Anonymous said...
Not that I expect it will be remembered beyond this post itself, it is pretty obvious that readers know little about Jews and Judaism more than what they are given to think about, primarily by those who need someone to blame for all of the troubles in the world. http://www.jewishboston.com/Ask-A-Rabbi/blogs/6883-ask-a-rabbi-how-is-the-jewish-community-organized
When it comes to the religion of Judaism, there are basic lessons based on the Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament. From there on it's commotion. Utopians knew the religion would be hard to remove from having an effect on morality started to destroy it from the inside in the late 1780s. Until then the Jewish community was held together by what is now called Orthodox Judaism. They began by pulling Jews away from the main group under the label Reform. When that didn't work they started another branch called Conservative. All this can be found in the books written by Rabbi Antelman. Well Jews, being a stiff-necked people, didn't want to give up leadership. Now we have many different religiously bound together groups in the Orthodox community as well as the liberal ones with names like Reconstructionist, Humanist, etc.
t's interesting that the site comes out of Boston where there is a famous doggeral.
And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.[2][3]
Like Christian Protestants, many of the Jewish groups think they are the only ones who speak to God, that their interpretations are the best of all. The Orthodox, the very conservative religious and political group, don't associate much with the other groups. The Reconstructionists, it seems to me, are very New Age, even though they adapt the customs and garb or the Orthodox. Their formation came out of a very, very liberal political group. Since Jews stay among thinkers similar to their own ideas, they have no idea what is going on among other groups of Jews. Only when ugly antisemitism rears its head to they start to band together.
Then those who want more information can go to http://www.jewishboston.com/community_directory where 615 secular organizations are listed by their interests. There are larger organizations composed of groupings, but there is no one overall group where all groups belong. It's laughable when one Jew is expected to answer for all Jews when attacked for being a Jew. No one would expect a Southern Baptist to explain and defend all Catholic beliefs for instance, yet this is what all Jews are expected to do regarding other Jews.
