really not an institutional take, right? An institutional take is you want to be able to have collective power organizing ability. You need to have numbers. And that’s just true. I’m looking for something else. I’m looking for the story. I’m looking for the sense of identity, the idiom in which people speak. And I want it to be deep. I want it to be profound and almost by definition, it’s never going to be the majority of people. It’s just never going to be the majority of the people.

Mijal Bitton:
That’s so interesting. I was speaking last week with David French was an evangelical Christian and conservative commentator. And it’s funny because he was speaking to me about his own vision for his work. You mentioned the biblical concept of the Remnants, She’erit Hapleta

Elana Stein Hain:
The Remnants of Israel. Yeah.

Mijal Bitton:
Yes. But for him, it’s not about following the majority. It’s about having integrity with your moral principles. And if it happens to be a very small group that aligns with you, that’s what you’re going to do, which I think is very intriguing because it does bring up big questions because like you said, to build flourishing Jewish life, right. To have the sort of institutions I know you’d said, that’s not your priority, but the sort of institutions that we think about the Jewish, cultural life, Jewish social life, numbers could be really significant. Like, you know, just to have bodies.

Elana Stein Hain:
But my question to you is what are you willing to give up for numbers? Because my model is have as much ideological conflict as you want. It’s actually great to have ideological conflict because ideological conflict means you have conviction. You care about something. My question is if numbers matter and I know they do, but the degree to which numbers matter, what are you willing to give up? And what’s your limit where you say, I won’t do that just to get the numbers. I won’t give that up just to get the numbers.

Mijal Bitton:
Yeah. So I do believe in numbers, which like the findings, right? So in having like a strong Jewish demography, I do believe that that’s a value. I believe it’s a value that’s supported by traditional and classical sources. If you want to go there. And also by like Jewish history and the like. At the same time, I have a lot of values, right? It’s not a value that stands alone like this like survivalist instinct that all I want is just more Jewish people. It’s a value that stands in relationship with other values. So I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking about. And it’s a little bit raw, so maybe we can think together. So part of what I’ve been thinking about in relationship with some of these trends that this conversation, I am increasingly less moved to prioritize numbers if it requires, my own definition, of giving up major convictions in what I think is Judaism, let me make it a little bit less abstract. Okay. So when we speak about Jewish continuity, I think that people often have this traditional notion of Jewish continuity, like continuing something from the past, et cetera. But I would argue that there’s a competing notion of Jewish continuity and the competing notion of Jewish continuity is about engagement. It’s about having individuals who are born to the Jewish people or joined the Jewish people, having them continue to want to identify as Jewish somehow even if what they’re doing is different than the past. Is that clear distinction that I’m making on it?

Elana Stein Hain:
Yes. The way that I think about it is it’s thickness and thinness. If that’s okay, maybe I shouldn’t simplify it. You say more, and then let’s see where we get. I’m already trying to give you the categories in my head.

Mijal Bitton:
Yes. Another way that I would think about it is there’s a notion of Jewish continuity. Like I said, it’s trying to almost like replicate the past and pass it as much as possible to the future. And there’s another notion that basically says, if I need to change the tradition to align with where people are now to keep them in, then I’m going to do that. I’m going to have almost like an engagement strategy in which what Jews do is what Judaism is and becomes an idealized. And that is I’m arguing a different way of thinking about Jewish continuity. Right? Okay. So I’m concerned about what happens when, if you believe that numbers are important, let’s think from a leadership perspective, right? So it’s like, oh, all the people are moving to that direction. They’re all leaving. All of these commitments that I used to think were at the core of what Jewish community looks like, but people aren’t interested in this. So then you have two options or maybe more than two, but let’s name a couple of them. One option is double down on those commitments and to try to bring people back. Another option is to say, you know what? And if I’m not clear,

Elana Stein Hain:
No, you’re being descriptive and you have concerns.

Mijal Bitton:
Yeah. The second option is to say, okay, the people have shifted. My role is to be with the people and to move things to where the people are and to walk with them and to help them create a new Judaism and a new Jewish meaning. And if I don’t do so, I’m going to lose all of these people. I’m not going to have the people. So I’m going to therefore change my commitments to look like what the people are doing so that we can continue to have inside the Jewish folk. So I have concerns about that approach, bringing back the conversation to what you asked about numbers, I’m concerned when numbers become the impetus to basically say numbers are more important, always, than certain commitments that you’re holding.

