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A few years ago, my friend, Rabbi Josh Feigelson and I were discussing the historical anomaly that our generation of Jews entered.
Never before in Jewish history, we surmised, had a generation come of age where political equality was a given, so many of our peers were so well-educated (in a formal/secular sense) and where a huge percentage of our co-religionists were economically affluent.
Since we had essentially “been born” into this era, this was our reality and what makes experiences like outright anti-Semitism on a plane in Atlanta so shocking to the system.
Of course, 20-30 years before we were born, many Ivy League institutions had Jewish quotas. Now, many of them have classes that are 20-30 percent Jewish.
In some respects, this is great.
In other respects, I think it may be the source of a potential problem in the future.
That problem is that we live in a bubble that is divorced from the reality going on in the rest of the world.
And that reality is growing, virulent, and dangerous anti-Semitism.
Whether it is the Halimi case in France, Mahmoud Abbas’ ongoing refusal to recognize the right of Israel to exist, denial of Jewish claims to the Temple Mount, and the appeasement of the Muslims Student Union at Cal Irvine by the President of the University after a number of incidents (here’s one), (and I’ve left out doozies like Ahmadinejad, Chavez, etc.), in most places around the world we are seeing a big uptick, one that, I think we haven’t seen in a LONG time.
And I don’t think most Jews (at least those who still care/identify after assimilation is taken into account) are really ready for it.
To say that this relative security and prosperity among Gen X/Gen Y Jews has made us “soft,” may be a stretch, but at the least, we’re definitely not “in shape.”
What’s more, as the generation of Holocaust survivors dies out (my kids, for example, will only know them through videos), those who would deny it will be emboldened.
I don’t know what to do about it, but I am concerned.
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