Good God: Steinhardt no longer an atheist?
After following Michael Steinhardt closely for three years (for a yet-to-be-published lenthy profile examining his mischievous streak), I thought I had heard it all from him.
Until Tuesday night.
Steinhardt -- the hedge funder who famously retired from Wall Street to become a full-time Jewish community builder and counts the creation of Birthright among his successes -- was at the 92nd Street Y to give the cultural center’s annual state of the Jews address.
Steinhardt. Asked to critique the Jewish communal world.
It’s certainly a recipe for entertainment.
And he did not disappoint -- spending about 45 minutes, before several hundred Manhattan Jews, ripping into the Jewish communal world, lambasting Hebrew schools, Jewish federations, the secular Jewish world and the way Jewish organizations in general spend their money.
When asked by an audience member what advice he would give to new graduates of Reform and Conservative rabbinical seminaries, he replied, “Go to Wall Street.”
He tore into the decisions that many large organizations make when they take out full-page newspaper adds in support of Israel. Not only do they rarely change public opinion, but they are a waste of philanthropic resources.
“How much did that ad cost?” he asked. “By my reckoning, let’s figure around $50,000. Well, how many trees in a JNF forest does $50,000 plant? How many poor people in Bat Yam does $50,000 feed? Why are we spending money on advertising, rather than on doing what we say we’re supposed to be doing?”
And to that end, he repeated a public call that he made shortly after the Madoff scandal for the Jewish community to hire an official ombudsman who would look objectively at the finances and missions of all Jewish organizations to make sure that they were effective and not squandering communal cash.
Jewish unity and the notion of Jewish peoplehood upon which so many organizations have hinged their mission are dead, he said, calling such concepts "noble lies.”
So far, par for the course.
Then came the zinger.
For years Steinhardt has touted himself as an atheist, making his disbelief in God very much a part of his public persona and his identity as a Jewish philanthropist (another phrase he hates).
Yet in talking about how to boost Jewish education, he suggested that Jewish parents join their children in struggling honestly with the notion of God. That, he said, is the Jewish tradition, citing the open squabbles that Abraham, Moses and Job all had with God.
“A God with whom we struggle is a God I could accept and still look myself in the mirror the next morning. And I suspect it is also a God that the next generation of Jews can live with as well,” Steinhardt said. “Our kids will respect us if they feel we are talking to them about a kind of Deity that we, ourselves, struggle to comprehend. It will convince them that we, their parents, are for real; that we aren’t trying to push some pious sounding, but insincere, horse manure on them. In the end, we can only gain by speaking honestly about this. I think it will not lead our kids away from faith. It might even lead them towards it.”
An atheist certainly could not wrestle with something that he does not think exists.
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That is not really fair. As someone that has run many Birthright trips, this is the first year where the competition was so high for places. A person can always reapply. Applicants who are waitlisted are given first priority on subsequent trips.
“steve ariza” repeats practically verbatim here the utterly and even perversely untruthful comments he gave on “Michael Steinhardt Joins Board of JDC-Taub Center,” comments which I refuted there but which he repeats unabashedly here. It is simply not the case that due to the Birthright Program “over 100,000 american jews have become alienated from judaism” [sic: lack of capitalization]. The reality is diametrically opposite to this. So I too will repeat the entirely true points I wrote there: Taglit-Birthright Israel has helped to provide nearly 225,000 American Jewish youth educational tours of Israel. So says a recent study that also shows that “rates of marriage outside the faith were sharply curbed among young Jews who have taken ‘birthright’ trips to Israel, a development that could hearten Jewish leaders worried about assimilation,” quoting from an article from the Wall Street Journal by Jennifer Levitz, “Jewish marriage Tied to Israel Trip,” on Oct. 26. See http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125652745959507567.html
It is now fully established that a high quality educational program like this can be a major turning point in people’s lives: it has really made a major difference for Jewish young people. More power to it and to Michael Steinhardt!
Of course, since this program depends on charitable donations, it cannot accommodate all American Jewish teenagers at once. But over 200,000 is a highly impressive figure for subsidized trips and stays half-way around the world. That already comprises a very significant percentage of Jewish youth in the U.S., and it is still going on so others too will be included.
As for “steve ariza“‘s very strange, kooky and highly negative criticisms of what has to be seen as one of the most successful Jewish renewal programs ever, I suggest readers check out his other posts. They are repetitiously hateful and vile about all positive developments in Jewish life, especially those relating to Israel. Note even here his sweeping nasty comments about American Jewish leaders too. His comments cannot be taken seriously.
evan zuesse and Egbert,
so how many Jews have been turned away from this program?
If I am wrong as I sometimes am, give me the numbers dont just attack me
I am sure we could find a figure. But, I am not sure how significant it would be. Included in the figure are non Jews, students that have been to Israel on a group trip already and do not qualify, and Israeli citizens. To prove your point of alienation one would have to find students who qualified, sincerely wanted to go, and who were hurt by the rejection.
Except for Oranim, which was always oversubscribed, the non acceptance rate just got big this year. The students I know that did not get on are not bitter. They will apply again in the future.
I have always suspected that the leadership of Israel and the Jews is comprised of a coalition of Godless Atheist Oligarchs and religious nutcases. The Atheist Oligarchs provide the financing and the political clout and religious nutcases provide the justification or legitimacy. You have done nothing to dispel the notion.
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steve ariza
10/28/09 03:47 PM
an idiot without money is just a jta blogger an idiot with money is a jewish leader!
over 100,000 american jews have become alienated from judaism after being rejected by steinhardts birthwrong project