Tablets Shattered:
The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life
By Joshua Leifer
Dutton, 416 pages, $32
Since Oct. 7, headlines have repeatedly warned that the Jewish diaspora faces an unprecedented crisis stemming from rising anti-Semitism. Jews, this narrative asserts, are assailed from left and right, existentially imperiled by a resurgence of the world’s oldest hatred. Less noticed has been the quieter threat posed to Jewish communities from a force that might seem surprising amid the current turmoil: namely, apathy.
American Jewry has ascended to an enviable level of wealth and power in the New World. But this strength masks a deeper structural weakness. Despite the best efforts of the Jewish philanthropic complex, fertility rates continue to sink, and the intermarriage rate climbs only higher. Just a third of Jews affiliate with a synagogue, and their observance, when it amounts to anything at all, is often superficial—little more than an intermittently applied salve for the fear of disappointing Bubbe.
Meanwhile, one of the few causes that has managed to unify American Jewry in recent decades—support for the Jewish state—is becoming increasingly controversial, especially among younger Jews. As synagogues depopulate, community consensus fractures, and demographic prospects worsen, American Jews are increasingly asking: What, if anything, can be done?
Joshua Leifer’s new book, Tablets Shattered, is a laudable attempt to grapple with this question that comes away without a clear answer. The intractable issue that confronts American Jewry, as it turns out, is in some respects the same one that faces countless religious groups and voluntary associations in the secular, individualistic Western world: namely, a culture that, as Leifer says, “sacralizes individual self-expression and self-gratification” to such a degree that traditional notions of communal obligation and affiliation seem passé. Without the binding ties of faith or even a sincere commitment to upholding religious principle, how can American Jewry maintain its coherence?