Question for @URJorg: Should children of Holocaust survivors receive reparations? (And what are you doing to help Judaism survive?)

The Union of Reform Judaism Biennial just ended.

On Friday, three resolutions were passed, none of which have anything to do with Judaism in particular.

One of them called for study on how the US should provide reparations for slavery in the US today.

I'm wondering, would URJ consider asking Germany to pay reparations to the descendants of Holocaust survivors?

Any sober person can agree that Holocaust survivors went through much worse times than slaves in the US. If descendants of slaves deserve reparations, shouldn't descendants of Jews of Europe?

Thinking through the logic of why one group seems to deserve it and not the other can illuminate the logical problem. Holocaust survivors overcame much worse persecution, much more recently. Antisemitism in the US in the middle of the 20th century was no less than racism was.

It is almost like those who worked hard to overcome prejudice should be penalized.

And it also seems like Reform Jews put the lowest priority on their own people.

The URJ's resolutions show that the organization has little to do with actual Judaism and has embraced the very recent idea of "tikkun olam" as a substitute for Judaism. (Is there any difference between "tikkun olam" and "social justice"? If not, then there is nothing Jewish about "tikkun olam" except the Hebrew.)

These resolutions weren't the worst thing that happened at the Biennial.

Most disgustingly, the MC of the biennial on Friday had an "IfNotNow" pin, according to the INN Twitter account:

Today in Good For The Jews.

Rabbi Matt Green, the MC of the #URJBiennial happening this week, proudly wore an IfNotNow pin in front of 5,000 Reform Jews. He told the crowd that we need to work to end the occupation and for freedom & dignity for all.

There was raucous applause. pic.twitter.com/UeHUK0qG0d

— IfNotNow🔥 (@IfNotNowOrg) December 12, 2019

I noted that if IfNotNow has its way, the entire Old City of Jerusalem - which they consider "occupied" - would be given to Arabs who would then ban Jews as Jordan did from 1948 to 1967. Then they won't have to worry about an egalitarian space at the Kotel to pray - they couldn't get there anyway! 

The Reform movement has little left to do with Judaism. While the attendees held a Havdalah ceremony Saturday evening, the rank and file who identify as Reform (and, increasingly, Conservative) actually do no Jewish rituals beyond a watered down Passover seder and maybe Chanukah candles. (It is actually laughable to think that more than 1% of Reform Jews do Havdalah at home.)   Only 2% of Reform Jews can speak Hebrew. As Daniel Gordis - who has Conservative ordination - has written about non-Orthodox in America, "We now have a generation of Jews secularly successful and well-educated, but so Jewishly illiterate that nothing remains to bind them to their community or even to a sense that they hail from something worth preserving."

There are some exceptional Reform and Conservative Jews who love Judaism in all its aspects, not only the imposter "tikkun olam" concept. But they are a tiny minority. Most who identify with those movements have little or nothing to do with Judaism beyond bagels and bialys and Mrs. Maisel.

Those movements have to go back to basics - to study the Jewish texts. They don't have to agree with everything the Orthodox believe but they should be conversant in the Tanach and Talmud - at least reject Jewish tenets from a position of knowledge and not ignorance. Their kids know hypocrisy when they see it and this is what hurts Judaism more than anything else.

It may be too late, and if the URJ Biennial is any indication, it is. 

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