Leaving an Imprint on American Culture

“They are not Jews in America. They are American citizens.”

--Woodrow Wilson

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For a people traditionally steeped in debate, dissent and Talmudic disputes, American Jews seem to be uncomfortable asking--let alone answering--a key question:

How have Jews contributed to American life? What have they given to our national culture that is distinctively Judaic?

“We’ve spent years asking how America has affected Jewish people, how it’s changed us,” said Rabbi Alfred Wolf, founding director of the Skirball Institute on American Values and rabbi emeritus of Los Angeles’ Wilshire Boulevard Temple. “But when you turn that same question around, you don’t hear much of an answer.”

The easy temptation is to offer a laundry list of Jews and their achievements--a Hall of Fame top-heavy with Nobel Prize winners, dramatists, musicians and artists; a parade of business leaders, movie moguls, educators, journalists, and entertainers who influenced the American scene.

Indeed, Jewish leaders helped shape some of the nation’s greatest struggles, such as the labor and civil rights movements. Writers such as Norman Mailer, Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth virtually invented the postwar American novel.

Bernstein, Spielberg, Streisand, Gershwin . . . the list goes on. Yet in searching for a deeper answer to the question--a theory that might explain the contributions of people as diverse as Jerry Seinfeld and Albert Einstein--there’s a silence in the literature about Judaism and American life.

The issue matters, because as Jews look ahead, they are racked with internal debates over their absorption into the American mainstream and its gradual erosion of their identity. Many are quarreling over intermarriage and its potential to greatly reduce the future number of Jews.

These are not just private wrangles. If Jews are truly imperiled by their success here, will their rich contributions to our national life diminish along with their identity?

“The farther away you get from the source of your tradition, the less of a contribution you might be expected to make in a place like America,” said Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple, the oldest Conservative Jewish congregation in Los Angeles. “We could lose something precious.”

So what is the uniquely Jewish contribution to America?

The Torah may offer an answer. Like other faiths, Judaism is best explained by its sacred stories, and there is no shortage of them in the first five books of the Bible.

Passover, with its focus on human rights, is one. The Ten Commandments, where God fuses ethics and law, is another. But the story of Jacob wrestling with the angel could tell us the most about Jews and their unique contributions.

According to tradition, Jacob had been wandering for 20 years in desert exile. One night, alone near the banks of a river, he wrestled fiercely with a man until the break of dawn. Seeing that Jacob would not relent, the stranger wrenched Jacob’s hip at the socket, leaving him with a lifelong limp.

Before departing, the man renamed Jacob, calling him Israel--or one who wrestles with God. Henceforth, the story says, all his children would be known by the same name.

Over the centuries, biblical scholars have debated the finer details: Did Jacob wrestle with a man, an angel, or with God? If he was truly alone, wasn’t he wrestling with himself? And what is the meaning of the painful limp he carries for life?

“The message is that Jews have always been people who wrestle with God,” Wolf said. “They ask tough questions. They don’t agree with the prevailing wisdom. They’re skeptical.”

As a minority, he added, “Jews have historically been outsiders, and the limp of Jacob is what truly sets them apart. It’s a mark of being different.”

God wrestlers. Iconoclasts. Subversives. Pioneers.

From ancient times, Jews used their wits to survive. Unlike other persecuted people, Wolpe noted, they have never wholly adopted the values of those who despise them. They have long valued education, teaching the importance of intellectual freedom.

It’s a potent mixture, coloring Jews across the spectrum, from the most rigidly devout to those distant from the faith.

“I have Jewish friends who are lefties, social activists, and they do not practice their religion,” said Rabbi Camille Angel of New York’s Congregation Rodeph Sholom. “But when you ask why they get involved, they’ll answer it’s because they know and remember that we were all slaves under the Pharaoh.”

“You were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

The phrase is repeated 36 times in the Torah, and is central to Jewish identity.

If Jews remember that they, too, were once slaves, how can they ignore the less fortunate in their midst? At the same time, no matter how comfortable they become in a place like America, Jews carry bitter memories of persecution--from the Pharaoh to Hitler.

