Does this mean that the sailors convert to Judaism? Clearly not. But they obviously recognise the power of Jonah’s god and show him due respect. This may well be a clue to the purpose behind the Book of Jonah — to demonstrate that the Jewish God is not just another communal deity but also has a universal dimension.
Further pointers in the same direction can be identified in the main body of the Jonah story. Jonah’s message to the people of Nineveh is a simple one: repent or be destroyed. There is no mention of the Jewish religion or of conversion. In decreeing a total fast complete with sackcloth and ashes the king of Nineveh orders his people to “cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands. Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we perish not?”208
The king recognises the power of “God” — i.e. the Jewish God — and directs his people to address their entreaties not to any of their own gods but to this universal Jewish God, but without any question of conversion to Judaism.
The same message is hammered home in the last part of the Book, where Jonah rails against God for causing the withering away of a gourd which God had given him to provide shade from the searing heat. A parallel is drawn between the gourd and the people of Nineveh. God reproves Jonah for his pity for the plant “for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night, and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”209
The message of the Book of Jonah is ultimately a message of toleration addressed to the Jews: remember that the Lord is not only the Jewish national god but also the creator of the universe, who cares just as much for his non-Jewish creatures as for the Jews. You don’t need to be Jewish in order to earn God’s favour.
This is a slightly different message from the more usual communal religion view that, though we may well regard our God as superior to your gods, we recognise that each nation has its own religion and we will not try to wean you away from your gods — unless of course they enter our country and try to attract our people away from our god. The best Biblical example of that situation is the famous competition between the Jewish prophet Elijah and the prophets of Baal and Asherah, whose worship had been introduced into the Kingdom of Israel by Jezebel, the Phoenician wife of King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Elijah throws down a challenge to the people of Israel: “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him.” Needless to say, the Jewish God wins the competition.210
Both of these communal religion messages are a million miles away from the typical creed religion message, which is a call to conversion with a promise of salvation for converts and a threat of damnation for those who refuse to convert, as in: “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.”211
Jewish Disunity
The absence of any suggestion of conversion in the Book of Jonah is surprising only in the light of Christianity and other creed religions. As the product of a purely communal religion, the Book of Jonah would not be expected to advocate, or even refer to, conversion to Judaism.
Like most other communal religions and unlike most creed religions, Judaism was never a proselytising religion. That remains the position today. Orthodox Judaism positively discourages prospective converts. The modern Conservative, Progressive, Liberal and Reform wings of Judaism are more welcoming, though even they do not proselytise, and the conversion process is never instant as it sometimes can be with creed religions. Conversion by means of a sprinkling of a few drops of “holy” water or by the recitation of a one-sentence pledge (as in certain Christian denominations) is just not a possibility for the prospective convert to Judaism, who would instead need to attend and pay for a training course, adopt kosher eating habits and, in the rare cases of orthodox conversions, would be required to live with an orthodox family for a period of months. And then, in the case of males, there is the added pain and indignity of having to be subjected to a surgical mutilation of the flesh.
The difference in attitudes to conversion is just one of many disagreements between Jewish groups today and contrasts markedly with the situation in the ancient world. Two thousand years ago Judaism was divided into several sects or denominations, notably Pharisees and Sadducees. However, as long as the Temple stood (i.e. until 70 CE), it remained the focus of Jewish religious life, and Jews of every stripe worshipped there.
Though these religious differences were major, nobody was persecuted (or even prosecuted) for heresy, and there was no such thing as excommunication — until the rabbis took control of the religion after the destruction of the Temple. Herem or cherem, the term used for “excommunication”, is found in the Hebrew Bible, where, however, it does not refer to any punishment inflicted on Jews but only to the total annihilation of a foreign enemy purportedly at God’s command, as for example in Joshua’s destruction of Jericho, sparing only the family of Rahab the harlot, who had hidden Joshua’s spies.212
However, rabbinical cherem, or excommunication, was used against fellow-Jews — I say “was” because it was largely given up when local Jewish communities ceased to have direct control over their members and Jews were integrated into the broader non-Jewish population in whose midst they lived.
The high degree of tolerance that existed among Jews while the Temple still stood — albeit not always very cordial — is typical of communal religions, which by their very nature are inclusive of all members of their own community while remaining exclusive as far as outsiders are concerned.
Today, however, each Jewish denomination has its own synagogues, its own services (which vary quite considerably from one to another), its own clergy (who do not enjoy automatic mutual recognition) and even its own rabbinical courts, the more orthodox of which do not recognise the conversions made by other less orthodox denominations. Some of the more “progressive” denominations have female rabbis and cantors, while orthodox synagogues adhere firmly to the tradition of male-only clergy and do not even allow men and women to sit together during services. Women are banished to an upstairs gallery, which, in the most orthodox synagogues, is curtained off so that they cannot be seen by the menfolk sitting in the main body of the synagogue downstairs.