Elana Stein Hain:
I think it’s really interesting because if I think about the evolution Judaism in, by the way, it doesn’t matter which denomination, we always to a certain extent follow where the people are going. It’s just true. You know, we have this saying in rabbinic parlance that if the Jewish people themselves are not profits, they are the children of profits. And that’s used to justify a lot of things. Meaning, if this is where the people are going, this is where we’re going to follow them. And so I guess in my mind, it can’t be a binary of either, or are we going to double down on what it is that we’re passing down? Or are we just going to follow where people are going? It is some sort of, what are the parameters that govern when you use, which of these strategies? They’re both there in Jewish history. There’s no question there’s both there. So is it that it depends how salient the issue is. And if the issue is really the core of Jewish life, you essentially say I can’t move. And I’m going to double down on where I am. Is it about the who, who are the people who are going towards this new normal? Are those people, the people who you think of as, if they’re not profits, they’re the children of profits. I mean, what determines when you use which strategy, because any look at anything in Jewish life, in the 21st century that looks different from the 20th century that looks different from the 19th century that looks different from the 18th century. Oftentimes the way that it starts is you have a small group. I mean, let’s go back to Zionism for a moment. You have a small group that insists like, no we’re going in this direction. You all think that this is the wrong direction, we’re going in this direction. And slowly but surely they gain adherence. They gain adherence. They gain adherence. And then here it is, it’s accepted. Would you not have wanted that to be the case? Presumably the two of us sitting here are very happy that Zionism snowballed into what it is today. So what I want to flesh out, and maybe we can think in pencil a little bit together is when do you use each of these strategies? And I think something that I’m realizing that I’m seeing is that part of the decision to say, I’m going to double down and I’m not going to just move where people are moving is if the concern is what we’re losing here is something that is so core to what Judaism is supposed to be. That we’ll really be lost without it. But it’s really hard to know what those things are sometimes ahead of time, like hindsight is 2020. It’s really hard to know what those things are. And I think oftentimes we’re in a moment where we feel value x is threatened. And so I’m going to double down. Or value X is threatened. And therefore I need to reconsider value X. And it’s really hard to know in the moment what the long view is going to prove was necessary or was not. meaning I’m talking about a hundred years, 200 years. So I’m wondering if you agree that you kind of have to use both and if you draw a line somewhere and on what basis and what are we hearing from the people who we learn with and who we teach with, the leaders in the field as to where people are drawing those lines?

Mijal Bitton:
Yeah. I mean, I, I, a hundred percent agree that I don’t think of this as like an either or, that I want there to be one or the other. I actually wonder to be like a dance. I think that’s like the work of Jewish leadership is to be in this dance. And I think of Jewish leadership, very expansively. So I don’t mean like formal positions, but people who care about the future of the Jews and Judaism, right? That there’s this dance between quote unquote Judaism and the Jews. There’s almost like this covenantal constant conversation between them and this shift in which things shape, change, like you said, and nothing remains the same. I guess what concerns me is when you have one only, right, when you either have people who say nothing can ever change, and this is frozen and we’re never going to adapt things based on like new moments and what people are going and all that, because then like the covenant was made not only with the Torah, but also with the people. Right? Yeah. And then what also concerns me is when I noticed the other approach, which is to basically say, there’s no Judaism, but what people do right now, and that can become very difficult if you have any notions of community. And if you have any notions of wanting to have something shared, whether it’s values or practice or communal solidarity or whatever that is, that’s very difficult to maintain. If you have this sort of approach that you cannot have any sort of shared standards. So I agree with you that there’s this dance or this combination that needs to be engaged in thoughtfully in terms of where people are, where they should go, et cetera.