“People at the margins always see more than people at the center,” said Thomas Cahill, author of “The Gifts of the Jews.”

Since colonial times, American Jews have been seized by a collective angst that is unique, according to Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, a historian, philosopher and Talmudic scholar who has written widely about the development of Judaism.

“This Jewish angst is the source of Nobel prizes and it’s also what makes Sammy run,” he said. “It takes many disguises: It’s political dissent; it drives an enormous cultural contribution. It’s also a gift of dialogue, a habit of raising deep ethical questions about the world around us.”

Politics, culture and ethics: Jews wrestle with all three, but not always honorably. Well-known Americans such as David Begelman, Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky paid a price for their crimes. A morally judgmental artist like Woody Allen has sparked pain and controversy over actions in his private life.

“Just because a Jew has wrestled with an angel, this does not make him one,” said Rabbi Wolf. “But on the whole, we have played an important role in our nation’s history.”

A Liberal Political Tradition

From a political standpoint, that role has been profoundly atypical. As numerous observers have pointed out, Jews are the only successful ethnic group in America that does not routinely vote its pocketbook.

Beginning with the first major wave of immigration in the mid-19th century, American Jews have traditionally aligned themselves with left-leaning politicians and causes. That liberal tilt grew even more as Jews rallied behind FDR and the New Deal.

Today, Jews are among the most affluent citizens, yet they have not shed their liberalism and moved to the right. Among Jews, 46% call themselves liberals, 28% moderates and only 23% conservatives, according to a new Times poll of American Jews.

“Jews have been sensitive to the political climate wherever they are, and because of their history, they’ve been receptive to progressive thought,” said Howard Sachar, an author and a history professor at George Washington University. “This has been a loyalty based on politics, not religious tradition.”

For Jews on the political right, it’s a bitter pill to swallow. Norman Podhoretz, former editor of Commentary and one of the founders of the neo-conservative movement, suggests that Jewish liberal belief is grounded in nostalgia and political misconception.

“There’s something irrational about it,” he said. “It’s what they used to say about generals fighting the last war. Jews have memories of Hitler and of European parties on the left that were more hospitable than the right.

“Today, Pat Robertson and other evangelical Christians are actually great friends of Israel. Yet nevertheless, there’s an intense fear of them among many Jews on the political left.”

With good reason, answer many liberals.

“I don’t care what kind of Jew you are, but if every year you look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘I am part of a band of former slaves,’ it causes you to get involved,” said Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a leader of the Jewish Renewal Movement.

The examples are many: Reform Judaism is one of the few branches of any organized faith in this country that welcomes and makes a place for gay congregants. Jews have been in the vanguard of numerous social causes, from ecology to feminism.

As for civil rights, it would be hard to imagine the struggle without Jewish contributions, at least from the 1940s to the 1970s. Even though current relations between blacks and Jews are strained, their historical bond is impressive.

Money and volunteers poured into the movement from synagogues across America; Jewish leaders helped organize some of the greatest demonstrations; and when three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi in 1964, two were Jewish.

“Jews gave muscle to that movement, and the muscle was a passion for justice,” Cahill said.

This also explains one of the more rapid Jewish assimilations into American life: For centuries, Jews have been a people grounded in the study of sacred books and commentaries on them. America, with its Constitution and the layers of judicial opinion, offers a similar intellectual focus.

“It’s no accident that many American Jews have been attracted to constitutional law,” said author Cynthia Ozick. “With us, it’s always text and argument . . . the U.S. legal system and Jews are a perfect fit.”

There is a similarly tight fit between Jewish traditions and the establishment of social welfare programs, even though there are strong disagreements among Jews of the political right and left over why this is so.

“I think the welfare state has a helluva lot more to do with the Jew than almost anyone else,” Hertzberg said. “This is where the idea came from that the unemployed simply cannot be out on the street. It goes back thousands of years.”

Hogwash, said Podhoretz.

“You have to be very careful when you ascribe any of this to the Jewish religion,” he said. “The more religious a Jew is today, the more likely he is to be conservative. So it’s hard to argue that Judaism somehow breeds liberal attitudes.

