This law professor wants to build a US Jewish consensus in an age of deep polarization

JTA — It’s not just America that’s polarized. The US Jewish community often seems more divided than ever — and given the Jews’ reputation for argument and infighting, that’s saying something.

The divisions are more nuanced than simply left versus right, or Orthodox versus non-Orthodox. They involve competing ideas about what it means to be Jewish, how much solidarity the community owes Israel, what constitutes antisemitism and who gets to speak for American Jews.

The October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and the ensuing war brought these fault lines into sharper relief. In the immediate aftermath, the shock and grief seemed to create a rare moment of communal unity. That consensus proved short-lived.

In “Polarized: Why American Jews Are Divided and What to Do About It,” Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, the Raymond P. Niro Professor of Law at DePaul University College of Law, examines the political, religious and generational divides that have fractured American Jewry. But she also proposes a way out. Kwall argues that a majority consensus exists, and can form the foundation of a strong Jewish center that is broad and confident enough to accommodate serious disagreement without falling apart.

The consensus includes recognition of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state; a commitment to fighting antisemitism across the political spectrum; and acceptance that criticism of Israeli government policies is legitimate. It asks American Jews to agree that “by and large” universities can do a better job fighting antisemitism, and that “innocent Palestinians” deserve “Jewish sympathy and support.”

I spoke with Kwall about the causes of this polarization, whether her proposed consensus risks excluding Jews who reject some of its premises, and whether a community divided by the same forces reshaping American politics can realistically chart a different course.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You argue that polarization is a serious problem in American Jewish life. But first: What is your evidence or leading indicators of this polarization?

Everything in our environment would seem to suggest we’re very polarized. And it’s not just like, “I don’t agree with you, you don’t agree with me.” What’s happening is this tendency toward intense vilification: “I don’t agree with you, therefore, you’re an evil, immoral person.” In my book, I quote Prof. Eli Finkel at Northwestern, who describes this vilification as roughly a 10-year-old phenomenon.

Who are the camps that are both polarized and are vilifying each other within the Jewish community?

The divides are primarily between people who are both politically and religiously liberal, as I define that in the book, and those who are politically and religiously conservative. I think those two groups tend to epitomize the most severe polarization in the American Jewish community.

By which you mean the majority of Jews who are politically liberal and tend to include the religiously liberal — including the Reform and Conservative movements — and the Orthodox minority that tends to be both politically and religiously conservative. 

Seventy-five percent of the American Jewish community are politically liberal, even after the midterm election, and roughly 25% of American Jews tend to be politically conservative. That group is largely, though not exclusively, Orthodox. There are politically conservative Jews who are non-Orthodox, including Jews who came over from the Soviet Union in the ’90s, who tend to be very conservative politically even if their kids may not be. The Sephardim also tend to be more conservative, particularly in the Persian community.

So how do you distinguish between polarization and diversity? Jews have always disagreed, sometimes passionately, about politics, religion, Israel. Isn’t that diversity a sign of a healthy community?

What makes it unhealthy is exactly what Eli Finkel and others have talked about: the vilification. You can disagree, but when you think that the person who doesn’t agree with you is an evil, immoral person, that takes the disagreement to a whole other level and one that’s very, very toxic.

There’s a lot of people that never really talk to people who disagree with them politically or who have different ways of practicing Judaism. That’s a big problem. That’s not a new problem. But when you combine that separation with this political separation, it really does lead to more negativity.

Do you think polarization in the Jewish community is symmetrical? Are the left and right equally responsible for the breakdown in communal discourse, or are there important differences in how polarization manifests itself on each side?

It depends on the environment that you’re talking about. In the university structure, the vast majority of professors are liberal, so you don’t have the opportunity to have the kinds of conversations that you need to have. I would be talking to colleagues who teach criminal law and criminal procedure, including politically liberal professors, who would say, “I can’t teach my course anymore. The students don’t want to hear it.” So that element on the left has definitely taken on a life of its own, and it’s not just my observation.

I think there are other circles you’d see a lot more on the right, and I think it just depends on where you are. I have a quote from Shmuel Rosner, the Israeli journalist, who says that Jews are impacted much more by what happens on the left rather than the right, because most of their social and professional circles are affected by what happens on the left.

But if we’re talking about what you call the “religious-political stew,” I’ve found that religiously liberal Jews would happily engage in activities and in dialogue with religiously conservative Jews, who are more likely to say no. Do the Orthodox have more red lines when it comes to dialogue, particularly around religious issues?

I started a center for Jewish law and Jewish studies with one of my colleagues who is Orthodox, and I wanted to bring rabbis from all the denominations to do a program for the community, and it was hard to get the Orthodox. So I do think that was true.

I actually did a podcast this morning with somebody in the Orthodox world, and he was saying that may have been the case, especially on topics involving religion, but that there’s now more openness to talking about things, maybe not to debate halacha [religious law] or religious practice, but certainly to debate the issues that have political consequences.

