What is
Secular Jewishness?
Sholem stresses the
historic, cultural, and ethical aspects of our
Jewishness. We view our Jewish identity as one that is
relevant to contemporary life and committed to justice,
peace, and community responsibility.
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Secular Jewishness has a long and proud history. We
trace our roots to the
Prophets — who opposed priestly rituals and social
injustice ... to the rationalism of Baruch Spinoza and
to the thinkers of the Enlightenment — who gave rise to
the first secular Jewish
organizations which arose in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. Those organizations gave birth to
the great Jewish social enterprises of our century:
Zionism, communal organizations, and the Jewish
labor/socialist movements. Most of the core of Jewish
culture in Yiddish, English, and even in modern Hebrew
stems from Jewish secularists. So, too, does the
overwhelming bulk of Jewish humor, folklore and folk
songs. |
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The ethical value system of Secular Jewishness derives from roots which stress the principles of social
and personal justice and the progressive, humanistic
concepts in contemporary democratic thought. In concrete
terms, we are proud of the roles that Secular Jews have
played and continue to play in such progressive causes
as the labor, peace, and civil rights movements. |
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