Over the summer I was a counselor at an interfaith, international conflict resolution camp. Teenagers from four regions came together for a two-week intensive program that challenged the participants to struggle with identity, conflict, difference and mutual understanding. My experience at the camp was filled with moments of beauty, surprising and painful moments and frustration too. One of these moments of frustration was with the intrafaith meetings of the Jewish participants.
Within the first few days the campers had the chance to interact with people from around the world sharing their religion; this alone was powerful to see not only American and Israeli Jews but South African Jews as well. The intrafaith groups were to design a presentation that they would give to the rest of the camp representing their religion in whatever way they saw fit.
It was not the disagreement on how to narrow down all of Judaism or Jewishness into a twenty-minute presentation that was the problem. And no, it was not just the Jews who argued – I heard later from my friends running the Christian and Muslim groups that their participants encountered lots of tension about who is “authentic,” what is the “real” religion. Valuing certain Jews as “more observant,” “more religious,” and then, inevitably, “more Jewish” is an unfortunate trend I’ve noticed. However, an interesting self-reflexive discussion arises from this: Why are these things seen as “more Jewish?” How can we define Jewish anyway? Who gets to judge who is or isn’t a Jew? Those sorts of questions offer a very thought-provoking insight into the multiplicity of Jewish experience today.
The problem was not that the Jewish group got caught up in this discussion and so was unable to come to a consensus and create the presentation. I think I would have preferred if this were the case. There was loud discord for a while and then it seemed the group was moving in one direction – highlighting the major lifecycle events, bris, Bar/Bat Mitzvah, wedding, etc. through a skit about a multi-generational Jewish family. This seemed to satisfy most of a group where the vast majority were secular Israelis and Reform or Conservative Americans. Then the conversation took a turn and another voice began to dominate, that of an Orthodox Israeli male. He urged the group to focus the presentation on traditional Jewish rituals, events and values. He felt it was important to talk about things like wrapping tefillin, things that were important in his life. And that was the challenge right there: to incorporate diverse religious experiences and understandings from the group members. This new voice gained momentum, soon eclipsing the original plan.
By the assessment of the other groups, the presentation was a success. The Jewish group was so polished, and cohesive, they noted. They really gave a clear and straight-forward presentation about their religion and there didn’t seem to be too much argument. Well there certainly didn’t seem to be from the presentation – that was for sure. It was an informative, straight-forward day in the life narrative of an Orthodox male, more or less. In a de-brief to follow, I asked the Jewish group how they thought the presentation went and if people felt their voices were heard and their experiences were represented. Most thought, yes, it went well. People liked it. Yeah, I guess it was representative of Judaism. To the outside it looked neat and tidy and what was initially a boisterous dialogue dissipated into monologue, into quiet consensus.
I don’t think that anyone felt personally slighted or silenced. I don’t think one person’s narrative prevailed just from his persuasion in favor of presenting this view. I think that the propensity to self-doubt, to rate people within a group in a hierarchy – the most Jewish to the least – crept in and won out. Who am I to say that this was the wrong representation of Judaism? It wasn’t a representation of my own Judaism but who knows what I would have done were I a participant?
In the end, it was a presentation on Judaism, it offered some good facts and information but it made into a monolith what is really a hodge-podge. Perhaps it is the nature of the beast, an inevitable result of the exercise, but I still want to believe that it could have been different. There’s nothing wrong with the group coming together to stand behind this presentation – maybe it’s a good thing. I just wondered why this picture of Judaism presented to non-Jews had to lose all the variety and color that I saw when the Jews were amongst themselves. An examination of that discrepancy and change I saw – that is the kind of Jewish presentation I’d like to see.
- Liz