Elana Stein Hain:
Yeah. But it makes me think also that it’s really important to think about the Jewish community as an ecosystem and that there are some places where there’s going to be a doubling down and that’s really important. And there are some places where there’s going to be an easing and actually to have both even simultaneously around certain things. It actually goes to the point that you were making that engagement is actually only possible on that large scale. If you’re going to sort of open things up a little bit, but ideology is only possible. If you’re actually willing to say I’m going to stick with it, even if it means that I’m going to lose some people along the way. And I kind of think it’s inevitable that we’re going to see both in the Jewish community. And I’m not sure that that’s a bad thing, because I do think that it allows for everybody to stay in, in some ambiguous way. And it really means that the move to centralize things that actually tamps down on the ability to do that, right? Meaning, so the more centralized you are, the more you have to choose one of these or the other, but the more localized you’re willing to be. And the more understanding we’re all willing to be of where people are sitting, actually, the more rigorous the debate can continue to be, and the more possibilities are open, you know, you and I have spoken about the fact that it’s a free market, right? Like Jewish life is a free market. So if it remains a free market, then people are going to do what they’re going to do. And it’s actually, I’m just thinking more and more these days about the short-term versus the long-term. And what does it look like to have both strategies at once to basically say we’re the people, whoever the we is, we’re the people who say, this is our ideology and this is the boundary and that’s what it is. And maybe we get smaller, it’s just, what’s going to happen. And then you’re going to have people who are gonna say, we’re gonna let it open. And I wonder what happens a hundred years from now, if those sides kind of let each other be a little bit, rather than attacking each other as immoral or undermining all of Jewish lives. I just, I wonder what happens if you leave those portals open and you kind of, you let them be.

Mijal Bitton:
Right. Interesting. I think for me, part of the reasons that I love being part of different communities that have very different Jewish, moral commitments and different, I would say sociological configurations is that I think each of them has a different trade-off and different values. And I think it’s wonderful to be part of, many of them have just, you know, different conversations and different modes of engagement.

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Mijal Bitton:
Now, let me go back to something you said earlier, cause I’d love you to elaborate on this. I think before, if I understood you correctly, when you were talking about what are you willing to compromise on? How do you walk with people where they’re going and also, you know, have a certain sense of who you are and who you want to be, and you spoke about core commitments. So I wonder for you, when you think as an educator, as a leader, about these core Jewish commitments, that you think of as the most important, when thinking about the Jewish future, when thinking of the kind of work that we want to do, again, also situationally, thinking about the future. What would those commitments be?

Elana Stein Hain:
So this is hard, because I really don’t think that all of these commitments are going to fit everyone. But I want to share a story. When my son, got his siddur, his prayer book, at school, in first grade. So they asked us to put in an inscription. And the inscription that we wrote in there was “We really hope that this book brings you closer to God, the Jewish people, and humanity.” And I think I would say that for me, those are my three core Jewish commitments, God, the Jewish people and humanity. And I don’t know, like going back to God, is God universalist, is God particular, is God validating the decisions of individuals, is God validating the standards of communities, you know, God fits into both the Jewish people and humanity. So I’m not totally sure what the order is in terms of God’s involvement in those other two. But I think that I’m very comfortable saying on a broader level, that Jewish peoplehood, I think, I think it’s a core. I would like it to be a core commitment for all Jews. What it means is that Judaism is not, it’s not exclusively a religion, meaning Protestantism and Judaism are not the same thing. We’re not a Western construct of you are what you believe and that’s what constitutes your Jewish identity.

Mijal Bitton:
What does that mean we’re not a Jewish people, as a core commitment.

Elana Stein Hain:
We actually are a construct, which Judaism is a culture, It’s an ethnicity, it’s a religious discipline. And I think an awareness of those various layers and especially, I mean, ethnicity is probably the one that’s really hardest right now because it touches on universalism and particularism and questions of ideology versus family and things of that nature. But I think we’re really cutting out the Bible if we’re going for Judaism as just what we believe and that ritual act that we do, because our story is based on Genesis 12, it’s based on Abraham’s progeny, it’s based on something familial and that commitment I think gets lost among a bunch of people. And it doesn’t matter how religiously liberal you are or how religious and conservative you are. I see that the idea of recognizing that one’s fate is tied to a people even with who one disagrees is a really hard concept to hold onto it, the 21st century. And I think it’s a necessary one. And I think it’s not an accident that for Hartman Jewish people, it is a big part. Now where God fits into this conversation. This is where people are to do different things. And their Judaism is going to say different things. But in terms of the construct of what Jewish life is, I think there has to be a recognition that Judaism is an ethnicity. It is a culture. It is a religion where someone finds themselves in terms of what they practice, what they don’t practice, what they eat, what they don’t eat, what they can read and what they can’t read. That’s something else. But I don’t want people to deny what I see as like descriptively true is essentially what I’m saying. Just like, I don’t think people can deny that Judaism is originally built on a relationship with God. It doesn’t mean that all Jews are religious. I mean, we’ve looked at pew, that’s clearly not the case. Right. But you can’t deny that it is. So there’s something to that that I think in my teaching, I’m very comfortable, no matter what the stripe is, to be able to try to assert a certain collective relationship between Jews and lots of different places. And that’s kind of counter-cultural, it really is.

