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Jewish assimilation
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Jewish Assimilation encompasses the outward social and genetic process, as well as the internal religious process of assimilation and integration of the previously segregated Jewish people into predominantly non-Jewish Europe and later, the wider world. It was made legally possible because of the emancipation, which followed the Age of Enlightenment in Europe. Assimilation developed outwardly following Jewry’s own awakening as their initial response to the “Jewish question;” but the process also developed internally and led to questions of Jewish identity and Who is a Jew?.
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Encyclopedia
Jewish Assimilation encompasses the outward social and genetic process, as well as the internal religious process of assimilation and integration of the previously segregated Jewish people into predominantly non-Jewish Europe and later, the wider world. It was made legally possible because of the emancipation, which followed the Age of Enlightenment in Europe. Assimilation developed outwardly following Jewry’s own awakening as their initial response to the “Jewish question;” but the process also developed internally and led to questions of Jewish identity and Who is a Jew?. The propriety of assimilation, and various paths toward it were among the earliest internal debates of the emancipation era, including whether and to what extent Jews should relinquish their right to uniqueness in return for civic equality. These debates initially took place within the diaspora, a population with a revered Biblical homeland, but without a state of their own.
Jewish assimilation began among Ashkenazi Jews on an extensive scale towards the end of the 18th century in Western Europe, especially Germany. Reasons cited for its initial success, included hope for better opportunities accompanying assimilation into the non-Jewish European communities, especially among the upper classes). The emancipation and assimilation also resulted in massive immigration to the United States where these disabilities and feelings are generally absent.
Preserved within the concept of assilimation are traces of the original struggle between the Reform Judaism and Orthodox movements over the future form of a modern and sustainable Jewish religious consciousness. Also included are the later political debates about a modern and sustainable nationalist consciousness and conflicting aspirations of a separate nationalism and Jewish assimilation. Assimilation, however, was met by anti-Semitism in Europe and split into a competing non-assimilationist diaspora nationalism, known as Zionism, with which and where all Jews might realize a secure and separate national religious identity. Following the Holocaust, and the failure of the European assimilation model, this decidedly non-assimilationist solution to the Jewish question became accepted as necessary, both within the Jewish community and the world political structure. The debate continues on Jewish assimilation and the internal questions, which it raises both within the diaspora and in Israel.
Debate
The issue of Jewish assimilation has agitated Jewish polemicists and intrigued Jewish historians for considerable time. Since Jews first abandoned the traditional Jewish community to embrace modern secular culture, other Jews have chastised them for deserting the Jewish people. “Religious Jews regarded those who assimilated with horror, and Zionists campaigned against assimilation as an act of treason.” As a result, the term assimilation, once used proudly by those who sought integration into European society, became a term of contempt, a symbol of subservience to gentile culture, a sign of rejection of all links to the common history and destiny of the Jewish people. These Jews consider assimilation a loss of Jewish identity of an individual either by marriage to a spouse who is not Jewish, or by abandonment of the Jewish religion to adopt another religion. This is common and thus more acceptable at the new habitat of that individual. In reality, the act of the assimilation comprises a number of elements and stages. The assimilator will usually relinquish the Jewish values and embrace cultural customs of nations that are not Jewish.
In Assimilation in American Life, Milton Gordon defined assimilation as a continuum, with the first stage acculturation, that is, the adoption of such outward cultural forms of the larger society as language, dress, recreational tastes, and political views. Total assimilation is only possible if the host society is receptive and extensive intermarriage takes place. Most European and American Jews acculturated, but they rarely lost their sense of Jewish identity, and they most often abstained from what Gordon called "structural assimilation," the creation of friendships and other contacts primarily with members of the host society. From an international conference on Jewish assimilation held at Haifa University in May 1976, Bela Vago edited a collection of papers entitled Jewish Assimilation in Modern Times. Most of these papers appear unmindful of the distinctions in assimilation widely used by contemporary sociologists and social historians. Despite the absence of polemics, most of the authors continue to accept the Zionist equation of assimilation with Jewish group disappearance. Thus they faced the question of Jewish group persistence despite the appearance of assimilation. They generally agreed that anti-Semitism was the explanation for continued Jewish identity. Persecution despite attempted integration forced assimilationists to realise that the host cultures were un-prepared to allow them to assimilate totally.
The last three decades have also seen a renewal in religious Jewish Identity in a significant section of Judaism mirroring the oscillatory movement towards and away from traditional religious teachings that is apparent throughout Jewish history.
Halakha
According to Halakha, when a Jewish man marries a non-Jewish woman, their children are considered to be gentile. However, when a Jewish woman marries a non-Jewish man, who does not undergo conversion, their children would be considered Jewish.
Christian-Jewish relations
In Christian-Jewish relations, the question of Jewish assimilation is a topic of concern for both Jewish and Christian leaders. A number of Progressive Christian denominations have publicly declared that they will no longer proselytize Jews, essentially by making use of dual-covenant theology.
The Roman Catholic Church has historically attracted a large number of Jews to the faith, such as Edith Stein, Israel Zolli, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Roman Polanski, Gustav Mahler, Marcel Proust, and Jean-Marie Lustiger. In Spain, there was controversy over the not-always sincere conversions of Spanish Judeo-Catholics, known as conversos.
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