Conservative Baseball Cards

Conservative Judaism, if it is ever to go on the offensive in the religious marketplace, has to address the problem of how do you create a uniquely Conservative way of being in the world? As a first approximation think of it as a style, but not necessarily a style of dress or decorating, though outfits and decorating always help. What would it be like to have a way of being in the world that involves, in an essential way, a Conservative style and sensibility? Is there a special way of talking or walking or reading? I can’t think of anything. At present, there isn’t any special way of being in the world as a Conservative that is not inextricably tied to philology.

The Reaganites used to have little pictures of Adam Smith and Edmund Burke embossed on their ties. The Charedim have ‘Rebbe’ baseball cards’ as part of their show and tell. Forget dogma, forget theology, forget catechisms, think stars. Conservative Jews badly need some celebrities. They need heroes and stars the young and old can idealize and look up to. My idea is to first pick the “gedolim,” the stars. Parents and teachers would be able to talk about these great people and what made them special. Maybe someday, some genius will be able to put it all together and call it the Conservative style of Judaism.

Let’s start by trying to create Conservative “baseball cards”. (Orthodox kids trade them. I’ll give 2 Rabbi Moshe Feinstein for 1 Steipler. Don’t ask.) Conservative Judaism needs its own special cards. Who should the Conservatives go with? Who are the stars in the Conservative pantheon? We can’t get very picky. At this point there are none, so we have to lower the bar, a lot. For starters let’s think 18 cards divided into 6 areas: sports, scholarship, spirituality, the sciences, the media and the arts. The people we choose don’t have to actually belong to a Conservative Congregation. All that we should require is that they were proud Jews, who made a contribution, are idealizable and were not antagonistic to Judaism. So Freud and Trotsky are out.

Let’s try first for a list of famous sports stars that showed some sacrifice, however small, for Judaism. There is Sandy Koufax and Sandy Koufax and… Maybe we better forget about sports and substitute literature.

Scholarship is easy. There is first of all Moses Mendelssohn. The Conservatives should grab him, since the Orthodox these days don’t really want him. He’s just lying there, free for the taking. And Solomon Schecter. You can’t really not take him…the schools are named after him. And I would pick Adin Steinsaltz. First, he is a fine scholar and the author of a serious, praiseworthy and popular translation and commentary on the Talmud. He speaks frequently at Conservative Congregations, and is immensely popular. The three are a visual treat and that is always important in cards. I would not pick Saul Lieberman for reasons too complicated to discuss today.

Spirituality, let’s see…. Edith Stein, ok philosopher but she converted. Shame on her. Hannah Arendt, too controversial, who needs the aggravation? Bertha Pappenheim of Freud Dora- O. fame…nice choice, trafficking in women is an important now topic, but she was a Frankfort secessionist Agudist. Unacceptable. Golda Meyer is too tough, too secular, too political. I’ll go with Henrietta Szold of Hadassah fame. She did pine her whole life for Louis Ginsberg the Seminary Professor, and she was a formidable and easily idealizable woman. Who else? We need a German. Walter Benjamin is too Marxist, too secular. So we’re left with the big three, Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem and Franz Rosenzweig. I’d say Rosenzweig. The Conservatives used to go ga-ga over him in the 50’s. It’s hard not to pick him. And for my third choice, I would pick Rabbi Abraham Heschel, theologian, ‘great man’, marched with Dr. King for civil rights, scion of a Chasidic dynasty, faculty member at the Seminary. He’s perfect.

The sciences…hmmmm. Let’s start with Einstein. He wasn’t religious, but he was a proud Jew and a Zionist. And he did say “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.” And he was Einstein. Perhaps he could be an honorary Conservative. What about physics Noble Prize winner Arno Penzias? I believe he actually belongs to a Conservative congregation. I think not. He doesn’t look like a star, and we already have a male physicist. I would pick Robert Aumann, this year’s Noble prize winner in Economics. Great mathematician and game theorist, and he looks like a Conservative gadol. Long white beard, knitted yarmulke, the whole nine yards. There is a small problem though, he is Modern Orthodox and somewhat gushy (a hawk on the return of the West Bank). I would still pick him. Think of his choice as satisfying the Conservadox wing of the movement. To round out the three, I would pick the 1977 Noble Prize winner in Medicine, Rosalyn Yalom.

Media should be easy. Woody Allen. No way! He is funny, but scummy, self hating and assimilationist. He is totally ambivalent and the worst kind of Jew. He should be on the ‘How not to be a Jew' cards. Groucho would be better, but far from perfect. Mel Brooks is also not a totally happy choice. As far as woman actresses go, here are some choices: Theda Bara, Fanny Brice, Lauren Bacall, Ethel Merman, Sophie Tucker, Natalie Wood, Elaine May, Barbara Streisand, Barbara Walters, Lisa Kudrow, the wrong half of Gweneth Paltrow…we are racing to the bottom. Let’s try the actors…Danny Kaye, half of Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas. This is proving impossible. These people all intermarry and they are not such big stars. Jackie Mason, Sumner Redstone, Larry Tisch are acceptable but not inspiring. I am almost ready to chuck media as a category. OK, OK, OK I’ll go with these choices: Adam Sandler for his 2 Chanukah Songs; Mario Kreutzberger, a.k.a., Don Francisco, the most widely watched television personality in the world, and a proud Jew in a world where everyone is Catholic, and very reluctantly Barbara Streisand.

We are left with the arts. Yitzchak Perlman is a very good choice and head and shoulders over Haifetz, Rubinstein and certainly Barenboim or Yehudi Menuhin. The latter are all major, but they belong in the secular Jews baseball cards. Chagall is nice and colorful and shtetl oriented. And for my third pick we need a design, architecture person. The obvious winner is Frank Gehry.

In literature, I pick S. I. Agnon over Issac Bashevis Singer. Agnon has strong shtetl values and his oeuvre is a good way of introducing piety. My second choice is the Yiddish speaking literary critic Harold Bloom for his work as a critic of Christianity and for his advocacy of kabbalah as a way of reading texts. We need someone to represent the Holocaust literature. In my opinion, the best of the lot is not Elie Wiesel but Aaron Applefeld. He is a far greater artist.

The 18 Conservative Stars are:

Mendelsohn, Schachter and Steinsaltz. Szold, Rosenzweig and Heschel. Einstein, Aumann and Yalom. Sandler, Gigante and Streisand. Perlman,Chagal and Gehry. Agnon, Bloom and Applefeld

I’m already working on my next set. There is Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and the baseball catcher Moe somebody who was this spy in Japan and ….

If any reader has any ideas I would be most happy to hear the suggestions.