Article on dialogue in the Jewish Chronicle

The 11 January edition of the Jewish Chronicle has an article by Keith Kahn-Harris explaining the need for intra-Jewish dialogue:

People, you really ought to talk to each other
 
In the long history of Jewish disputatiousness, the bitter divisions that have emerged in recent years over Israel are among our most intractable. Differences over whether and how Israel should be supported and what the limits of criticism of Israel should be arouse incredibly strong passions. Jews attack each other with a special venom, which they reserve for members of their own community; accusing each other of being “self-acting”, “fundamentalists” or “traitors”.

The most recent eruption of in-fighting occurred earlier this year following the formation of Independent Jewish Voices. IJV’s central contention that “the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole” stirred up an extraordinary amount of anger on all sides. Many supporters of IJV viewed the established community with ire; many detractors of IJV saw it as an attack on the very idea of Jewish community in this country. The debate continues to rumble on and almost every week the letters page of the JC throbs with the mutual resentments of different parties.

This difficulty that Jews have in talking to other Jews in a civil fashion comes in marked contrast to the remarkable progress made in recent years in talking to non-Jews. As a sociologist, I am in the midst of my fourth research project examining interfaith dialogue. What the findings of all these projects have shown is that British Jews have embraced interfaith dialogue with great enthusiasm. Indeed, Jewish community leaders are at the forefront of attempts to put interfaith dialogue at the heart of British society.

Yet the desire to open oneself to dialogue with non-Jews is rarely matched by a similar willingness to dialogue with other Jews. Whilst Limmud and other pluralist organisations have found ways for Jews from different sections of the community to work together, such initiatives are based not on direct discussions between different sections, but on finding ways for them to live in parallel. Too often Jews of different stripes are content simply to co-exist alongside each other, avoiding outright conflict seemingly being the most that one can hope for. We may be getting better at avoiding some types of intra-communal bloodbaths — Reform-Orthodox conflicts have calmed considerably — but the underlying tensions are never tamed. Building a more harmonious Jewish community requires actively dealing with enduring divisions. In this task the lessons of interfaith dialogue can prove invaluable.

Dialogue is not the same as debate. The aim is not to prevail in a battle of arguments. It is to understand where the other is coming from in order to better live with them. Understanding the other is emphatically not the same as approving of their views. Rather, the aim is to see the other as a rounded and complex human being with hopes, fears and vulnerabilities. As anyone who has engaged in a sustained process of dialogue can confirm, this is not easy; it can involve painful, hard work. At the same time dialogue can have a powerful transformative effect on its participants. Relations of mistrust and fear can be replaced by respectful connections in which differences are discussed calmly.

It is certainly difficult to balance the desire to reach out to people with different opinions with the belief that they are completely wrong in their outlook. But if Jewish peoplehood is to mean anything, it requires

effort to develop ways of living together with people who may hold diametrically different views. Just as interfaith dialogue can help to make the UK a more civil and cohesive society for its citizens, so intrafaith dialogue can help to make the UK Jewish community a more peaceful home for its diverse members.