Why I’m a Jew

Listen, I know I don’t fit most of the ideological and behavioural criteria for being Jewish, even supposing there are criteria, and whoever wrote them can have the moral right to make that call. I don’t believe in G-d or in the divinity of the Torah; I don’t celebrate most Jewish holidays the way you’re supposed to; and support for Israel is not high on my list of political priorities. I avoid Jewish social events and Jewish media, I make vaguely anti-Semitic jokes*, and I find a lot to dislike in various Jewish political and ethical ideas. Yet I still call myself a Jew.

That seems strange to a lot of people. OK, there are lots of things about Judaism that I do like: ideas from Jewish thinkers, both religious and secular, traditions I grew up with, and actions by Jewish individuals and groups that I admire. But if I have so many problems with Judaism, why be a “cafeteria Jew”***, picking and choosing the parts of Judaism I want to keep and throwing away those I don’t? Wouldn’t it save a lot of headache just to abandon the notion of myself as a Jew while still respecting the parts of Judaism that I like? That way, I’d be able to benefit from its positive aspects without seeming to commit myself to an identity I can’t in good conscience fully uphold.

1. Because the alternative isn’t “being nothing”. This is the big one for me. Many people seem to think that being a “Jew” (or a “Christian”, or a “Muslim”… etc.) is like having a label attached to you: once you tear it off, that’s it. Blank slate, no labels, you can write anything you want. But that’s not true.

Once you tear off that label, you’re not “nothing”, you’re “normal”. And “normal” has features. Here in Ontario, “normal” is white, male, straight, Anglophone, middle-class, physically able… and (at least culturally) Christian. Sure, it would be nice if we could all just be “anyone”, defined only by our personality and our actions, but we’re not: we’re always “someone”. There’s a whole history of conflict and power struggles that means whatever we say we are, there are still privileges and disadvantages inherent in what other people say we are****.

If people mistake me for something I’m not, I’d rather they mistake me for something I could be or struggled with being than for something I never was.

2. Because it doesn’t get me anything I want. What exactly does not identifying as a Jew do for me? It doesn’t spare me from anti-Semitism, because the kinds of people who are into that don’t care whether the person they dislike self-identifies as a Jew; in fact, they’re all about being the ones who define what other people are, rather than letting each person do so themselves. So that’s out.

Nor do I get to distance myself from the Jewish morals or actions that I consider wrong. By circumstance of time and place, I was born into a people and a culture that give me a voice in certain debates and practices. When giving up your voice is a choice, doing so is moral abdication, and you’re still responsible for what you have chosen not to do.

True, if for someone “Jew” and, say, “someone who is complicit in religious sexism” were interchangeable (i.e. there is literally nothing more to the concept of “Jew” than this), then refusing to be called a Jew makes sense. But given the rich cultural and philosophical history of Judaism, I can’t say this sort of interpretation of what it means to be Jewish seems valid. There’s so much more to Jewish culture; reducing it to a single aspect seems to cry ignorance.

3. Because I’m an academic. (Well, I’m a student. I’d say, “let’s not split hairs”, but that’s kind of what we do.) You may be wondering, understandably, what the heck does being an academic have to do with being a Jew? You’re right: absolutely nothing. But there’s a habit we academics have that makes me unwilling to cut my ties to Judaism: we cite.

When you use someone else’s idea, the right thing to do is acknowledge its source, out of practicality (so that a reader interested in the same idea knows where to start researching), accuracy (so that a sceptical reader can assess your sources and judge whether or not to accept the idea for her- or himself), and modesty (so that you don’t take credit for an idea that wasn’t yours).

To be frank, Judaism is one of the sources that made me. I might not agree with all it has to say, but that hasn’t stopped me from using authors in my papers before.

I guess, in the end, saying “I’m not a Jew” makes no more sense to me than saying “I’m not Canadian” or “I’m not a Kriger”. Of course I am. No matter what I do, I can’t change my history, personal, national, or genetic. I can choose to behave differently than other members of my family; I can choose to sever intellectual and emotional ties, if I think it’s justified. But I can never choose to divorce myself from heredity or the experiences my relatives and I have shared — it’s been too late for that since the day I was born.

*OK, admittedly, that is a pretty Jewish habit**. Whatever.

** Oops, did it again…

*** Just FYI, I hate the argument implied in this terminology. As though the only rational reason to behave as though you have religious faith is because you believe religion is 100% true. As though there actually is an orthodox body of concepts for each religion — and for nothing else! — that can be clearly defined (often by someone who doesn’t even have extensive background in that religion in the first place). That’s like me, a humanities major, saying it’s stupid for you to act as though you believe in any scientific theory at all if you don’t believe in string theory because I think string theory is clearly part of the set of beliefs “real scientists”–persons who believe in string theory–define as “real science,” despite the fact that this definition of who real scientists are is recursive.

The only argument this is good for is when the other person outlines the body of concepts they consider to be orthodox (e.g. “whatever is in the Bible is correct as it literally stands”) and then contradicts him- or herself, and even then, it’s not an argument against religion, it’s an argument against the justification for a specific claim by a specific person at a specific point in time. Everybody compromises the underlying basic principles they claim to uphold. Everybody! And it’s not always a bad thing!

**** Boy, I’m just into ranting today, but this is another thing that annoys me: when people use this argument to bolster claims of how “political correctness” has “gone too far”. True, not calling a friend a “retard” when he or she does something stupid won’t magically change everybody’s negative attitudes toward individuals with mental or psychological challenges, but a) challenging the word might at least bring that attitude to people’s attention, pushing them to re-think it, and b), more importantly, political correctness is also (perhaps mainly) about who has the power to decide what’s said about themselves. It’s about people being empowered to choose the language that defines them when they might not otherwise have the social or political privilege to do so.

In movies and books, if a guy consistently forgets or refuses to use other characters’ names, he’s clearly a self-interested douchebag. Why is it easy to understand when Slughorn calls Ron “Rupert” but not when a white person calls Latinos “spics”?  Would it help if instead of “politically correct”, we called it “ethically correct”?