Jewish Continuity: Who is Really Listening?

Roberta R. Kwall

A Response to Is Jewish Continuity Sexist? by Mijal Bitton (Sources, Spring 2021)

When I initially read Mijal Bitton’s thoughtful and meticulously crafted essay, I had a flashback to a firestorm in the American legal academy a few years ago triggered by a co-authored op-ed by two law professors lamenting the breakdown of America’s bourgeois culture. The memory surfaced not because of any similarity of substance between the two topics but because Bitton’s essay offers a shining and much needed example of what some believed was largely missing in the heated response to the controversial op-ed: engagement on the merits of arguments based on facts, evidence and logic—the foundational tools of any serious scholarship.

Bitton does an outstanding job of responding to a position especially prevalent among a sector of academics and other thought-leaders who see our historical focus on Jewish continuity as outmoded and dangerous, largely due to its devaluation of legitimate concerns by women and other marginalized people. Her essay warmly embraces these concerns; she candidly admits that she herself has struggled with the “undeniable” reality that “the American Jewish continuity project demands gendered labor.” That said, Bitton situates this reality, and even its impact on her personal life, in a larger discourse that acknowledges the complexity of these issues. In an observation that vividly reminded me of the co-authored op-ed and its aftermath, Bitton writes: “Rather than claim the Jewish continuity agenda is fundamentally male and problematic, we should welcome the multifaceted and excellent scholarship about this topic while subjecting the arguments of both the women (and men) who advance it to the same level of logical scrutiny we would any other argument about Jewish life.”

After analyzing varied critiques of the Jewish continuity narrative, Bitton offers a model of ethical Jewish continuity that emphasizes genuine female agency rather than equality, and advocates for more sensitive discourse and initiatives that can better support parenting choices. She invokes choices made by traditional Sephardic women to support her conclusion that regarding biological reproduction and Jewish continuity, “agency—not equality—is the sine qua non for justice.” I was delighted to see her incorporate the voices of traditional women in her analysis, and thought of Tova Hartman’s observation in her book Feminism Encounters Traditional Judaism that “the glaring omission of traditional women’s voices” is a “weakness in the feminist project more broadly defined: to honor women’s lives.”

Still, as I read Bitton’s analysis I couldn’t help but wonder just how many Jewish Americans (outside of those who are actively debating this issue) are lying awake at night contemplating whether Jewish continuity embodies a sexist agenda. For that matter, are most Jews spending time pondering Jewish continuity at all? My sense is that in the real world, most Jewish people are currently focused more on other causes and debates, and otherwise simply trying to get through their days, with or despite a pandemic. If so, where does that leave the Jewish continuity project more generally?

Much more needs to be discussed regarding the larger issue of Jewish continuity, as demonstrated by the recently released 2020 Pew Study of the American Jewish community as well as its predecessor, the 2013 Study. As a cultural analysis legal scholar, I look at law, and the culture that produces law, as inextricably intertwined. This is as true for Jewish legal tradition and culture as for secular legal systems. Jewish tradition combines the legal precepts formulated by the rabbis with the practices relating to Judaism that have developed among the people. Yet according to both Pew Reports, less than a quarter of respondents believe that being Jewish is about religion as well as ancestry and/or culture. These findings suggest that most American Jews do not appreciate the fundamental insight that Jewish law and culture are connected.

What keeps me up at night is the fear that unless all Jewish communities are committed to deepening the identity upon which continuity depends, there will be no real Judaism to transmit to future generations. In decades past, American Jews could sustain a sense of continuity based on elements understood to be purely cultural. But as cultures in this country continue to blend together, sustaining Jewish identity through what many Jews regard as purely cultural elements will no longer be so easy.

For all Jewish communities to continue to remain Jewish, they must embrace and consistently observe religious-cultural norms of ritual practice that are distinctly Jewish. Bitton notes the need for all Jewish communities to adopt norms. She realistically acknowledges that “no community can include everyone’s views.” There has always been, and will always be, varying practices among Jewish people. But transmission of tradition depends upon the development and modeling of behavioral norms.

The recently released Pew Study, in fact, contains an interesting insight related to this very point. Based on information gathered in response to a question not contained in the 2013 study, the latest survey revealed that 51% of respondents affirmed that “continuing family traditions” is an essential element of being Jewish. Although the exact content of these family traditions will vary, their overall importance to maintaining Jewish continuity is clear. It is exciting to contemplate agreement on the power and potential of stronger religious-cultural norms and their long-term benefit to the entire Jewish community.

Roberta Rosenthal Kwall is the Raymond P. Niro Professor at DePaul University College of Law. She is the author of Remix Judaism: Transmitting Tradition in a Diverse World and The Myth of the Cultural Jew: Culture and Law in Jewish Tradition.