Jewish fate and destiny not only have been moving away from the American chapter and towards the Israel chapter, but that transition now is apace.
There were historically meaningful Jewish chapters in Babylonia and Persia. We have lived through the West European chapter when Jewish life centered in France, in England, in Germany. The Iberian chapter in Spain and Portugal. The Central and East European chapters extending into Russian/Soviet Asia. The North African chapter.
Next, the American chapter began to unfold in the late Nineteenth Century as 3.25 million Jews came — fled — to the United States during the mad rush between 1881 when pogroms erupted after Tsar Alexander II was assassinated and 1914 when America locked its doors in the face of World War I and her fear of the “Communist menace.”
Others may debate whether the chapter’s wind-down is good. Regardless, the American chapter has had the better part of its run and seen its better days. I write this as fact, not opinion. It just is.
The American Jewish assimilation problem now is in free-fall. Of course “not all is lost.” I am one of hundreds of rabbonim (Orthodox rabbis) in America, especially those of us focused on reaching out to unaffiliated and assimilated Jews — though we also recognize the equal importance of retaining and reinforcing those still in the ranks — who still teach and propagate Torah here, expanding and expounding as best we can, sometimes with great success. But an objective, dispassionate “walk around the block” of America brings home what is lost and is being lost worse. READ MORE
