Thou Shalt Know Thy Friends
By David Brog
Earlier this month, Abraham Foxman took to the podium to address the leadership of his Anti-Defamation League, the leading watchdog of anti-Semitism in America. In somber tones, Mr. Foxman sounded the alarm over the "key domestic challenge to the American Jewish community and to our democratic values." The threat he described focused neither on Islamic terror nor assimilation, but on a more imaginative target. "Make no mistake," Mr. Foxman warned, "we are facing an emerging Christian Right leadership that intends to 'Christianize' all aspects of American life, from the halls of government to the libraries, to the movies, to recording studios, to the playing fields and locker room of professional, collegiate and amateur sports, from the military to Sponge Bob Square Pants."
Mr. Foxman is an intelligent and experienced man. Thus one must marvel at his ability to scan the nation and determine that the key challenge facing American Jews comes from socially-conservative Christians. The fate of beloved cartoon characters aside, there are very serious threats facing American Jews today and they have nothing to do with social conservatives. Al Qaeda and the home-grown cells who serve it have targeted Jews around the world, including in America. In 2002, the FBI warned Jewish leaders that Al Qaeda was plotting to attack domestic Jewish targets with gasoline trucks. In 2003, the Bush Administration raised the homeland terror threat level to Orange due in part to a large volume of threats to Jewish targets. And this past August, the Department of Justice secured the indictments of four American Muslims in a conspiracy to commit terrorist attacks against Los Angeles synagogues.
Outside of physical threats from without, Jewish life in America is seriously threatened from within by assimilation. The intermarriage rate has grown in every decade since 1970 and has now reached an alarming 47%. Only one-third of the children of these intermarriages are raised Jewish. These statistics, combined with the very low fertility rates of those Jews who do marry other Jews, explain why the Jewish population in America is steadily shrinking.
Far from being the source of these dual threats to American Jews, Christians are actually important allies in combating them. Conservative Christians surpass Jews as proponents of a robust war on terror at home and abroad. And when it comes to assimilation, these Christians demonstrate the only solution by their example. Evangelical Christians take their faith seriously: they go to church, teach religion to their children, and act on their faith through charity and good works. If more Jews followed their lead, assimilation rates would plummet.
More troubling than Mr. Foxman's misdiagnosis of the threats facing American Jews is his mischaracterization of Christian goals. Just because Christian activists are motivated by their Christian faith does not mean that are seeking to "Christianize" America. As every schoolchild knows, Christian churches have been the driving force behind some of the most important social movements in America, from the abolition of slavery to the civil rights movement. What is relevant, of course, is not a policy?s source or motivation, but its merits.
And there is indeed merit to the agenda pursued by Christian conservatives. Evangelical Christians are rock solid supporters of Israel ? a fact that the Jewish community has belatedly begun to acknowledge and appreciate. But what remains unacknowledged, and certainly not appreciated, is the fact that socially conservative Christians have become the leading proponents of Judeo-Christian values ? and, therefore, traditional Jewish values -- in America. When Christians recognize that human beings are naturally influenced by the culture that surrounds them and therefore seek to persuade the entertainment industry to elevate that culture, they are taking a stand for Jewish values. When Christians fight genocide in Darfur and raise funds for victims of natural disasters around the globe, they are acting out Jewish values. And yes, when Christians stand up for the sanctity of human life and oppose euthanasia or abortion as birth control, they are protecting the most fundamental of Jewish values. Jews are of course free to differ on all of the above issues, but they should not wrap themselves in the flag of Judaism when they do so.
In one of the most poignant moments in the Hebrew Bible, King David's son Absalom is killed while leading a failed rebellion against his father. When David weeps for his son, his top lieutenant, Joab, argues that the King is disgracing all of those who have just risked their lives to defend him, and admonishes David that "you love your enemies and hate your friends." American Jews have much to learn from this story. In some ways we are Absalom, rebelling against the conservative beliefs of our religious forebears. And in other ways we are David, mourning the loss of a beloved family member ? liberalism ? while ignoring the true friends that surround us and preserve us. Either way, we need to follow Joab's advice and dry our eyes.