Mijal Bitton:
Yeah. And it’s funny because pew said that eight out of 10 Jews feel a connection to, a sense of belonging to the Jewish people, right? So this idea, like you said, of Jewish peoplehood, back when the question’s actually broke down by sub groups, like asking different denominations, who they felt connected to, then you saw, for example, that only like 9% of Orthodox Jews felt that they had a lot in common with Reform Jews, so there’s something really interesting there, I thought. There’s a gap between the imaginary, the ability to say I’m committed to Jewish peoplehood more broadly. And then when you go into specifics and say, oh, but this group, and that group, do you feel connected, and responsible to them, that’s harder.

Elana Stein Hain:
But by the way, I want to be honest here, I don’t think that Jewish peoplehood means, only solidarity. I think Jewish peoplehood also means having arguments, because so much of, and I’m always coming from the rabbinic tradition on these kinds of things, so much of the way that the rabbis talk about, Jews are responsible for each other, it’s not that Jews are responsible for each other and therefore you should help each other if something’s going wrong. It’s Jews are responsible for each other. So if somebody is doing something really bad, you really have to pipe in and say, you can’t do this because what you do impacts me, whether you’re looking at it from a metaphysical perspective, a political perspective, a social perspective, or even by the way, just the ethical character of some concept of a collective. And I think that’s also really complicated because if the idea of Jewish people is that you both have a sense of solidarity, shared fate, identification with, and also a sense of whoa, accountability for, sometimes those are really deeply intentioned with each other. And there’s only so long you can spend arguing before you decide, why do I want to be accountable for these other people? Why do I to have solidarity with these other people, if I don’t want to be accountable for what it is that they do. Right. So I understand the impulse, but I still think that it would be descriptively wrong to give up on Jewish people in terms of what you wish to say is I think it’s missing a dimension.

Mijal Bitton:
That’s really interesting, you know, Elana, when you spoke before, I think you introduced one word that I would say in terms of one of the core commitments that I think there a lot about, you spoke about Jewish people, even though it’s counter-cultural, and I’ve increasingly thought about the whole idea of counter culturalism as a core Jewish commitment. I love the Midrash, the rabbinic explanation asking why was Avraham, the Patriarch Abraham called Avraham HaIvri right? The Hebrew Abraham and I think the word Ivri, which today I think, would think in terms of Ivrit, or being part of the Hebrews. And they describing as the whole world stood on one side and Abraham stood me’ever hanahar, on the other side of the river. And that’s always been a very powerful image for me as to like what’s at the core of being Jewish. At the core of being Jewish is being willing to stand on the other side of the river, in whatever society you’re in, whatever moment in history. So one of the, I know that one of the questions that I’ve had with friends and colleagues has been less about what you decide is the nature of your counterculturalism. Is it about the belief, about community, about practice? Like I care a little bit less about the content of that. I’m more, is there counterculturalism in your Judaism in the sense, like, do you have something, because you’re Jewish, you stand apart from the rest of society, again, whatever that looks like. And again, if I’m being a little bit more specific in my core commitment, is it something that there’s a trade-off that there’s like a cost in light of broader society because you’re standing in this way. So that’s something that I think a lot about. I think that we get very lost in the American Jewish community, like figuring out what are the boundaries, what are the things that we’re doing? And, you know, like you said before, when I think about Judaism, I think about Jewish community. So I think there’s different communities, there’s different countries, there’s different practices. And the more curious about the question, can all of these different and diverse communities hold on to the notion and the value of counter-culturalism, Jewish counter-culturalism, even and, because it will look different in each of those communities.

