The Death of Jewish Culture Revisited

Felix Posen writes:

The title of James Loeffler’s essay, “The Death of Jewish Culture,” shocked me sufficiently to want to read not only the essay itself but also the three responses to it by Michael Weingrad (“Culture and the Classroom”), Jonathan Rosen (“A Death Greatly Exaggerated”), and Abraham Socher (“Hello, I Must Be Going”). As it turned out, and despite the harshly worded title, I was impressed by many of the points in all four entries. But I feel I must still criticize a fair amount of what I read.

One “death” cited by James Loeffler was that of Makor, a “nightclub-cum-gallery” that billed itself as a “secular Jewish arts-and-culture mecca for New York’s young hipsters.” Indeed, Makor did not last long, for myriad reasons. It was essentially a meeting place for young adults, in pleasant surroundings, but it had precious little connection to what are normally referred to as cultural events. My understanding is that its precipitous closure was due to reasons totally unconnected with Jewish culture in any form.