An Unusual Life - "Atheist Jew" to speak at Religious College

[Synnical]

I listen to NPR now and then (much less now since we have Progressive Talk Radio in South Florida at 940 AM) but don't recall hearing this info. Interesting. And for the record on my part, I do think "Atheist Jew" or "Jewish Atheist" is an oxymoron. But, that's just me. A friend here on DU, knows I don't "get it". Doesn't mean I don't respect that person. Hope that person respects me as well. :)


http://www.tricities.com/tristate/tri/living.apx.-content-articles-TRI-2008-02-17-0009.html

King welcomes author and National Public Radio’s "All Things Considered" voice Marion Winik as its latest guest in the series on Feb. 18.

On NPR since 1991, Winik has written nearly 10 books, in addition to articles published in such magazines as The New York Times Magazine.

She also has a forthcoming column in Ladies Home Journal titled "My Life as a Mom."

King College is a school with a religious affiliation. Therefore, the appearance of the author of the forthcoming collection of essays "The Glen Rock Book of the Dead," may strike some as odd. Why?

Winik is an atheist Jew.

"That’s true," Winik said by phone Wednesday afternoon from her home in Glen Rock, Pa.

The term "atheist Jew" is no oxymoron. While the words may seem diametrically in opposition, they aren’t necessarily so.

"Many people view Judaism as a culture," Winik said. "Of course, I’m Jewish. But I’m not a religious person. Indeed, I don’t believe in God."

Which begs the question, why would a college with such a long-standing religious affiliation as King welcome a dialogue with an atheist? Chaplain and King professor emeritus Dr. Errol Rohr oversees the convocation series.

You'll need to click the link to read about her "Unusual Life."

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Yawn

American Jews who think Judaism is a culture ought to talk to Jews from Jewish communities in, say, China or North Africa or India. They'd realize how little they have in common with them compared to how much they have in common with their non-Jewish American neighbors.

I've always thought that such people are fundamentally cowards. They've liberated themselves from the theology but can't take the logical next step, where they simply stop calling themselves Jews.

I dealt with some of this in an essay here, which gets me some pretty angry e-mails.

[TZ]

2. My family is pretty secular/atheistic

But that doesn't stop us from practicing some of the rituals, and handing down and collecting Jewish memorbilia. Hell, my dad is one of the biggest, most obnoxious atheists you will meet but he loves reading about Jewish history, collecting Jewish memorabilia. I guess that makes us bad atheists in your book!:sarcasm:
When I had all my Jewish relatives in Europe killed by Hitler (whether they believed in gawd or not) it kind of makes me realize that my heritage is VERY important to me personally and culturally.
I would like to preserve my families history and if you can't understand that..I feel bad for you.

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Much of my mother's family died in the Holocaust

That doesn't make what they considered their heritage any more important to me. The Nazis were evil. Anti-semitism is evil. Both facts are irrelevant to how I identify myself.

[Meshuga]

7. But judaism is more than a religion

There are three components to Judaism: ethics, spirituality, and peoplehood

Atheist and Humanistic Jews are examples that you don't have to subscribe to the spiritual component in order to be considered a serious Jew since following Jewish ethics and/or peoplehood count.

Regardless of whether there are more atheist Jews now than we ever had in history what always defined a Jew was not his/her belief but whether this person was born into the tribe or not.

There is this tendency in our culture to look at Judaism with the same eyes as Christianity where belief defines who you are.

In the few thousand years of Jewish history there has never been a consensus on how to deal with belief because it is not the focus. Jewish law or Jewish folkways (I use folkways since more recent liberal groups replaced the word "law" with "folkways") has for the most part been the emphasis.

The existence of Jews from other parts of the world having little in common (as far as belief) with American Jews does not change the fact that these parties see each other as members of the Jewish people. They might not agree with each other's approach but there is a consensus that the different parties are part of the Jewish community.

Therefore, "atheist Jew" is not an oxymoron unless you look at it thinking it is like Christianity where having certain belief is part of the requirements.

[DavidDvorkin]

8. No, it is only a religion

Attempts to define it as something other than that are self-deception -- frequently engaged in by people who want to give up the religion but not feel guilty about doing so.

