The away before the game haseven started.

Most born-again
gospel albums deal with similar themesand images.
Rootless For example,Charlie Daniels'recentexcellentgospel

Gosmopolitan album has plenty of songs about paying off your sin
account at the heavenly store, finding a rock, being
saved,etc. He throws lots of Old Testamentquotes in
Roxnr.KlrnrssrHthere, no question.But there's never any doubt that
CharlieDanielswas a Christianbeforehe was a Chris-
lf Loving
JewslsWrong, tian, and that he'll still be a Christianeven if he falls
I Don'tWantToBeRight off the wagon and starts sinning again. But open the
liner notes for Savedand vou find exactlv one biblical
wasn't the only Jewishgirl who sangin my high quote, from Jeremiah:
school gospel choir. I was the only one who
Behold, thedayscome,saiththe Lord
couldn'tactuallysing.The otherJewishgirl could
ThatI will makea newcovenant
sing,but didn't feel comfortablesaying"Jesus."Sowhile
W i t ht h eh o u s eo f l s r a e a
l , n dw i t ht h eh o u s eo f J u d a h
Beth mouthed half the words to the songs,I stood next
to the girl with the biggest voice and hoped that the Well, ifyou're starting offyour careeras a Christian
choirmasterwouldn't notice that I couldn't clap and by emphasizingyour Jewishness, odds are you're not
sway at the sametime. gonna be Christian for too long.
Ijoined gospelchoir rvith a genuinepassionfor the
music. It's no surpriseto me that other Jews love gospel Dylan's well-known sojourn as a Christiun is part of
music,especiallymy kind ofJews, the onescut off from a long history of famous Jewish converts. Some con-
their native sourcesof soul. I mean,they don't know vertedout of conviction,someout of convenience,some
any better. I certainly didn't know any better when I out of a failure to find an acceptableJewish identity.
joined the gospel choir. Happily, three months later, I For Heinrich Heine, the German poet and philosopher
heard my first Klezmatics album, (1797-1856),itwas amixture of the three.
Heine, like Dylan, grew up fairly alienatedfrom
I know a lot more sbout Jewish soul music loday. I curt any4hingresemblinga soulful Jewishidentity.To Heine,
even name Jewish bands that are not the Kleznratics. Jewishnesswas inseparablefrom vulgar capitalism.He
It's been a long time since I tried to sway and clap as wanted nothing to do with a people so obsessedwith
an expressionof religiousecstasy.Still, I couldn't help money.(Of course,he would be forever bitter at being
myselfthe other day from buying a copy of Bob Dylan's forgottenin the will of his rich uncle Solomon.)Before
Christian album, Saved.My mom had just come out converting,however,Heine searchedfor a Jewishness
of surgery and I was standing in Borders looking for a not entangledin commerce.While he had sympathyfor
presentfor her. I should have been in the little hospital the authenticity he saw in Eastem EuropeanJews, he
chapelbentshinggoymel,or whateveryou're supposed never consideredgoing native. Instead,he briefly ex-
to say when someoneactuallylistenswhen you tell them pressedhis Jewishnessthrough academicengagement,
not to "go into the light." Alas, I'm not the kind of Jew, as a founder of lhe Vereinfur Cultur and Wissenschaft
and I don't know how to pray so well. But I do know desJudenthuns (Society for JewishCulture and Schol-
how to shop. (Long lsland minkhag.) arship). Heine, Eduard Gans, Leopold Zunz and their
ThereI was in Borders,not finding my mom a present colleaguessought to rationalize and sanitize Judaism
that says"I'm glad you're alive." What I did seewas to make it safe for general consumption. This would
Saved,Dylan's 1980 gospelalbum, for the nice price then make them safe for public consumption. They
of $9.ee.I know a bargainwhen I seeone, and I don't were wrong, of course, and not long after its found-
think salvation comes any cheaperthan that. ing, the movement saw many of its founding members
Saved is hardly the best gospel recording I've ever (including Eduard Gans)acceptingten ducatsfrom the
heard. lt's not even the best white gospel I've ever Prussian government as their baptismal gifts. Heine
heard.But I haveto admit that I'm loving Christian Bob himselfwrote in 1825 tothe Vereinjournal'seditor that
Dylan. What I love the most is how he gives himself "kugel, this holy national dish, has done more for the