Elana Stein Hain:
You know what’s so interesting about what you’re saying, that is such a minority identity kind of value. And I think its actually two wrapped into one, right? Being countercultural, but being willing to sacrifice for being countercultural. It is such a minority identity perspective, and I just find that really fascinating because American Jews, yeah, we’re a minority, but like, I don’t know that we feel, obviously there’s increased antisemitism on the right and on the left, and I want to be very careful about that, but I don’t think that our feeling of being a minority is the same as the feeling of our ancestors, of being a minority where that counter culturalism didn’t come with power. Oftentimes now when we’re being counter-cultural it’s, we can stand with the marginal and the oppressed because we have power. So it’s just interesting to see what exactly are you sacrificing when you actually have the power to be counter-cultural and you can shift tides rather than being counter-cultural and just staying that strange alien life form called Jew, that just doesn’t fit in with society. Right. It feels a little different.

Mijal Bitton:
Yeah. To be clear. I’m not advocating for this, like martyr like, I think you can very much fit into society and be part of majority culture in many ways. But I always wonder, even at this time and in this place, are there ways which we think of ourselves as different, even when its inconvenient and maybe in the future, maybe not like right now, but like you know, I’m going to stand for this, even when it’s not as convenient anymore. And again, like I said before, I’m not talking about one particular thing, I’m talking a little bit more broadly, about having values that are different.

Elana Stein Hain:
I think its profound. I know we don’t have much time left, but I actually want to bring something that I heard you talk about a lot, and I really appreciate it, which is a Sephardic model of community, versus an Ashkenazic model of community. And I am wondering, as you look at the data from Pew, of the way that people feel connected or not connected or what they think Jewish continuity means, I’m wondering if you think there’s a lesson here about whether the institutions and the constituents have to really be the same and match up, like I’ve heard you talk about Sephardic communities, being able to just let people be who they are outside of the synagogue, and in the synagogue everyone does what they’re supposed to do. Whereas in other communities or communities that I think Ashkenazic Jews inhabit, it does not feel that way. It’s actually, the expectations are kind of more, do you fall in line with the fullness of the ideology? So I’m just wondering when you look at pew, if this were to be the real understanding of the Sephardic Jews, what questions would be different? What conversations would be different, what data would be different?

Mijal Bitton:
Interesting question. I haven’t thought about it in the way that you just asked. Like what survey would I put, even though I should, I should come up with the national survey for Sephardic Jews, I guess I’ll say the following Elana. And let me just first to be, I’m very careful to not pretend like all Sephardic Jews and communities are the same or all Ashkenazic Jews and communities, you know, there’s a lot of different models that I’ve thought about. So I’ve thought a lot about what we would describe as the traditional Sephardic model and what is the traditional, the word that scholars in Israel would use when talking about Mizrachi Jews is Masorti. So something traditional and the way that a traditional Sephardic community is configured. And this is my own language, is in a way that is inclusive, but not pluralistic. So what does this mean? The way the community will be configured in this particular model is basically saying we have a certain sense of tradition. Okay. Certain core practices and commitments, certain principles we’ve inherited them. Or we imagine we’ve inherited that from my parents and grandparents, and they’re going to be at the center and our religious leaders are going to follow them very carefully and are going to live lives that reflect that. At the same time, in terms of who belongs in our communities, who sits down at the Shabbat table, who celebrates together, who gets to come to synagogue, everybody’s welcome. You should all come in. We’re not asking you at the door, what you do, what you don’t do. We want you inside. We want to include you. And at the same time, the fact that you are different, or the fact that there’s this expected deviance is not supposed to reshape the center. What a community looks like. I actually often think of it. I haven’t done research on this, but I think there’s probably a lot of similarities between the Chabad model and the Sephardic model in terms of basically saying like, we want to have this warm, authentic place that we’re including you. But again, we are not going to change like the basic core commitments of the space because of you. There’s a very interesting relationship there in terms of what it means to make people feel at home. And also in terms of the expectations that people would themselves have, you could nourish a state of being in which people would feel comfortable even while they know that their practice is different or deviant from the ideal, right? So you could nourish a community again, maybe, in which that is part and parcel of what it means to belong and in which that doesn’t actually make you feel like you belong less, or like you have to feel guilty about it because you don’t do a certain thing. So that’s, I think an interesting model, it’s an interesting historical model. Most Sephardic Jews, especially from the middle east and Northern Africa, did not go through Western European, enlightenment and emancipation. So we didn’t develop religious denominations and a lot of new ways of being Jewish, even like orthodoxy, ideology, that weren’t part of the Sephardic experience in the same way. So that’s the Sephardic model. I don’t think it’s going to come a popular model in America anytime soon. And to me, especially if we’re thinking, not in terms of numbers, but in terms of possibilities we can think about and consider and play with, I think its a very intriguing model, in terms of how do you formulate a vision of community that has this dance between quote unquote judaism, what it is, core commitments, core jewish commitments, and where people actually are.

