Doom: Is It Good for the Jews?

• In Event: Contested "Knowledge" in Contemporary Jewish Life

Abstract

A popular joke posits that all Jewish holidays are the same: “they tried to kill us, God saved us, let’s eat!” Doom – or at least its threat – has long been a central theme of Jewish religious, historical, and social scientific literature, from the Passover Haggadah’s passage about evildoers arising in every generation to destroy the Jews, to Salo Baron’s “lachrymose conception of Jewish history” and Simon Rawidowicz’s “Israel, the ever-dying people,” to contemporary predictions of the decline and downfall of Jewish civilization. Drawing on theories of group cohesion, identity, and persuasion, and using data from national, local, and program evaluation studies, this paper will explore ways a narrative of doom is used in Jewish educational, philanthropic, religious, and advocacy settings to promote in-group identification, fundraising, and public policy goals.

Author

• Matthew Boxer, Brandeis University