Strife in the Sanctuary: Religious Schism in a Jewish Community (review)

Students of American Jewish history will recall two significant synagogue schisms in the nascent American Jewish community: the 1825 split of the "Reformed Society of Israelites" from Beth Elohim of Charleston and the establishment, also in 1825, of B'nai Jeshurun out of Shearith Israel in New York. These early American Jewish congregational schisms precipitated the transition of the American Jewish communal model from one of the communal synagogue to one comprised of a community of synagogues. Taking cultural cues from both the newly founded democratic, capitalist republic and the modernization of Judaism, American Jews created a virtual marketplace of synagogues in the United States in the wake of the Charleston and New York schisms.

Phil Zuckerman's Strife in the Sanctuary examines a contemporary case of religious schism in the Jewish community of Willamette, Oregon. In many ways Willamette's Temple Am Israel echoes its nineteenth-century predecessors: Willamette was a one shul town, prior to the events of the 1990s. Furthermore, the split of this congregation/community, according to Zuckerman, also took its cues from the larger cultural milieu, grappling with issues such as feminism, sexuality, Middle East politics, and religious conservatism. Unlike New York and Charleston, however, the two largest American Jewish communities of their time, Willamette is far from the top of the list of the most populous Jewish cities in America at the dawn of the twenty-first century.

Temple Am Israel's split is also distinct from Beth Elohim and Shearith Israel in that it was privy to the observations of a participatory sociologist. How does our understanding of the American Jewish experience benefit from a sociological analysis of this "green nook of Galut" (p. 234)? In a Jewish community with a long-standing history of pluralism, what can be gained from the story of yet another synagogue split? Zuckerman argues that a close examination of the schism in Willamette merits attention as it contributes to the understanding of both the "actual drama of neighborhood Judaism" and the sociology of religious schism (p. 17).

Zuckerman spent over a year as a participant-observer at Willamette's two congregations: Temple Am Israel (founded 1950s, affiliation switched from Conservative to Reconstructionist in early 1990s) and Bayt Emett (founded early 1990s, Orthodox). He conducted 46 interviews among the congregants in order to learn the dynamics of Jewish communal struggle. Interestingly Zuckerman's period of observation began after the schism occurred. As he was not interested in writing the history of these events, but rather understanding a communal perception of them, the timing is not an issue: "Finding out what really happened wasn't as important to me as was finding out how people felt and thought about what happened, how they constructed what happened in their own minds and how they each perceived the story of this community's schism" (p.41).

The result is an eminently readable congregational study. Zuckerman contends that "it is the actual drama of neighborhood Judaism that composes the smile and sweat of real Jewish living" (p. 17). His pursuit of neighborhood drama results in a narrative that unfolds like a novel, complete with characters, plot development, and resolution. Instead of masking the American Jewish experience with statistics and jargon, Zuckerman introduces the reader to the individuals living and shaping, smiling and sweating, the American Jewish experience. Zuckerman does not speak of "rabbis" or "shopowners" or "interviewees," but of Rabbi Moishe Kohner and Lynn Rosefsky and Ginger Levitan. Chapter titles read like sitcom episodes: "Lenny Levitan picks up the phone," "Rhoda and Camille," "That Man Named Moishe." Zuckerman's lively style and descriptive tone help to create a vivid picture of the community. He relates that most folks in Willamette "like their berry beer micro-brewed and their tofu rare" (p.13), and describes one the key players in the story as "no liberal, loosey-goosey rabbi...