Jewish Loins

Why We're Talking Loins Today

As you may know, from conversation with me if not through personal experience, the "organized Jewish community" in the US (by which I mean individuals heavily involved in synagogues, Jewish Community Centers and other Jewish organizations) tends to view the issue of "Jewish continuity" as the most important one facing Jews in America.

One way in which this concern gets translated for some people, is to focus on the issue of intermarriage; that is, Jews marrying people who aren't Jewish. Currently, about half of all marriages involving Jews are intermarriages. Most are Jewish/Christian marriages.

A sizeable proportion of those who worry about Jewish continuity opposes intermarriage. Now, this sizeable proportion is sizeable insofar as it represents the represented American Jew--and the majority of American Jews (or Jewish Americans) are not affiliated to the organized community. Agonizing that intermarriage is the beginning of the end, funders supporting this viewpoint tend to support programs designed to connect Jewish young adults with one another--to promote "in-marriage."

Disclaimer:

(There are also, of course, those who believe that intermarriage is not necessarily the end at all, but the beginning of a choice in a new family's life--whether to bring up any children Jewishly or not. And ultimately, the Jewish population in the US is dwindling because of lower birth rates that have nothing to do with intermarriage but more to do with material success. Those Jewish communal professionals who believe this strive to be welcoming to everyone.)

Uniters, not Dividers: Absurdistan

At any rate, it's not that often that I come across an essay or article in the Jewish press which pokes fun at the paranoia regarding intermarriage. And this satire (by Gary Shteyngart) is all the more timely, taking a spin on a recent study revealing that among young adults the Holocaust is more of a touchstone of Jewish identity than Israel is.

Enjoy these excerpts!

Absurdistan

The greatest danger facing American Jewry is our people's eventual assimilation into the welcoming American fold and our subsequent extinction as an organized community. Due to the overabundance of presentable non-Jewish partners in a country as tantalizingly diverse and half-naked as America, it is becoming difficult if not impossible to convince young Jews to engage in reproductive sex with each other.

...Israel, once a source of pride and inspiration, is now populated largely by an aggressive Middle-Eastern people whose bizarre lifestyle is thoroughly incompatible with our own (cf. Greenblatt, Roger, "Why Does Humus Leave a Bitter Taste in My Mouth?" "Annals of Modern Jewry," Indiana University Press). It is time to turn to the most effective, time-tested, and target-specific arrow in our quiver — The Holocaust.

...The Holocaust, when harnessed properly as a source of guilt, shame, and victimhood, can serve as a remarkable tool for Jewish Continuity. The problem is the over-saturation of the Holocaust brand in media and academe, creating the need for a fresh, vibrant, and sexy (yes, sexy — let's keep our eyes on the prize) approach to the mother of all genocides.

...Some of the world's most remarkable recent architecture has been built in commemoration of the Holocaust, but much of it is too abstract and cerebral to inspire immediate Continuity in the loins of a frigid Jewish woman in her thirties.

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