Comment
April 25, 2008
One Won
Abe Novick
Special to the Jewish Times
In a global era when every waking moment is a brand new brand experience, where we are bombarded with words and logos, from products and services to branded people — what is the Brand of the Jews?
I don’t simply mean the Mogen David either (like the one Gilda Radner wore on the backside of her Jewess Jeans in the old “SNL” spoof). Rather, if there were a word, one word, that personifies and elicits Judaism, what would it be?
I wonder because it’s important to understand that in our overloaded, overextended, time-crunched, soundbite, info age, where our mental storage capacity has as much room as a cramped Lower East Side apartment with five sets of extended relatives living inside it, a word is a branding device that serves as a trigger connecting the inner world with the outer.
When we refer to “Jewish,” what one word do we want people to associate with it?
Recently in the world of politics, the Obama campaign looked at the country and realized we were looking for “Change.” He grabbed ahold of its gist and made it his. Hillary, on the other hand, ran on experience, and when that wasn’t working tried to borrow “change,” but it was too late. Obama claimed it and owned it.
So in this age of verbal singularity and of linguistic oneness where a word can hold so much power, what comes to mind that embraces Judaism?
It should be obvious as it’s the same one we say every day, and we bind as a sign on our hearts, and on our doorposts, between our eyes, and it’s in the Shema. Yes, it’s “One.”
After all we’ve gone through, ever since the Diaspora spread us out on every far-flung continent and region of the world, still (to paraphrase the words of Gertrude Stein) “A Jew is a Jew is a Jew.”
While branches have grown out from the tree, we all stem from the same trunk and hold one thing in common, dating back to Abraham — one God.
It’s what unites us.
But because those branches have grown so far and have intertwined with other religions and cultures, sprouting unique offshoots, rather than cut them off, we need to enrich them by realizing and communicating what we all have in common.
Recently, I attended an evening of music and coffee and met some Ugandan Jews who keep the Sabbath, sing Hebrew songs and obey kashrut. I didn’t even know there were Jews in Uganda. Did you?
But while they were so different culturally, they were still Jews. They even donned embroidered kippot, woven with vibrant colors of their culture incorporating universal Jewish iconography. How’s that for symbolism?
That we were one, under the same tent (OK, the roof of a Roland Park synagogue), was a pretty incredible experience. It got me thinking about our commonality, what that was and how important it is, if Jews are to remain a relevant force on a global scale.
Not to harp too much on the Obama phenomenon, but we better find what unites us and makes us, hmm ... well, one, rather than what divides us as Jews.
Why now? First, we simply need to encapsulate our message to an immediately understood, intuitive level that speaks across continents. Given the inordinate amount of information, human beings don’t have the capacity to absorb the complexities of 600-plus commandments. How many could even name the 10? Not saying we lose ’em, but we need to create a unique position, that niche that identifies us globally in the mind first.
Second, the world is flat and we can now communicate with each other on a plane we never could before.
One world. One God. One people.