Edgar Bronfman promotes his own distinctive style of Judaism.
By MARILYN HENRYedgar bronfman 88(photo credit: )
Edgar Bronfman has had quite the distinguished career as a prominent liquor tycoon, philanthropist and political figure in Jewish and American Democratic Party circles. And now, nearing 80, he apparently has a new role: preacher.
He has been making the rounds, promoting his new book Hope, Not Fear: A Path to Jewish Renaissance, written with Beth Zasloff.
Last month, Bronfman, with both his co-author and his son Matthew in tow, addressed a full house at a lecture at the Jewish Community Center on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Bronfman - who established much of his communal reputation as the longtime head of the World Jewish Congress dealing with, among other things, anti-Semitism - reported that anti-Semitism is dead, American Jews live well, but have to get over the fear factor and reconnect with a joyous Judaism.
Jews, he warned, are ignorant and apathetic about Judaism and need to be educated. What that actually entails and to what end are a bit unclear.
The book, which includes many bits of conversations with a variety of rabbis, doesn't offer much that is new. It rather reads like "Judaism for Dummies" without much of the Judaism.
Bronfman, who has supported many Jewish educational causes, including Hillel centers on university campuses and MyJewishLearning.com, has his own distinctive style of Judaism. The Haggada he wrote for his family's Passover Seder, for instance, continues beyond the exodus from slavery to freedom, on to the story of Sinai (kind of like Passover and Shavuot in a single installment). Why tell an incomplete exodus story during the Seder when you can just keep going to the good part? Bronfman also has own brand of kashrut: Because the Torah bars the cloven hoof and shellfish, he won't eat it. But the mixing of milk and meat, he says, is a rabbinic prohibition (he's half right), and he doesn't hold much stock in the rabbis, so mix away. He doesn't like synagogues much, either.
He also bemoans what he sees as squandering time, energy and goodwill fighting intermarriage. Instead, it is a fact to be reckoned with, he says, and we should "make it our ally" with everyone welcomed under the "tent." (The tent figures largely in Bronfman's JCC chat.) Like everyone else, he's entitled to whatever views he wishes. He came to appreciate Jewish practice late in life, and he is his own unique sort of ba'al tshuva. Bronfman's Judaism doesn't enjoy rabbinic interpretations, traditional practices or synagogues, but seems heavy on ethics and studying texts. He seemed especially fond of Talmud study despite his apparent contempt for rabbinic Judaism. He just wants Judaism to be joyous.
READING HIS book is one thing. In a darkened lecture hall at the Jewish Community Center, this all seems surreal. One of two things was happening: A bunch of affluent Jewish New Yorkers who don't know much about Judaism, don't know Jewish texts and dislike synagogue services want to be entertained by a charming raconteur. That would be Bronfman.
Or perhaps Bronfman was reassuring these well-heeled spiritual seekers, who were not apathetic about Judaism, but collectively were extremely uncomfortable in their Jewish skins and have not figured out what it means to them to be Jewish.
This was Edgar Bronfman the preacher, instructing them, for instance, on his five key aspects of welcoming Shabbat on Friday nights at home. And this from a man who was not raised in a Jewish home and had not provided one for his children (which Matthew confirmed on the spot). And yet here Bronfman was, with a new book, and a firm commitment to Jewish life that he shares with several of his children and grandchildren. The message seemed to be: never too late.
In that audience, people felt comfortable asking him for guidance. But when someone asked the former head of Seagrams if you could be Jewish if you do not believe in God, and Bronfman and son seemed like reasonable authorities to answer, that was when it was time to leave. The evening suddenly felt like a farce.
I have no doubt of everyone's sincerity, but it was embarrassing, a sort of subtle proselytizing in "I'm OK You're OK" Judaism by a Jewish leader this crowd feels at ease with. His book, his ideas are easy to digest, optimistic and he does not shrai gevalt at intermarriage. Imagine the huge sigh of relief among the highly intermarried, assimilated American Jews.
New York has a smorgasbord of rich Jewish programming - educational and cultural opportunities too numerous to accurately count. What strikes me as the farce of Edgar Bronfman as preacher also strikes me as the tragedy of the rabbis and educators who are toiling in the Jewish fields. They seem unable to harvest much of the fruit.
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