Shap Journal 2001/2002
Living Community

The Jewish Community,
Past, Present and Future

Jonathan Sacks

“Each Jew,” Milton Himmelfarb once wrote, 
“knows how thoroughly ordinary he is;
yet taken together, we seem caught up in
things great and inexplicable . . . The
number of Jews in the world is smaller than a small
statistical error in the Chinese census. Yet we remain
bigger than our numbers. Big things seem to happen
around us and to us.”

That has long struck me as one of the better descriptions
of what it feels like to be a Jew. The total population of
world Jewry is small - one-quarter of a per cent of the
population of the world. Yet Jews and Judaism continue
to be at the front line of history, tragic or triumphant.
The question is Why? - which is one way of asking the
question of modern Jewish life: What is it to be a Jew?

I suspect that it is not endlessly complicated to explain
what it is to be Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Sikh or
Hindu. Indeed, at many points in the Jewish past, it
would not have been difficult either. To be a Jew - our
ancestors would have said - is to be born into a people
whose story goes back to Abraham and Sarah. It is to be
part of a covenant, enacted at Mount Sinai in the days
of Moses, by which a group of recently liberated slaves
pledged themselves to be "a kingdom of priests and a
holy nation". Its mission was to construct, in that tiny
sliver of land today called Israel, a society based on
respect for human dignity and freedom. Through its
national life it would be an example of what it is like to
live under the sovereignty of God. The prophet Isaiah
called the Jewish people, "God's witnesses" in the world.
Judaism is a religion, albeit of an unusual kind.

Today, though, there is no unanimity on the question of
Jewish identity. The reason for this is that during the
past two centuries, Jews have passed through some of
the most traumatic episodes of their long and painful
history. In 1879 a new word was coined by the German
journalist Wilhelm Marr. The word was 'anti-semitism'.
Two years later, pogroms broke out in more than a
hundred Russian towns. In 1882 the viciously anti-
semitic May Laws were passed. These two events sent
millions of Jews into flight to the West. In 1933 Hitler
came to power in Germany. Within twelve years, two-
thirds of Europe's Jews had been shot, gassed, burned and
turned to ash. We still live with the echoes of those days.

In the nineteenth century, 90 per cent of Jews lived in
Europe, the majority of them in the East. Today, the
figure is closer to 10 per cent. Jewish life is now
concentrated in Israel and the United States. There are
few Jews anywhere who have not, in their recent family
history, suffered geographical dislocation. Ancient
Jewish communities, from Poland to Iraq, exist no
longer, or if they do, it is in the most vestigial form.
Quite apart from the unspeakable tragedies that lie
behind these facts, they mean that the continuity of
Jewish life was shattered in country after country. For
more than a century, Jews were more concerned with
where they could live at all than how they could live in
accordance with Jewish tradition. When a religious
identity becomes a death warrant, it takes time to recover.

Nor was this all. For almost two thousand years, during
which they had no national home, Jews lived by faith.
Wherever they went, they built synagogues, schools and
houses of religious study. They were a God-intoxicated
people. Jewish time was suspended between memory
and hope - memory of days of David and Solomon, and
hope of an ultimate redemption. Three times a day they
prayed that God would remember them and bring them
back, in freedom, to their ancestral home. It is not too
much to say that even more than they carried their
faith, their faith carried them. It was their defence
against despair.

But there are times when faith breaks under the sheer
weight of tragedy. Already in the nineteenth century,
one could find Jews for whom it made more sense to put
their trust in mankind rather than God. There were
those who believed that Jews had suffered more than
they could bear, and who took the decision to abandon
their heritage. There were others who held that Jews
must now relinquish some or all of the practices that

made them different. This would allow them to integrate
more closely with their host societies. Thus Reform,
Liberal and Conservative Judaisms were born.

By the end of the century, a third group emerged,
arguing that whatever Jews did, there was no safe home
for them in Europe. Anti-semitism was simply too deep
and dangerous. They were convinced that Jews needed
to leave and return to their original home in the land of
Israel. This was the birth of the movement known as
Zionism. Many of the early Zionists were secular Jews
who preferred political activism to prayer.

We live, as I said, in the aftermath of those events, and
that is why there are so many different answers to the
question of what it is to be a Jew. For those who could
no longer believe in the ancient faith, a new answer had
to be found. Some thought of Jewish identity in terms of
culture, others as an ethnicity. Some felt that Judaism's
religious beliefs and practices needed radical reform,
others that they had to be jettisoned altogether. There
were extreme Zionists who believed that Jewishness
should be defined by where you live, not how. And in the
midst of these contending voices were those who still
heard the ancient call of Sinai. They did not minimise
the depth of the catastrophe, but neither did they believe
that you solve a crisis by redefining it or walking away.
They held firm to the traditions of their ancestors. They
were called, by their opponents, 'Orthodox' Jews. I count
myself one of them.

Much has happened since then, not least the birth, in
1948, of the State of Israel. Today the Jewish world faces
three new challenges. The first is the collapse of the
peace process in Israel. This is a tragedy for Jews and
Palestinians alike. For the Palestinians, the cost is
palpable: a future without economic and political hope.
For Israelis, the cost is no less deep. Fifty-two years old,
with a string of political, economic and technological
achievements unique among the nations born since the
Second World War, Israel still finds its very right to exist
challenged by its Arab neighbours. The old Jewish story
is being played out again. The place has changed; so
have the protagonists. Yet still Jews find themselves
having to fight for the right to be.

