Reformed to Death
Leon J. Podles on the Future of Feminized Liberal Judaism
Jews have for millennia felt the temptation to be like other peoples, to be like the nations, to have gods they can see and touch, to have a king, not to stand out and be despised by the Gentiles. It is a temptation, because God has chosen them to be set apart from all other nations, to be his holy people, for his own mysterious purposes, until the time comes when the Messiah shall unite the Gentiles and the Jews in their historical reality. Until that time, assimilation is a temptation—and a temptation that will lead to the disappearance of the Jews who want to become like Gentiles.
Over the past two centuries, some Jews have been tempted to imitate liberal Protestantism in abandoning the unique role of the male, especially of the father. Liberal Judaism (Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist) has succeeded in doing this, and thus, like liberal Protestantism, liberal Judaism is disappearing.
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Leon J. Podles holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Virginia, has worked as a teacher and a federal investigator, and is president of the Crossland Foundation. He is the author of The Church Impotent (Spence), Sacrilege (Crossland Press), and Losing the Good Portion: Why Men Are Alienated from Christianity (St. Augustine Press). Dr. Podles and his wife have six children and live in Baltimore, Maryland. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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