“I mean, Maimonides had no comment on the balanced budget debate,” Podhoretz said, referring to the revered 12th century Jewish scholar. “He was a doctor, but we can’t really argue that he would have been against HMOs. It’s not a Jewish issue.”

But the argument is a Jewish dispute fueled by ancient texts, fierce wrestling over political distinctions and modern concerns.

‘Jewish Stories Between the Lines’

If America gave Jews an intellectual home, it also allowed them to change neighborhoods. To live on a better side of town, if they so desired. That theme of a restless journey, from old to new, dominates Jewish contributions to American culture.

Consider “The Jazz Singer,” the 1927 film in which Al Jolson made history by talking in a movie for the first time. Wildly successful with mainstream audiences, it was a stark portrayal of the tensions facing Eastern European Jews who were leaving behind the stifling ghettos of their American youth.

Only a Jewish story of change and growth could put “Kol Nidre,” perhaps the holiest chant in the faith, on the same program with “Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye.” And the resolution--in which Jolson honors his dying, patriarchal father, but then embarks on a show-biz career--was telling.

“Hollywood told Jewish stories between the lines,” Rabbi Wolpe said. “Yet those who created the studios are open to criticism, because the real failure of Hollywood and Jewish creativity in America is that it hasn’t been Jewish enough.”

To be sure, the pioneers of silent and talking films spun fables of family values, loyalty, hard work, respect for the underdog and the need for social justice. In his book, “An Empire of Their Own,” historian Neal Gabler showed how many Jewish producers and moguls were simply repeating the stories of their childhoods in Eastern Europe on the silver screen.

Yet the core Jewish values of education, morality and tradition were absent, Wolpe said. Those who built the studios either downplayed or were embarrassed by their own Jewishness.

Readers can detect a similar rite of passage in “Portnoy’s Complaint” and other novels by Philip Roth, where Jews are caught between the tug of ethnic identity and a rush to assimilate. The same is true of major works by composer George Gershwin and playwright Arthur Miller, Hertzberg said.

In “Porgy and Bess,” he suggested, the main character wants to escape Catfish Row: “But the underlying story mirrors Gershwin’s own journey from the Lower East Side to the pinnacle of Manhattan society. He left behind an immigrant ghetto to become an American swell.”

By the same token, Hertzberg contended, Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” is essentially a sanitized Yiddish play from New York’s 2nd Avenue, reflecting classic Jewish tensions.

“Willy Loman tells his son: ‘You’ll get along with the goyim only if they like you.’ But the son is already too American. He asks: ‘Why should I kiss their ass?’ It is a play that makes as much sense in Yiddish as it does in English.”

Time after time, Jews making the American journey discover new artistic forms, and the results can be dramatic: Bob Dylan merging folk music and rock; Leonard Bernstein fusing jazz and opera; Alan Ginsburg ushering in a new age of Beat poetry.

Jewish humor has also shaped America. From borscht belt stand-ups to the kings of TV comedy--Jack Benny, Milton Berle and George Burns--Jewish wit has skewered human foibles and made millions laugh at themselves.

“A big reason is that so much of this humor comes from a place of pain,” said actor and producer Rob Reiner. “It touches a deep emotional root, because Jews have gone through it all, from Egypt to the pogroms and the Holocaust.

“Even if you’re not Jewish, you can relate to this way of seeing the world,” he added.

If America really wanted to understand outer space, Reiner suggested, “we’d have sent up a man like Mel Brooks instead of the astronauts. Can you imagine the questions we’d be asking about the universe if he had been able to go up there?”

Modern-Day Moralists

In the Babylonian Talmud, God asks four crucial questions before deciding if an individual should gain entrance to heaven. The first is: Did you conduct your affairs honestly?

Ethics play a key role in Jewish tradition, and the issue of how to live an upright life dominates centuries of text and commentary. Not surprisingly, the ritual of posing and answering such questions is flourishing in America--albeit in mass market disguises--and Jews contribute to the dialogue.