This diversification within Judaism is a comparatively recent development, largely the product of the Enlightenment of the 18th century and of Jewish emancipation in the early 19th century, which led to increasing Jewish assimilation into the non-Jewish population. It was essentially under these influences that the Jewish Reform movement came into existence in Germany and Britain in the 1840s. However, this diversification has developed into fragmentation and mutual intolerance.
Jewish Intolerance of Other Jews
Besides being reluctant to convert new members itself, orthodox Judaism does not recognise conversions made by other Jewish denominations, even those made by conservative rabbis, whose outlook and attitudes differ very little from those of the orthodox rabbis themselves.
The so-called “Stanmore Accords” signed in November 1998 by the lay leaders of the orthodox United Synagogue, the conservative Masorti Synagogues, the Liberal and Progressive Synagogues and the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain has done nothing to heal the rifts in the Jewish community of the United Kingdom. After an initial statement lamenting in vague terms the damage caused by “in-fighting and mutual recrimination”, the signatories lamely add that they “wish the annexed conventions of Orthodox communities which are adopted by the United Synagogue to be widely known and recognized”. These “conventions” are not agreed, and it is easy to see why, as they include the bald statement that “Orthodox authorities do not recognise Reform, Liberal or Masorti conversions.”213
The factual position in Britain today was clearly st
ated by Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, chairman of the orthodox United Synagogue’s Rabbinical Council, in 2009: “Reform and Liberal conversions are generally not accepted by Orthodox and Masorti movements. Masorti conversions cannot be accepted by Orthodox. The only one that is acceptable throughout is Orthodox conversion.”214 Masorti (literally, “traditional”) is the name given to Conservative Judaism outside North America.
Ironically enough, this unharmonious picture contrasts sharply with that prevailing in Christianity today, in which the Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Lutheran and Presbyterian Churches recognise one another’s baptism. The Catholic Church also recognises baptism by the Eastern Orthodox Church, which in turn generally recognises baptism by other denominations provided they baptise in the name of the Trinity. The major Christian denominations that remain outside this framework are the Pentecostal or Charismatic movement (who baptise only in the name of Jesus, as the doctrine of the Trinity only arose in the 2nd century CE), the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
The Rabbi Louis Jacobs Saga
One of the ugliest chapters in the history of British Jewry concerns the intolerance of orthodox Judaism towards the Masorti conservative wing of the religion. It all started with the supposed “heresy” of Dr Louis Jacobs, a highly respected traditional orthodox rabbi who in 1961 was invited to become the principal of what was then called Jews’ College, the main orthodox rabbinical seminary in Britain. Important though it was in its own right, the position of principal of Jews’ College was a launching pad to the post of chief rabbi, to which Louis Jacobs was widely expected to be appointed after the retirement of the then incumbent, Rabbi Israel Brodie. But before Louis Jacobs could take up the offered headship of Jews’ College, his appointment was blocked by Chief Rabbi Brodie on the ground of heretical views expressed by Louis Jacobs in a book called We Have Reason to Believe, published in 1957.215 The book was far from being a revolutionary tract but disagreed with the usual orthodox rabbinical view that the Five Books of Moses were dictated in their entirety by God to Moses. Instead Jacobs adopted the so-called “Wellhausen Hypothesis” (named after a 19th century German Christian theologian), which saw the biblical text as a human compilation drawn from several different sources.
Though as we have seen the very idea of heresy would have been alien to the Judaism of the ancient world, which, despite its division into several mutually hostile sects or groupings, never led to the exclusion of any Jew from the Temple service, yet Louis Jacobs’s “heresy” in modern Britain sparked off a chain reaction which has already lasted half a century.
With his appointment as principal of Jews’ College vetoed by the Chief Rabbi in 1963, Louis Jacobs tried to return to his pulpit at London’s prestigious New West End Synagogue, from which he had resigned in 1960 to become a tutor at Jews’ College. The synagogue’s board of management wanted Louis Jacobs back, but this too was blocked. The board was informed by the United Synagogue (the controlling body of which the synagogue was a constituent member) that Louis Jacobs no longer had a “ministerial practicing certificate” and could not be appointed. The synagogue’s board of management refused to be cowed and duly invited Rabbi Jacobs to occupy their pulpit on two consecutive weeks in April 1964. The United Synagogue then retaliated by removing the synagogue’s elected board of management and placing it under the control of a committee of three nominated by the United Synagogue.