[Meshuga]

9. And not being able to see the other components

is ignorance which is understandable since we live in a society where Christians are the majority. We tend to look at religion in general with Christian goggles, it is hard to take them off. However, in Judaism, a person is not a Jew because he or she subscribes to a certain set of beliefs, this person is considered a Jew because he or she was born in a Jewish family. Look it up.

Granted, a person is also a Jew if he/she went through a conversion process, which is more like a citizenship process not a change in beliefs and ideology. However, a person seeking conversion for identifying with Jewish spirituality, who is not able to identify with the peoplehood component, will not be able to complete the process.

You say the person feels guilt about leaving a "religion" but do you think this person feels guilty because of beliefs or because of legacy, patrimony, ancestry, and inheritance? If you say it is because of beliefs then I disagree with you however I would agree with you if you said it is because of legacy, patrimony, ancestry, and inheritance.

In any case, I doubt an atheist Jew would identify him/herself as an "atheist Jew" just for the sake of trying to hold on to religion and theistic beliefs.

[immoderate]

4. I'm one of those Jewish atheists. There are a few on DU.

And I'm quite sure we all enjoy a mutual respect with you Cindy. :hi:

Short version of my story, since I've done this before (see my journal): Jewish is not just religion, it's culture. With respect to the post above, I guess I can only speak about European Jewish culture. Things like language, (Yiddishisms and other patterns) food, humor and other literature, music, (Jewish harmonies have a relation to jazz and blues) and education, philosophy, and ethics kind of stick. I'll also echo a post above by saying, "When they come for the Jews, they won't ask about your beliefs." We all have a sense of the holocaust. Most of us have a strong commitment to civil rights.

In our recent Darwin Day celebration we had a speaker who is an atheist rabbi.(!) He's also a lawyer who takes First Amendment cases. In nearby Delray Beach there is a secular synagogue (different rabbi.) It's just full of atheist Jews.

From Wikipedia:

Secularism and Nontheism became widespread among Jews only in the 19th century, during the Haskalah, many of whose leaders rejected all traditional religious practice and belief in favor of reason and the scientific method. Among the activist and intellectual leaders at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries who contributed most to the development of Humanistic Judaism were Ahad Ha’am, Simon Dubnow, and Chaim Zhitlovsky. In its current form, Humanistic Judaism was founded in 1963 by Rabbi Sherwin Wine. As a rabbi trained in Reform Judaism, with a small secular, non-theistic congregation in Michigan, Wine developed a Jewish liturgy that reflected his, and his congregation’s, philosophical viewpoint by emphasizing Jewish culture, history, and identity along with Humanistic ethics while excluding all prayers and references to God. This congregation developed into the Birmingham Temple, now in Farmington Hills, Michigan. It was soon joined by a previously Reform congregation in Illinois led by Rabbi Daniel Friedman, as well as a group in Westport, Connecticut.

In 1969, these congregations and others were united organizationally under the umbrella of the Society for Humanistic Judaism (SHJ). The International Federation of Secular Humanistic Jews, comprised of organizations in thirteen countries, was founded in 1986. There are an estimated 50,000 members worldwide.

Jewishness is a tribal identity, and Jews can be as atheist as can be, say Italians or Irish. In fact, though he wouldn't say it in so many words, the rabbi who bar mitzvahed me was an atheist.

--IMM

[Trajan]

6. Great post ....

There are many Jewish Atheists throughout recent history .... You are spot-on with this being about tribal identification ....

[Warpy]

5. I have known very few religious Jews

although one guy I dated back in the 60s ended up a Rabbi. I guess he got religion when I dumped him, because he sure didn't have much when I was around.

Most of my friends are completely secular, and I wonder if the shared memory of the Holocaust, even second hand from survivors, is what destroyed their faith in a god that would save their butts when things got really tough. After all, what good is a god who just sits in heaven and does nothing when his chosen people are being slaughtered to extinction?

They have their traditions and I have mine and we each have a cultural identity that is completely separate from a purely religious one. I certainly have no problem with "atheist Jew" any more than I have one with "Irish atheist."

I'm just glad that they get my sense of humor.