I think if you talk to people who are politically conservative, they’re going to tell you the liberals are much more difficult and don’t want to have conversations.

What would you say to someone who believes that the pursuit of consensus has historically been used to marginalize dissenting voices in Jewish life, particularly those challenging communal leadership or Israeli government policies? I’ll start with the members of, say, Gen Z who challenge the very idea of a Jewish state. 

I want a broad tent, but a tent that doesn’t have walls collapses. I’m pretty clear that people who are anti-Zionist because they don’t believe that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish democratic state are not going to be part of this enterprise. That doesn’t mean we have to hate them. It doesn’t mean we have to vilify them. It doesn’t mean we have to call them immoral. I’m not talking about that.

But the work that I think needs to be done has to be done by people who believe [in a Jewish, democratic state] but can also ask, What does it mean to be a Jewish state? What does it mean to be a democratic state? Those discussions need to happen. I know that the anti-Zionist voices are louder now. They get more airtime in the media, including the Jewish media. But I don’t believe that they represent the majority of Jews.

Your book is a plea for a return to what you call a “sensible middle ground,” at a time when the center is not holding. How do you achieve this at a time when both camps think the political stakes are so high? 

I wouldn’t say that the center is not holding. What I would say is we’re not putting enough effort into developing it. The center I write about, and the platform I call for, would share a consensus on eight points, including believing that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state; that criticism of the Israeli government and its decisions is appropriate, and that fighting antisemitism — no matter which side it originates from — is critical.

An area of agreement doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody is going to agree with all the nuances in each of these points, but I do think the majority of American Jews would agree with the consensus platform that I describe. I’m also very clear that the primary audience for this has to be Generation Alpha, born basically in 2015 or 2016, and really make sure that we handle things differently than how they’ve been handled up until now, and more affirmatively.

What are the places and programs that would develop this broad center? Is this about school curricula? Programs developed by the Jewish organizations?

I would love to see each of these organizations develop an educational narrative for the youngest of their constituents, and of course for the parents of those constituents. I was inspired by Erica Brown at Yeshiva University, who in a piece written for The Lehrhaus calls on Orthodox day schools to develop new curricula relating to Zionism, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, anti-semitism and political activism. Orthodox day schools represent a very small fraction of the American Jewish community, but if you take the organizational world altogether, and they develop programs with this narrative, that’s a much bigger slice of the American Jewish community.

Where else might you build this consensus around what you call “key, big-picture ideas”?

I imagine conversations taking place on Zoom, or another technological platform, where people genuinely hear and listen to one another — not debates, because that presumes there will be a winner — but conversations where viewpoint diversity is respected. And whether these educational narratives get created by the [summer] camps or Young Judaea or the Conservative movement, it will not be the product of just one linear way of thinking.

You also write about “the importance of developing stronger norms of religious practice and celebration of Jewish ritual in ways that are realistic for non-Orthodox Jews.” Why is that important in reducing polarization? 

My last book, “Remix Judaism,” was about the need for more Jewish practice in religiously liberal communities. I stand by that book. I am very concerned about what American Judaism is going to look like, especially in the religiously liberal movements, in 20, 30 and 40 years. Today, the majority of Jews in the United States align with the Reform and Conservative denominations. Edieal Pinker, who’s a professor at Yale and has done a regression study of Pew’s 2013 survey of American Jews, basically predicts that by 2063, 1/3 of American Jews will be Orthodox, 1/3 will be a combination of Conservative and Reform, and 1/3 will be non-denominational, “nones,” etc.

That worries me, because it suggests that the middle may be vanishing. And it also worries me because, in order to transmit, you need to have the tradition, you need to have the ritual. It doesn’t have to all be practiced in the same way. What keeps Jewish people together long term is Jewish practice.

I want to ask about the politics of the book. I notice you draw frequently on writers and institutions that many would put on the right or center-right: Bari Weiss, Liel Liebowitz, Bret Stephens, The Tikva Fund, The Maimonides Fund. I know many of them have been behind a push for Jewish institutions to double down on tradition, education, Zionist pride — to turn inward as a response to anti-Zionism and antisemitism and to what the universities and media are saying about Israel and Jews. Do you see yourself in a political camp?

In terms of my political perspectives, I tried really hard to take that out of the equation. So you are correct that in certain chapters, for example, where I talk about anti-Israel bias in the media and I talk about universities tolerating antisemitism, many of the critiques come from the right. I do think those institutions became very liberal, and I’m concerned about that. But I also cite The Forward a lot.

Polarization is hardly unique to the Jewish community; it reflects broader political and cultural forces. Why do you believe Jews can overcome dynamics that are so deeply rooted in the wider society?

We have to. We have to coalesce better. We have to behave better. Otherwise, united we stand, divided we fall. And I really do believe in that. So I am passionate about trying to get more American Jews to at least be able to speak with one another and appreciate one another as Jews. I think that is so important.