A large number of Louis Jacobs’s supporters promptly resigned from the New West End Synagogue and established a new congregation of their own with Louis Jacobs as its rabbi. Although Louis Jacobs was essentially a regular orthodox rabbi, his ouster by the Chief Rabbi and the United Synagogue resulted in this new congregation being designated not as orthodox but as Masorti (“traditional”) and associated with American Conservative Judaism.216
But this was not the end of the Louis Jacobs saga. In 2003, nearly 40 years after the “Jacobs Affair”, Louis Jacobs’s “heresy” was dredged up yet again and thrown in his face. When Rabbi Jacobs’s granddaughter was about to be married in Bournemouth, the local synagogue, which was affiliated to the United Synagogue, was prevented from offering him the standard honour accorded to a bride’s relatives of being called up to the reading of the Torah (the Law) and reciting a short blessing. Once again, the veto came from the United Synagogue. It was reported in the press that Rabbi Sacks, the then Chief Rabbi, and the head of the London Beth Din (rabbinical court), justified the veto on the ground that “they believed that had Jacobs uttered the words ‘Our God… who gave us the Torah of truth…’, he would have made a false statement.”217
Jewish Free School Lawsuit
Even Louis Jacobs’s death in 2006 did not put an end to this intolerance. On the contrary, the saga culminated in a lawsuit that was the subject of a ruling by Britain’s Supreme Court in 2009.218 In 2007 a Jewish father applied for his son to be accepted as a pupil at London’s Jewish Free School (“JFS”), a state school which was allowed to favour Jewish applicants over non-Jews. The policy of the school was “to admit up to the standard admissions number children who are recognized as being Jewish by the Office of the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation of the Commonwealth (OCR) or who have already enrolled upon or who have undertaken, with the consent of their parents, to follow any course of conversion to Judaism under the approval of the OCR.”219
Although the boy’s father was Jewish by birth, the rabbinical test of Jewishness depends not on the father but on the mother, who has to be either a natural-born Jewess or a convert to Judaism — provided her conversion is recognised by the United Synagogue. This was where the problem lay, because the boy’s mother (who, as it happens, was actually a teacher at JFS), an Italian Roman Catholic by birth, had been converted to Judaism by a Masorti rabbi in Israel — a conversion which was not recognised by the Office of the Chief Rabbi. The fact that the boy’s father was Jewish, that the boy lived a totally Jewish life and wore a skullcap at all times was regarded as irrelevant. All that mattered was that the mother was not recognised as being Jewish, so the boy was likewise regarded as non-Jewish and was therefore denied admission to the school.
The curious decision of the United Kingdom Supreme Court was that the boy had been unlawfully discriminated against on grounds of race. But the real reason for the discrimination was non-recognition of a Masorti conversion. As a communal religion Judaism might be expected to take an inclusive view of all Jews and not practise discrimination against adherents of non-orthodox Jewish denominations on grounds of belief. That is something that a creed religion like Christianity or Islam can be expected to do, but if it is done by a communal religion it threatens the communal underpinning of that religion without enabling it to expand by conversion, because, as we have seen, communal religions tend not to proselytise, or even to welcome converts.
Reform Judaism
This discrimination against the Masorti is by no means the only example of intra-Jewish intolerance. In his book titled One People? Chief Rabbi Sacks wrote: “Reform Jews are Jews, but Reform Judaism is not Judaism.”220 The death of the well-known Reform Rabbi Hugo Gryn in 1996 brought to the fore tensions between the Orthodox and Reform wings of Judaism. Chief Rabbi Sacks did not attend Rabbi Gryn’s funeral, for which he was criticised by Reform Jews, but he did attend memorial prayers for Hugo Gryn, earning the ire of some ultra-orthodox Jews. In order to placate this criticism Sacks wrote (in Hebrew) in a private letter to an ultra-orthodox leader (which was soon leaked) that Hugo Gryn had been “among those who destroy the faith” as part of a “false grouping”. He explained the reason for his attendance at a memorial service for Rabbi Gryn as “to avoid giving the Reform movement a reason for appointing its own chief rabbi” and assured his correspondent that the recognition that he had shown Rabbi Gryn was “not as a Reform rabbi but as a survivor of the Holocaust”.221
“No one creed has a monopoly of spiritual truth”
Ironically enough, Sacks has appeared more tolerant of non-Jewish religions th
an of other Jewish groupings. In his book The Dignity of Difference published in 2002 Sacks remarked that, “In the course of history, God has spoken to mankind in many languages: through Judaism to Jews, Christianity to Christians, Islam to Muslims”, and, “No one creed has a monopoly of spiritual truth.” These views, which are typical of communal religions and chime in quite well with the message of the Book of Jonah discussed above, were roundly condemned as “heretical” by a number of orthodox rabbis, resulting in Sacks quickly issuing a new version of his book with the offending passages severely toned down. The remark that “No one creed has a monopoly of spiritual truth” was simply deleted.222 A leading Jerusalem rabbi attacked the book as containing views “contrary to our faith in the Holy Torah” and therefore unfit to be brought into the home. And even Rabbi Sacks’s own rabbinical court in London stated that parts of the original version of the book were open to “an interpretation which was inconsistent with basic Jewish beliefs”.223 When asked by a student at an address at the Oxford Union why he had revised the book, it was reported that “Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks has acknowledged that he would have had to resign if he had not amended his award-winning book on inter-faith tolerance, The Dignity of Difference.”224
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