Eric Cohen writes about Jewish conservatism for Mosaic magazine:
Compared with the bleaker moments in Jewish history—and woefully there are many—the present age of Jewish life offers many grounds for celebration and gratitude.
In America, Jews are free to build communities and educate their children, free to study and worship without fear, free to pursue the good life without discrimination or disadvantage. In Israel, Jews are sovereign: keepers of their own land, speakers of their own language, shapers of their own national destiny. In these two great centers of modern Jewish life, Jews have the dignity of liberty, and in Israel they enjoy the dignity of Jewish self-government. The old-world problems of the Jews—living in segregated conditions, burdened by humiliating legal restrictions, often impoverished and dispirited—are no longer Jewish problems on any mass scale. Most American Jews have means, and many are wealthy; the Jewish state is strong; and despite the faith-shaking trauma of the Holocaust and the faith-challenging seductions of modernity, many still believe that Jews have a unique purpose in the world.
But it would be misguided to indulge in heedless good feeling. The threats that Jews now face are real and possibly deadly. In the Middle East, Iranian expansionism and headlong nuclearization, hardened Palestinian rejectionism, rampaging terror and jihadism. In Europe, the rise of a new and violent anti-Semitism. In America and throughout the democratic West, a galloping erosion of Jewish identity and Jewish commitment; the spread of a militantly secular culture hostile to traditional communities of faith; elite institutions and media suffused with anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish attitudes; growing intimidation on university campuses. While no one would ever choose the Paris of 1894, or the Kishinev of 1903, or the Warsaw of 1941 over modern Israel or modern America, today’s Jewish problems are both serious and novel. And some of our weightiest challenges are perhaps best understood as unintended byproducts of today’s good fortune.
For anyone—religious or secular, left, right, or center—who cares about the future of Jewish civilization, understanding the current situation is a first step toward facing the real problems of the age. For just as misguided ideas have done great damage in the past, leading many Jews to turn away from their own distinctive way of life and ignore their own self-interest, sound ideas can help formulate a new strategy for survival in dangerous times, and perhaps enable Jews to realize their loftiest aspirations as a people.
In America, Jews are free to build communities and educate their children, free to study and worship without fear, free to pursue the good life without discrimination or disadvantage. In Israel, Jews are sovereign: keepers of their own land, speakers of their own language, shapers of their own national destiny. In these two great centers of modern Jewish life, Jews have the dignity of liberty, and in Israel they enjoy the dignity of Jewish self-government. The old-world problems of the Jews—living in segregated conditions, burdened by humiliating legal restrictions, often impoverished and dispirited—are no longer Jewish problems on any mass scale. Most American Jews have means, and many are wealthy; the Jewish state is strong; and despite the faith-shaking trauma of the Holocaust and the faith-challenging seductions of modernity, many still believe that Jews have a unique purpose in the world.
But it would be misguided to indulge in heedless good feeling. The threats that Jews now face are real and possibly deadly. In the Middle East, Iranian expansionism and headlong nuclearization, hardened Palestinian rejectionism, rampaging terror and jihadism. In Europe, the rise of a new and violent anti-Semitism. In America and throughout the democratic West, a galloping erosion of Jewish identity and Jewish commitment; the spread of a militantly secular culture hostile to traditional communities of faith; elite institutions and media suffused with anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish attitudes; growing intimidation on university campuses. While no one would ever choose the Paris of 1894, or the Kishinev of 1903, or the Warsaw of 1941 over modern Israel or modern America, today’s Jewish problems are both serious and novel. And some of our weightiest challenges are perhaps best understood as unintended byproducts of today’s good fortune.
For anyone—religious or secular, left, right, or center—who cares about the future of Jewish civilization, understanding the current situation is a first step toward facing the real problems of the age. For just as misguided ideas have done great damage in the past, leading many Jews to turn away from their own distinctive way of life and ignore their own self-interest, sound ideas can help formulate a new strategy for survival in dangerous times, and perhaps enable Jews to realize their loftiest aspirations as a people.
