The marshall sklare memorial lecture

Abstract

So in the spirit of his teaching, my aim herein is draw upon my own recent work on the history of American Judaism1 to examine issues of continuing concern to social scientists, particularly the problem of assimilation, within a historical framework. I am also going to make a specific proposal concerning the American Jewish Data Bank. Let me begin with a personal anecdote. Almost 30 years ago, when I first became interested in the history of American Jewry, I mentioned my interest to a scholar at a distinguished rabbinical seminary, and he was absolutely appalled. "American Jewish history," he growled. "I'll tell you all that you need to know about American Jewish history: The Jews came to America, they abandoned their faith, they began to live like goyim, and after a generation or two they intermarried and disappeared." "That," he said, "is American Jewish history; all the rest is commentary. Don't waste your time. Go and study Talmud." I did not take this great sage's advice, but I have long remembered his analysis, for it reflects, as I now recognize, a longstanding fear, now hundreds of years old, that Jews in America are doomed to assimilate, that they simply cannot survive in an environment of religious freedom and church-state separation. In America, where religion is totally voluntary, where religious diversity is the norm, where everyone is free to choose their own rabbi and their own brand of Judaism—or indeed no Judaism at all many (and not just rabbinical school scholars) have assumed that Judaism is fated sooner or later to disappear. Social scientists surely recognize this assimilationist paradigm. It is a close cousin to the secularization thesis that once held sway in our field. Some, like Sklare's nemesis, sociologist Milton Gordon, proclaimed a "right to assimilate." "The individual," Gordon insisted, "should be allowed to choose freely whether to remain within the boundaries of community created by his birthright ethnic group, to branch out into multiple interethnic contacts, or even to change affiliation to that of another ethnic group should he wish to do so as a result of religious conversion, intermarriage, or simply private wish."2