From: hook@unixg.ubc.ca (Chris Hook)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish
Subject: Re: American Jews and Lubavitch
Date: 23 Dec 1992 19:38:06 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
NNTP-Posting-Host: eagle.geog.ubc.ca

In article <1992Dec23.171712.5102@starbase.trincoll.edu> 
nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu (norman miller) writes:
>
>Now Habadniks are not communists, but their logic regarding
>Jewish-Gentile relations is the same.  Let the nation's
>governors indeed declare that this is a Christian nation,
>let the public schools once again require that Jewish
>children participate in Christmas and Easter celebrations,
>let the Pat Robertsons and Pat Buchanans (and their friends
>on the Supreme Court) beat back whatever gains have been
>made over the years toward separation of church and state;
>then America's Jews will realize that their well-being
>consists in withdrawing from the general society into..a
>European-style ghetto with its own schools, etc.  Intermar-
>riage would vanish and most Jews would become baalei teshu-
>va. One sure winner in such a scenario would of course be
>Habad since it has already acquired considerable experience
>in handling new arrivals (the fact that I admire and respect
>this aspect of Habad's work is irrelevant).
>

The above scenario is also consistent with what I've seen
anticipated by some Christian groups. That is, an expectancy
of government to go - not Christian - but secular to the point
of governmental intervention into fundamental family affairs,
including religious affairs.

I don't know about you (Norman Miller), but I strongly doubt
that the so-called christian coallition of the Republican
party (i.e., your reference to Robertson and Buchanan) is going
to take over America (this stuff seems to have broken up
the Republican party more than it has strengthened it). 
Times have changed too much and the western world appears to be 
increasingly headed to a system of absolute
secularism. America is certainly not at the point of 
secularization that I see Canada and Western Europe to be at, 
but it seems reasonable to me at least that it will follow suit.

Its quite interesting to read forecasts of Judaism in an approach-
ing secular system by writers such as Martin Buber, Jacob
Neusner, and others. I don't know if you would throw all such
writers in with the Habadnicks, but those writers also seem to indicate
a real threat to Judaism via assimilation into a secular system
(I don't think they forsaw government intervention into Judaism -
instead just apathetic assimilation).

>
>But.
>
>History is full of examples (one might almost say that
>history is nothing but a list of such examples) of unantic-
>ipated consequences.  Habad may think it knows the outcome
>of the strategy to weaken the First Amendment, but the
>German communists were certain too.
>

True enough. Alot of Franz Rozensweig's writings appear to be
dependent on an almost inevitable progression whereby most
of the world (Jews excempt) becomes Christian, a situation that
seems highly unlikely now adays.


--
Chris Hook 
Atmospheric Sciences
University of .B.C., Vancouver, Canada
e-mail: hook@geog.ubc.ca
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish