THE NEW JEWISH RENAISSANCE

THE BAD NEWS (YOU ALREADY KNOW IT): JEWS ARE ISOLATED AND VILIFIED WORLDWIDE. THE GOOD NEWS: IT’S SPARKING A JEWISH REVIVAL THEIR ENEMIES NEVER IMAGINED.

Jews are awakening to a new era.

Pressure makes diamonds.

This is one of my favorite adages. Perhaps not coincidentally, it also dovetails with one of the things to which I devote a great deal of my time — Jewish history.

At every moment when the Jewish people have been placed under pressure, they have demonstrated history-defying resilience and responded with innovation, adaptability, endurance, tenacity, perseverance and, ultimately, triumph.

In the Middle Ages, when Jews were excluded from a vast range of endeavors, many Jewish people dedicated themselves to skills and vocations that were precisely the traits that would catapult them to success as the world entered the modern era. While vast numbers of Europeans, for example, were diddling around with subsistence agriculture, Jews were either prevented from owning land or knew from a history of expulsions that they shouldn’t invest in something they couldn’t pack up at a moment’s notice. For this reason, as well as cultural imperatives around learning, Jews emphasized intellectual richness over material fortune, and were ahead of the curve when commercial endeavors came to dominate the economy and Jews excelled, having experience in small-scale entrepreneurship like peddling and trading.

While their non-Jewish neighbors were able to go along to get along, Jews in almost every society have been forced to find workarounds, overcome barriers, identify alternative ways of doing things and otherwise innovate centuries before innovation became our civilizational watchword.

In North America, when Jewish doctors could not get hired by antisemitic medical administrators, they built their own, often better, hospitals.

Jewish law school grads couldn’t get hired by white shoe firms, so they formed their own partnerships and bypassed the bottom-of-the-ladder career climb.

When mainstream publishers ignored Jewish authors and audiences, Jews created their own publishing houses, some of which are now among the world’s most prestigious: Knopf; Schocken; Farrar, Strauss, Giroux.

When Jews were excluded (or limited by quotas) from elite universities, they poured into the ones where they were accepted — and excelled.

Jews were prevented from joining golf courses, so they built their own, often better, clubs.

Exclusion, oppression and obstacles have always sparked innovation among Jews. The negative phenomenon of discrimination forged the positive characteristics of community-building, tenacity and innovation.

In the aftermath of the most horrific experience in Jewish history, as Jews worldwide came to understand the magnitude of the Holocaust, an unprecedented period of revitalization and building took place. In Vancouver, the community I am most familiar with, the late 1940s and 1950s were the most profound era of Jewish communal growth. New synagogues, day schools, community centers, organizations and institutions were built. This was replicated worldwide. In response to the annihilation of one in three of the world’s Jews — the murder of two in three European Jews — the surviving remnant immersed themselves in the redemptive act of Jewish reinvention and rebuilding. While this was an extraordinary response to an unprecedented tragedy, it was in keeping with thousands of years of indefatigable Jewish determination and achievement in the face of unimaginable loss and challenge.

The great ideas, actions and people of Jewish tradition have often been forged under the most unimaginable pressures.

The changed world Jews have been living in since October 7 has had many consequences. Among these is a realization by a huge number of Jews that the place they thought they held in the wider society is not as secure as they had thought.

Jews who had little to no connection with their Jewishness or to organized Jewish networks have found they need their community. They have sought out Jewish community because they lost their friends, their colleagues, their activist allies and, as a result, they desperately needed a new circle of support. The Jewish community — by which I mean synagogues, Jewish community centres, Federations, day schools, advocacy groups and organizations of every shape and form — has recognized the moment and opened their arms to these Jews, many of whom have never set foot in these spaces before.

On campuses across North America, for example, young Jews who never thought they would cross the threshold of a Hillel, the Jewish campus home, have been, according to reports, coming in droves for emotional (and even physical) respite, drawn by welcoming programming hastily developed precisely for this unanticipated and unprecedented moment.

The betrayal of Jews by activist, social service and other progressive groups they have helped to build has been an unexpected boon for Jewish communal organizations. Chased, in many cases, from their roles at all levels of agencies working on every challenge imaginable, from poverty, homelessness and hunger to human rights, gender equality and climate change, Jewish individuals with profound expertise have made their way to places where they will be appreciated, supported and safe. This is mostly anecdotal at present but early statistics bear it out.

According to Jewish Federations of North America, 43% of people of American Jews are seeking to engage more deeply in Jewish life since October 7.

There is the push factor and the pull factor. Jews are realizing the emotional and spiritual pull toward their identity and heritage. That is overwhelmingly positive. But Jews are also being pushed out of the larger society and taking refuge in Jewish communities by necessity. For example, young people facing antisemitic bullying and harassment in public schools are transfering to Jewish day schools.

Fifty-one percent of Jewish schools, according to a major survey, experienced enrollment growth this year. Approximately 60% of schools indicated they enrolled new students post-October 7 who had not previously considered Jewish day schools. These families often cited concerns about antisemitism in public or independent schools and a desire for a supportive Jewish environment.

Jewish philanthropists have stepped up and doubled down. They are giving more — and they are empowering agencies that support Jewish identity and education, as well as Israeli charities, especially those assisting victims of terror and the internally displaced. I’m going to guess, with no empirical evidence, that Jewish giving has plummeted to once-respected groups like Amnesty International, Oxfam and the International Committee of the Red Cross (whose sole act during this horrific hostage crisis seems to be driving released hostages to spectacles where the disoriented Israelis are jeered at and paraded in front of antisemitic mobs).

The exodus of Jews from “general” community groups to ones that enrich the Jewish community is a good thing on its face, but the motivation is alarming and awful.

From top executives at major nonprofits to schoolkids, Jews are taking refuge in their communities — communities with which many of them may have had only remote connections before the new era that began October 7.

This is an alarming reality for individual Jews and it should be a concerning trend for non-Jews in almost every field of endeavor who risk losing their Jewish employees, students, donors, volunteers and most dedicated supporters.

But as has happened again and again, the world’s antisemitism has served to unify and strengthen Jewish communities and civilization. We are seeing the first dawn of this new renaissance now and I don’t think we can predict the profound and lasting impacts of the coming years.

Envy is a core characteristic of antisemitism, of course, and so the strengthening and further triumphs heralded by this new renaissance will inevitably evoke yet more hostility among the haters.

In turn, this hostility will be met by Jews as it always is. With resolve, tenacity, rededication and new levels of individual and collective accomplishment.

We are in a new era and it seems exceedingly bleak.

Beneath the surface, something else is happening, with unpredictable consequences. History is a valuable predictor. And what seems right now to be a deeply dark moment may be the beginning of something unexpected and profoundly affirming.

Pressure makes diamonds.

Also …

The darkest hour is just before dawn.