The second challenge is in the Diaspora, where between
one-third and two-thirds of young Jews are drifting away
from Jewish life by marrying out or in some other way
opting out. This is a very sad phenomenon. In the past,
Jews left Judaism in fear of persecution. Today, in most
countries, Britain included, there is no such fear. There
is much debate as to why this has happened, but I have
already given the simplest answer. Jewish life is still
scarred by the immense disruption of the recent past. In
the process traditions were lost, and only now are we
beginning to recover them.

The third and potentially most exciting is the revival of
Jewish life in places where it was long suppressed, most
notably in the countries of the former Soviet Union. For
seventy years the practice of Judaism was effectively
forbidden. Generations have grown up knowing nothing
of their heritage. The opening of synagogues and Jewish
schools in places like Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine
is like seeing a phoenix rise from the ashes.

How then do we revitalise Jewish life in countries like
Britain? When I became Chief Rabbi, ten years ago, I
invited the community to join me in a decade of Jewish
renewal, and the results have far exceeded my
expectations. I take no credit for what has happened, but
it has been nothing less than exhilarating.

Many new Jewish day schools have been built, and we
cannot keep up with the demand. Adult education
programmes have blossomed, and are oversubscribed.
Outreach groups, aimed at teenagers and young singles,
have been hugely successful. Synagogue attendance is
up in many of our congregations. Synagogues
themselves have been transformed from houses of prayer
to buzzing centres of community life. More young people
are spending serious study time - especially in their
'gap' year - in seminaries in Israel.

There have been some fascinating new developments.
The Internet has proved to be a fruitful medium of
Jewish communication. A new Jewish newspaper and
several radio stations have been created. Several new
styles of synagogue service have appeared: explanatory
services, 'alternative' services for young people, and so-
called 'Carlebach' services using the music of an
American hassidic rabbi, the late Shiomo Carlebach.
Choral and cantorial music has enjoyed an unexpected
revival. Activity levels in Anglo-Jewry have never been
higher. We are still losing Jews; it takes time to reverse
trends. But the community is, notwithstanding reports
to the contrary, in the midst of a genuine renaissance.

How did it happen? In part, because we were candid in
admitting the problem. It is easy for a group in decline
to suffer the condition known as denial. 'Crisis? What
crisis?' We didn't. Instead we spoke openly about the loss
of Jews and started a community-wide debate. That
energised people and led to a burst of creative solutions.
The most remarkable was an organisation called Jewish
Continuity, led by Clive Lawton, which undertook to
fund new programmes throughout Anglo-Jewry. It was,
if anything, too creative for a highly traditional
community like ours, but it unleashed a wave of activity
that continues to this day.

In part, too, it happened because a faith community,
when it is in good order, really does speak to human
needs. People want to belong. They feel lifted by
knowing that they are part of a tradition. They welcome
the chance to be part of a community, giving to others
and knowing that others will be there for them should
the need arise. There is something in the human spirit
that yearns for expression, and we can find it so long as
the expression is right for the moment and the age. To
be sure, the religious voice is often drowned out by the
noise of a secular culture, but that should be taken as a
challenge, not a fate.

Why then is it so important for Jewish life to survive?
Because Judaism is one of the truly great religious
civilisations. The world's first monotheism, it gave rise,
in the course of time. to Christianity and Islam, both of
which trace their descent to Abraham and Sarah and
their faith in the one God of creation and redemption. It
was the first to proclaim the sanctity of human life and
the inalienable dignity of the human person, made in
the image of God. The Hebrew Bible is still the supreme
expression of the search for God within personal
relationships and the structures of society. As long as
human beings search for meaning and purpose, they
will turn to the Book of Psalms for spiritual depth, the
Hebrew prophets for the voice of justice, and the Book of
Job for courage in the face of suffering.

These are not relics of the past. To the contrary, never
have we needed them more. In the face of vast
technological and social change, we have to be able to
turn, not just to books, but to living examples of what
those books mean in life. That is why it is essential that
there are active Jewish communities throughout the
world. This is not because we believe that Judaism is the
only religious truth. We don't. I believe that God speaks
to many cultures, each in its own language, through its
own history and traditions. The human symphony is
scored for many voices, of which Judaism is only one,
but an ancient, important and distinctive one.

I believe that Judaism has much to teach not only Jews
but others as well. I think especially of the strength and
beauty of the Jewish home, our love of family and our
deep sense of community. I think of the Jewish passion
for education, argument and the life of the mind. I think
of the Jewish dedication to tzedakah (charity and social
justice) and gemillut hassadim (acts of compassion and
care). I think of those strange quirks of Jewish character,
our sense of humour undiminished by centuries of
suffering, our irrepressible individuality, our social
activism, and our willingness to challenge the idols of
the age. I think of Jewish law, known as halakhah ('the
way'), by which we sanctify the simple pleasures of
eating, drinking and celebrating life. Each faith has its

unique contribution to make to the human enterprise,
and if I were to summarise Judaism's I would say that it
lies not in climbing to heaven, but in bringing heaven
down to earth. Judaism is the epiphany of everyday life.

So I hope, and believe, that there will be a strong Jewish
community in Britain for many years to come. As long
as there is, you will hear Jews sighing that Jewish life is
in decline; and as long as they keep saying it, they will
keep preventing it from happening. We are, as Moses
said, an obstinate people, never more so than when
faced with our own obituary. For we are a people who
love life. Perhaps that is the secret of longevity.