OK, Folks, you know the drill. Let’s gather in front of our large, 13″, Black and White TV set, and and watch as a tall, lanky man in a khaki uniform strides out, introduces himself as Sheriff John. He pulls out his guitar, strums an “A” note, and sings:
Yom Huledet Sameach
Yom Huledet Sameach
Yom Huledet Sameach
Yom Huledet Sameach
Yes, today is a birthday. But it’s a bittersweet one, for it is the 20th birthday of the Liberal Judaism Mailing List. It was 20 years ago today that Volume 1, Number 1 was published. It was 20 years ago that I started the discussion with a post about why the organized Reform Jewish community had so much trouble accepting families with disabled children.
You may be wondering what the Liberal Judaism Mailing List was? Here’s how I’ve always described it: MLJ is a place where Jews from all Jewish movements can discuss issues without fear of attacks about the legitimacy of their movements. The primary goal of the list is to provide a forum for discussions concerning issues of relevance to the more liberal movements (Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative). This group welcomes perspectives on these topics from the broad spectrum of Jewish theologies, philosophies and affiliations, including but not restricted to Orthodox, Conservative/Traditional, Reform, Humanistic, and Reconstructionist movements as well as “cultural Judaism.”
Why is it a bittersweet anniversary? Because for the last four years, MLJ has been moribund, with only a few contributions, never enough to make a full issue. I’ve tried to restart the group on both LiveJournal and Facebook, to no avail (in fact, if the Facebook group doesn’t see some activity soon, it may be archived). I’ve never been able to figure out why the group stagnated. Did everyone move to other social networking and communication forums, leaving old-fashioned email discussion lists in the dust? Did the content of the group change? Did particular personalities on the list drive people away? Did the growth of splinter sister lists, such as those for specific movements and topics, lead to the abandonment of the general list?
I have no idea. I just know that the list went from a height of 211 issues in Volume 6 to no issues since Volume 18.
What’s funny, of course, is that if the list was active, I’d have a topic to discuss. It deals with my daughter’s Confirmation class.
Three years ago, my daughter was an enthusiastic Bat Mitzvah. She enjoyed learning Hebrew; she enjoyed Jewish philosophy and history. Today, it is an effort to get her to go to a Reform synagogue. There’s a simple reason. The behavior of the children of many Reform Jews today.
You see, we’re different. We haven’t been at the same congregation since she was born—in fact, we’re on our 3rd congregation, moving from a lovely small congregation that lost its school when a rabbi left through two progressively larger ones. Our daughter doesn’t go to the same school as most kids: most of the kids in her confirmation class go to Granada Hills Charter or the Clevelands Humanities magnet—she’s the only one going to Van Nuys. As a result, she’s never been in the same cliques as the rest of the school. If you aren’t in the cliques or in with the kids from birth, you’re at the bottom of the pile. This, combined with the attitude quite common in larger Reform congregations that you’re nobody unless you can make major contributions has led her to be completely alienated from institutional Reform Judaism.
I understand her disgust. I’ve been at a number of large congregations—Wilshire Blvd Temple, Temple Beth Hillel, Temple Ahavat Shalom. These have all been distinctly upper-class congregations. However, the congregations I have the fondest memories of are the middle-class, smaller congregations: Temple Jeremiah/Temple Israel of Westchester with Rabbi Soloff (which no longer exists—it merged into Temple Akiba); Temple Emet of Woodland Hills with Rabbi Sherwood (which no longer exists—it merged to become Kol Tikvah); and Temple Beth Torah of the San Fernando Valley with Rabbi Sheryl Nosan (it’s still there, with no school, but Rabbi Nosan-Blank is in Australia). The larger congregations are very cliqueish, very class conscious, very focused on the long term members and those that can give, and very unwelcoming to middle-class members, despite what their published words may be.
But I still have a love of Judaism, created not through congregational life but through years and years at camp. She does not (she only went to camp for two years), and at this point wants nothing to do with the Reform mess. I’d like her to finish confirmation without alienating her completly from Judaism, so I’m doing my own program: one adult-education class in the community a month, and attempting to see a variety of Reform and non-Reform services. But there’s still a fight over this (although perhaps finding some activities with cute teen boys will help more than anything I think up).
So here’s the larger question: We’re seeing synagogue membership dropping. We’re seeing a lack of participation in organized denominational Jewry. How much of this is due not to what the movement is saying, but what the people in the congregations have become? How do we overcome that?
So there. You have my topic. Today is bittersweet because the list no longer really exists to talk about it. So let’s raise a glass of schnapps in tribute to the Liberal Judaism Mailing List. It’s a shame you went into a coma before you were old enough to drink.