SEPTEMBER-OCToBER,
2OO6 45
 preservationof Judaism than all three issuesof your
magazine.And it has found a lot more takers."
So whut do Heine and Dylan have in common besides
their bond as ambivalent poet meshumdim(converts)?
They both felt estrangednot just from the Jewish reli-
gion, but Jewish culture as filtered back to them in the
mainstreamG erman/Americanimagination.
More importantly,both Heine and Dylan were prod-
ucts of cultures whose enlightened welcome to Jews
only extendedso far. During the Europeanenlighten-
ment, when Heine was searching for his acceptable
Jewish identity, it wasn't just Christianswho called the
shots on Jewish emancipation.It was during Heine's
lifetime that a Jew createdthe idea of Reform Judaism,
that is, Judaismas mere religion, not all-encompassing
culture. Jews in Germany shavedtheir beards,tradedin
their straymls for top hats and became Germans of the
Mosaic faith. In Dylan's day, too, Jews were trading in
their accents,language,names,and needfor eachother,
in order to becomereal Americans. Jews in Enlighten-
ment Germany,as in 20'h-century America, willingly
participated in their own invisibility in return for the
privilegesof assimilation.As we all knoW that privilege
comes with a heavy price. When you stop believing in
your own right to be who you are, you start participating
in your own oppression.And I do mean oppression.
Tlrat's u heavy word, I know. And it was a hot topic a
couple of weeks ago at the "Fighting Anti-Semitism
on the Left" panel I attendedat the Bluestockings
book store. Jews and non-Jews packed the store on a
swelteringnight to talk about somethingthat was in the
air long before the current war in Lebanon. How were
we, as conscientious,progressivepeople, supposedto
confront the anti-Jewishsentimentthat has becomeso
prominent on the left, especiallysincethe beginning of
the war in Iraq? Is it okay to stop in the middle of some
organized event and confront anti-Jewish remarks ifthe
event has absolutelynothing to do with Jews or Israel?
Is an atmospherewhere anti-Semitism is tolerated re-
ally oppressive?
My question was: Are you fucking kidding me? |
wanted to jump up and shout to the room: Yidn, show
some self-respect, and Ihen we can talk about effec-
tive action! What I really said, though, was that Jews
have, uniquely, been willing to become invisible, and
now, if we really want to move forward in terms of
fighting anti-Semitism,we have to be willing to stand us on the left, now when our uniqueJewishhistory,and
up and demand respectas Jews. Why are we ashamed conscience,is neededthe most?
46
to make our Jewishnessa priority? I pointed out that
sometimes when I tell my Jewish friends that it's
really important to me that I marry a Jewish person,
I'm deridedas beingtribalistor racist.At which point,
someonein the back yelled out, "You are!"
Indeed. Do you think thot guy would dare tell a Mus-
lim woman she was racist for wanting to marry another
Muslim? Unlike in Heine's day, Jews can be anything
they want except too Jewish.And if you step
out of line, rest assuredit will be other Jews shutting
you up more vigorously than anyone else.
At Bluestockings,I saw Jews of all stripes liter-
ally trembling with frustration, including a National
Lawyer's Guild member. Why, she wanted to know, is
the Guild obsessedwith Israel-Palestine,to the exclu-
sion of almost any other intemational issue?The NLG
recently sent out a pressreleaseabout its participation
in an upcomingANSWER-sponsored anti-war rally. Out
of 500 words aboutthe Lebanon-Israelwar (which they
characterizeas the US-Israeli war againstLebanonand
Palestine),not once is the word Hezbollah mentioned.
This from an organizationwhose founders,leaders,and
membersinclude innumerableJews.
Let's facethe truth: Part ofthe reasonwe've managed
to come so far as Jews is becausewe've internalized
the world's demandthat we becomemore like everyone
else. Well, we've lost much of ourselves,and we're
still not like everyone else! We're still obsessedwith
money, still too tribal (even as Jewish intermarriage
rates skyrocket) and still responsible for any war worth
talking about(accordingtoANSWER and Mel Gibson).
For each of thesepathetic anti-Semitic canards,I don't
have to go too far to find a Jew heartily agreeing. Self-
hatred is an ugly thing, as Weimar era writer Theodor
Lessing (1872-1933) knew There is no happy escape
from Jewishness,no escapein conversion,nor in self-
abnegation."Who are you?" Lessing wrote.
Theson of the slovenly JewishpeddlerNathan. . . and
of lazySarahwhomhe accidentally sleptwith because
s h eb r o u g het n o u g hm o n e yi n t ot h e m a r r i a g eN?o ,J u -
dahMaccabee wasyourfatherandQueen Esther your
mother. Fromyou,andyoualone, thechain goesback
- viadefective linksto besure- to SaulandDavid
andMoses. Theyarepresent in everyoneof you.They
have been there all the time and tomorrow theirsoirit
couldberevived.
And what will it taketo revivethe spirit of thoseof
I
JEWISH
CunnaNrs