America’s No. 1 radio talk show host, Dr. Laura Schlessinger of Los Angeles, dispenses advice to millions, as do Abigail Van Buren and Ann Landers, a pair of Jewish sisters from Iowa.

These modern-day moralists play to a mainstream audience, but there is a core of Jewishness in their personal advice. Margo Howard, the daughter of Eppie Lederer (Ann Landers), said her mother came from a home where common sense prevailed, along with ritual Judaism and the importance of helping others.

“Being Jewish colored her emotional development,” she said. “When the opportunity arose for her to answer letters at a newspaper, it’s like she had been doing it all her life. She developed a pop Talmud approach, a belief that there is a basic code of right and wrong, and it caught on.”

Ethics can sort out the minutiae of daily life, and also questions of life and death. While millions of Jews privately ponder the Holocaust, some have presented the issues of genocide and responsibility on a more public stage.

In 1978, NBC-TV’s “Holocaust” stirred a powerful debate here and abroad over Adolf Hitler’s slaughter of 6 million Jews. The experience was duplicated 19 years later with the broadcast of Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List.”

Gerald Green, the award-winning writer of “Holocaust,” believes its message went far beyond the Jewish tragedy, touching on a growing problem in multicultural America.

“We must be very careful in letting our hatreds get out of hand,” he explained. “I think we sparked a dialogue. We began grappling with this issue so people could talk things over.”

The same impulse motivated David Gelber. In 1994, he produced two powerful documentaries on Bosnia for ABC News. A veteran newsman, Gelber said his Jewish background was a prime factor in pushing for these shows.

“I saw Bosnian Muslims being rounded up and killed, and it reminded me of my own distant relatives who went through the same thing in Europe so many years before,” he said.

“How could that not resonate to an American Jew? We hear that the world would be different if Auschwitz had been covered by the media. But the media did cover Bosnia, and nothing changed.”

Disparate Views of the Future

The Jewish contribution to American life is rich and diverse. But the question lingers: As assimilation continues, will that presence be diluted?

Jews, after all, have enjoyed more freedom in America than any other country except Israel, and the gradual decline in anti-Semitism suggests that a people who were nearly exterminated 50 years ago can be confident about their future.

“Logically, the assimilation of Jews into our culture, the blurring of their ethnic distinctions, should lead to a decline in the quality of their contributions to American life,” said sociologist Seymor Martin Lipset. “But so far it hasn’t. It’s likely to survive.”

Yet what kind of survival?

“Without a powerful new commitment to their ritual and traditions, Jews could disappear,” said Rabbi Wolpe. “Because what is survival for its own sake? This is the ideology of the jungle--not the ideology of what should be a holy people.”

Others are even more pessimistic. Rabbi Abner Weiss of Beverly Hills’ Temple Beth Jacob, the largest Orthodox congregation on the West Coast, believes American Jews are breeding themselves out of existence--and that the cultural leadership of world Jewry is already passing to Israel.

“I fear for this American community,” he said. “It will not be able to hold its young, and this does not bode well.”

Others wrestle with the question and reach a different conclusion: Jews have pondered their extinction for centuries, and if they survived Hitler, they will surely survive MTV.

“I think too much energy is spent worrying about the whole house of Israel . . . because I think Judaism is on the upswing,” said Rabbi Angel.

“All over America, Jews are reconnecting with their faith. We may not be able to recognize what this community will look like or what its contributions will be in 30 or 40 years, but it will be here,” she added. “Our job now is to reignite the hearts and minds of Jews wherever we can.”

Ultimately, it comes down to a choice of identities: Are Jews a distinct ethnic presence here--or should they be virtually indistinguishable from other American citizens, as Woodrow Wilson suggested long ago?

“I think Jews either have to live in an open society or an ethnically homogeneous ghetto, and the long-term price you’d pay for that is too high in America,” said Professor Sachar.

“It’s true, there’s been an erosion around the edges of Jewish life,” he added. “But that’s a cheap price to pay for the freedom we have enjoyed in this country. The blessings of an open democratic society are simply much too great.”