Creating a New Diaspora Judaism – Part 1
By Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Ph.D.
In some Jewish circles all over the American Diaspora, there have been the bubblings of new approaches to what the Judaism of the next generation could be.
A BRIEF TOUR OF THE BROAD HORIZON: WORLD-WIDE HYPER-CRISIS
I intend this essay to be both a summary of what is already sprouting, and a pointer to how it could fit together into not only a renewal of Judaism but a transformation of it — of us. That transformation could meet our own needs and the needs of a multi-level, worldwide crisis.
In some countries, the crisis of globalization has so tormented parts of the people who feel excluded from it that they have turned to hyper-nationalism.
They were correct in their fears and apprehensions. Globalization was correct in seeing the planet as a whole, but destructive in seizing its abundance by and for a small number of top-down extremely large corporations. The result: ever-greater gaps in wealth and power between the Hyper-Wealthy and the suffocating middle class: perhaps making out “OK” in the present, but despairing about a dead-end future for themselves and their children.
We need to affirm a planetary outlook but turn its benefits in favor of the many species that are crucial to each other, and the many cultures and political approaches that could be added up into an inclusive, universalist democracy.
That means affirming, not ignoring or excluding the communities of the American people that have felt forgotten till the mid-20th-century, and even since then, having with great struggle achieved “visibility,” become the targets of backlash: Black and brown-skinned Americans, women, Indigenous communities, Jews, Muslims, GLBTQIA communities.
All these communities were, of course, visible to themselves. They were not visible as full citizens to those who had held that status as if it were a private prerogative. The outsider, “invisible” communities became visible to the folks who considered themselves the real Americans only when the outsiders demanded public rights of full citizenship.
The long-powerful communities — white, Christian, and male — are also entitled to a place and shared power in an expanded democracy. They are not entitled to exclude the newly visible communities, as some politicians have trumpeted with a silver trumpet often made of cash and contempt, not a sacred shofar.
The result of all this: Two world-wide crises: the Democracy Crisis and the Climate/ Extinction Crisis.
You will notice I have mentioned the Jews among the newly visible communities, who have come under attack from some of the Hyper-Wealthy and from some of the “forgotten” older communities.
There are within the American Jewish communities some who have accepted and joined in “globalization for the Hyper-Wealthy,” which often goes along with support for the present ultra-right-wing regime that governs the State of Israel. There are also many who define Judaism as justice-and-peace-pursuing, compassionate and activist.
Shalom,
Arthur
Photo credit: Rux Centea on Unsplash