From Mate1920@aol.com Thu Oct 31 21:31:39 1996
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 18:22:39 -0500
From: Mate1920@aol.com
To: hj@teleport.com
Cc: steno1@ix.netcom.com
Subject: HJ/ Pluralism

Daniel, et al
The closest SHJ poisition on Pluralism is the following from the Guide under
JEWISH IDENTITY , which is the reference for PLURALISM:

"It might be presumed that after 3000 years of Jewish existence, it should be
possible to describe precisely what the Jews are.  However, due to the
singular character of Jewish history, a clear, accurate definition of Jewish
identity is exceedingly difficult to formulate.  The dispersion of the Jews
among other nations throughout most of their existence, their participation
in widely diverse cultures, and the lack of a unifying religious commitment
shared by all Jews makes it impossible to define the Jews except as a unique
people : a transnational, transcultural, transreligious, yet identifiable
people.

Being Jewish is a social, psychological, and historical identity.  The large
number of Jewish secularists, atheists, agnostics and otherwise unaffiliated
Jews belies the popular assumption that Jews constitute a religious
community.  Jews are united, not by theological conviction, but by social
identification (with ethnic overtones) and ancestral roots.  Jews are free to
believe whatever they wish.  Membership in the Jewish people via birth or
choice, rather than religious commitment, gives them their Jewish identity.
 There are Jews who believe in God, many who do not, and some who are unsure.
 All are equally Jewish insofar as they affirm their connection to the
community of persons known as Jews.

More basic than Jews' beliefs and more significant than their politics or
ethics is their history.  Jews share a sense of participating in a historical
continuum that reaches back to biblical times.  One may be born into the
Jewish continuum or one may choose to participate in  it.  In either case,
Jewishness is not a religious or ideological identity.  It is a historical
identity.  Jews are an evolving historical people.

Jewish identity is pluralistic.  Given the complex nature of the Jewish
historical experience and the many and contradictory beliefs and commitments
that Jews have accepted over the centuries, the meaning and significance of
Jewish identity  depend upon the perspective of the individual Jew.  A
person's desire to identify himself or herself as a Jew -- to identify with
the Jewish people, its history and future -- is sufficient reason for
membership in the Jewish community."

So says the Guide -- and I recommend the Guide to all who ever want as
"official" a position from SHJ as is possible on any subject. 

For myself, I am prepared to accept any person's position as to where and how
he or she wants to express Jewishness.  Be it Orthodox, Conservative, Reform
or Reconstructionist -- if that is how they wish to be Jewish , I can accept
it.  I only ask that my position as a secular, humanist Jew be afforded equal
acceptance and recognition -- for me that is the essence of pluralism.

Bert Steinberg
Lafayette, CA