Michael Steinhardt - Statements On Jewish Life, Judaism, and Israel

Statements On Jewish Life, Judaism, and Israel

Steinhardt has made critical statements regarding "non-Orthodox Jewish life in the Diaspora."

• On Jewish education in America, Steinhardt believes that the Reform Judaism and Conservative Judaism movements have done “a poor job under-educating our next generations” by failing to distinguish Jewish values from Christian values. Steinhardt states: “I think that many of the trends that we have seen – such as the fact that 55-60% of non-Orthodox Jews are marrying ‘out,’ such as the fact that only 15% of total philanthropy of Jews goes to Jewish causes – are reflective of that fact that non-Orthodox Jewish education in America has been, and continues to be, a shandah – an abysmal failure.”

• On Jewish leadership in America, Steinhardt believes that there has been much too much emphasis on the Holocaust calling it an "an event of extraordinary enormity” and anti-Semitism in America. Steinhardt states: "Anti-Semitism has always been far more mythical than real in America; it’s as if organizations have to create the bogeyman of anti-Semitism in order to raise money.” He believes that the focus on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, detracts “from our ability to think about the Jewish future – because it’s hard to be focused intensively on the Holocaust and, at the same time, to think about what we want to accomplish and what we want to be in the 21st Century.”

• On the state of the Diaspora, Steinhardt states: “It is a moribund Jewish world, continuously losing its young people, whose tzedakah has dramatically changed where only a small fraction of total philanthropy is going to Jewish causes; interest in Israel is declining; the number of American Jews going to Israel is not growing; where the culmination of Jewish life seems to be (for the young person) the bar mitzvah – and from there it is all downhill.”

• On Israel, Steinhardt states “Its politicians are, writ large, awful; its businessmen are of less than glorious quality; and when you walk down Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv and you look around at these people and you say, ‘This is who you admire?’ I often say it’s easier to be a Zionist in Manhattan than it is in Tel Aviv.”

• On Judaism. Steinhardt identifies himself as an atheist who nonetheless strongly supports cultural Jewish identity. Israel is his “substitute for religion.” Steinhardt states: “While the religion of Judaism is so deeply disappointing – its practice, its verbiage, its inability to reflect realistically upon our lives; I could forgive almost anything vis-à-vis Israel. Israel was and still is my Jewish miracle!”