Elana Stein Hain:
Yeah, it really gets us back to the sovereign self and traditional community conversation, of the balance there. I think I want to talk about one last thing, which is in the pew study, you mentioned before that Jews before, the idea that jews were asked what their relationships are with each other, American Jews, and I’m really intrigued. You know, we talk about Jewish peoplehood and you find in Pew, 82% of people said that Israel was important to their Jewish identity, which sounds like peoplehood conversation, right. It sounds like peoplehood, but then when you ask American Jews how they feel about each other and what they thought about each other, it didn’t really sound like there was much collective identity going on there. And so I’m wondering when we think about Jewish peoplehood or Jewish collectivity, is it actually just easier to think about Jewish peoplehood with people or places that are far away than with people who are close, does a sense of Jewish peoplehood actually depend on not necessarily sitting at the table with those other people and getting to know them in that way, but not having to work out the difficult issues with each other.

Mijal Bitton:
Yeah. That’s, it’s a dark question, right?

Elana Stein Hain:
Or maybe it’s just realistic, right?

Mijal Bitton:
Yeah. I think the numbers that shocked me were like really high numbers. 77% of conservative Jews have a lot or some in common with Jews in Israel. Reform Jews, 61% have a lot or some in common with Jews in Israel. 91% of Orthodox Jews have a lot of or some in common with Jews in Israel. Much higher, like you said, than other denominations in America. And I wonder Elana, if there’s a funny distinction that we can make between those Jews that we interact with on a daily basis, those that are really far away, and then those that are like close enough to threaten us, but far enough that we don’t know well. Right. So I think there’s something really interesting philosophically and also just pedagogically for us to think in terms of Jewish education, about the fact that there’s this space of, I guess, partial intimacy or maybe an illusion of some familiarity and that, that can sometimes just lead to tremendous feelings of just feeling threatened, or animosity, or just feeling disconnected, in a way that its much easier when you either interact with in a real way or when, like you said, someone who is far away, and its easier to imagine, to imagine the sort of relationship you can have with them.

Elana Stein Hain:
I’m always pretty inspired by Susanne Langer, who’s a twentieth century philosopher, who talks about the difference between signs and symbols. Symbols are higher order of thinking. Signs are Pavlovian conditioning. You see a stop sign, you stop. A sign can be, its raining, you take out your umbrella. But a symbol is something else, a symbol doesn’t tell you what to do. A symbol is something you can imagine no matter where you are, right? So you imagine a stop sign. What does that mean? What’s the metaphor, what’s the concept. And it’s just interesting to me that I think at the level of symbol and symbolism, it’s much, much easier to do Jewish collective thinking than at the level of sign where you actually have to work things out and you actually have to share resources or compete for resources or share people or compete for people and that kind of thing. So I think we’re going to close it out here, but I guess what I want to say to the people who are in our audience is that one of the things that I hope is provocative about this conversation is that instead of just talking about the numbers in pew, we’re actually talking about the reception of pew and the fact that the conversation around these questions of normativity or what Jews do, or engagement as you put it, versus conventions or traditions and the autonomous self and the collective, that these are conversations that I know that Jewish leaders are having. And I hope that we’re supporting our communities in having these conversations. So I really want to thank you Mijal for being bold and being willing to do that with me.

Talia Graff:
Thanks for listening to our show and special, thanks to Elana Stein Hain and Mijal Bitton. Identity/Crisis is a product of the Shalom Hartman Institute. It was produced this week by myself and David Zvi Kalman, and edited by Alex Dillon with music provided by so-called. Transcripts of our shows are now available on our website typically a week after an episode airs. To find them and to learn more about the Shalom Hartman Institute, visit us online at shalomhartman.org. We want to know what you think about the show you can rate and review us on iTunes to help more people discover the show. You can also write to us at identitycrisisatshalomhartman.org. Subscribe to our show in the apple podcast app, Spotify, SoundCloud, audible, and everywhere else. Podcasts are available. See you next week. And thanks for listening.