A-Z OF JEWISH VALUES -

X FOR THE X FACTOR

On my recent visit to New York I took a memorable trip to Ellis Island, beside the Statue of Liberty, the famous registration centre for thousands of immigrants fleeing from persecution in Europe, now a huge exhibition centre which preserves the atmosphere and the history of Jewish immigration particularly well. Many of them experienced problems with the registration procedures because they could not write English. They were not able to sign their name because their mother tongue, Yiddish, is written in Hebrew letters. So what they would do in most cases is sign their name with a circle.

Why a circle? Because that was the alternative to an X, a cross – they would not use a cross because so much persecution had been brought upon them over the ages in the name of the Cross. Leo Rosten in his books on Yiddish gives this as the explanation for why Jews were called in American slang ‘Kikes’. Kike, like all ethnic nicknames is not a pleasant word, but according to Rosten it originates from a Yiddish word for a circle: kikel.

This piece of history points to something that is quintessentially Jewish – doing things differently. Usually small things with symbolic meaning.

Another example is Jewish people not joining in with Hip Hip Hurrah – because that was the shout of the Crusaders when they massacred Jews and Muslims. Hip, Hip, (it was also pronounced Hep Hep) is believed to be originally a Latin abbreviation for Hierosolyma est Perdita – Jerusalem is lost or destroyed.

There is no X in the Hebrew Alphabet. Because the sound does not come in the language.

When I asked for contributions for a subject connected with Jewish Values beginning with X for my spiel on this letter today for my series on Jewish Values A-Z, I received a good number of responses.

Xylophone – somebody suggested – it actually yielded one Jewish connection: the shtroyfidl (straw fiddle) which is a vertically played xylophone used in some klezmer music. X for kisses is quite nice. And there’s XTC (text message language for ecstasy).

Xenophobia – the dislike of strangers is absolutely what the Pesach moral message is aimed at countering.

Also someone suggested I talk about the X factor which would give me carte blanche to bring in anything I like!

I thought I’d just stay with the example of the circle instead of the X .

Doing things differently is part of the Jewish psyche. And there are of course enormous tensions involved in it. The whole history of Jewish emancipation works in the opposite direction.

In the Pesach Haggadah there’s a short line which is germane to this subject. The line in the midrashim leading up to the plagues. Where it says: veyahu sham le’am – ‘they became there a people’. And the explanation given, the comment is, ‘melamed shehayu metzuyanim sham’ – this teaches that they became distinguished there (in Egypt).

Metzuyanim: In modern Hebrew means excellent. And what does excellent mean? Outstanding. (Many words starting with ex- (e-x) have something to do with out – since ‘ex’ in Latin and also in Greek means out or outside: so we have exit and Exodus, going out.

In Hebrew the way you express something excellent or extraordinary is by a little phrase which means literally ‘going out of the norm’ ‘yotze min haklal’. It can be used positively or negatively: the wicked son in the Haggadah ‘hotzi et atzmo min haklel’ – he took himself out of the norm.

The Israelites were outstanding- literally they stood out, they distinguished themselves in certain ways. In what kind of ways? Some haggadot – and most of us a have a selection of them around the table, quote midrashim which answer this question. The commonest answer quoted is that Israel distinguished themselves in 3 key ways:

1. They never changed their names

2. They never gave into immorality

3. They never changed their language.

What this all adds up to is a separateness from the host culture. This is where the tension comes in.

When the Exodus from Eastern Europe came here to England, to Manchester, the Jewish immigrants wanted to become as English as possible without losing their Jewish way of life. If you read Bill Williams’ histories you’ll see that the Jewish Workingmen’s Clubs, the Jewish Day Schools etc were all geared up to making Englishmen out of sons of immigrants, (daughters too no doubt) as quickly as possible. Language was changed, Yiddish was preserved in cultural societies and spoken at home (especially when you didn’t want children to understand – the best way of teaching them of course), and name changes occurred to some degree, (as for morality let’s skip that one!). Reform, there is no doubt, was in the vanguard of assimilation. Our services had to be such that our non-Jewish friends would feel comfortable in them.

A great deal has changed. There’s been a revival in tradition, a revival in what’s distinctively Jewish. Our new Siddur will reflect that. I would sum up the change in Reform as going from a centrifugal to a centripetal direction. Centrifugal - from the centre outwards, centripetal - from the perimeter inwards.

Reform has moved from concerns which are outward looking- Social Action, Interfaith work – all these activities are still valid and vital, but something else is even more vital - a growing concern with how do we attract our people in.

The buzz word is Inclusivity.

There is a great desire to work on the Ex-members (we don’t have a concept of ex-Jews); the lapsed, the disaffected. The marginalised; those living at the extremities. How do we regenerate enthusiasm?

What brought this new thinking about? A very significant factor was the 2001 census. In the last census 270,000 Jews declared themselves to be Jewish but up to a third of them have nothing to do with organised Jewish life at all. There are opportunities in this.

The redevelopment is on the horizon and before too long we’ll be making our Exodus out of here. And X will mark this spot for a new building.

Many shuls around the world have found that a redevelopment has become an opportunity for regeneration and revival. All you have to do to ensure that that happens in our case is…X

You fill in the x. You can use any letter of the alphabet this time. Everybody has their own idea for the x factor, for what would attract more interest in the shul. Pop your idea in an envelope addressed to Living Judaism at Jackson's Row and ask for your idea to be brought to the next meeting.