The Prophetic Task of the Jewish Writer in the 21st Century

“Would it be too fantastical,” asks the Anglo-Jewish novelist Howard Jacobson, “to think of Jeremiah and Isaiah as forerunners of Malamud and Mailer?” After all, Jacobson writes, the prophecies delivered by such biblical figures “are not so much prognostications of trouble to come as scathing commentaries on the present: diatribes and lamentations that are terrible indeed.” Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Norman Mailer, and other great Jewish writers of the mid-20th century certainly had a knack for producing “scathing commentaries on the present.” But where does that leave the Jewish writer of today, who faces a present with very different failings?

A new prophecy for our times is what we look to Jewish writers for now. A flurry of art, hot from the mouth of God, as alive to the teeming world of men and women as were Jeremiah’s denunciations, but no less admonitory, perhaps a little less Chicago-and-Newark street-smart this time around, and a little more “old European” in the Singer style, or “new Israeli” in the tragic manner of David Grossman, but still manic in its high-mindedness, blasphemous, hilarious, and above all unapologetic. The great prophets knew what to say to the backsliding Jew, long before the backsliding Jew had Zionism as his excuse. They cannot be a light unto other nations who denigrate their own.

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More about: David Grossman, Howard Jacobson, Jewish literature, Prophets, Saul Bellow

A Jewish Obligation to Vote

On October 3, 1984, Rabbi Moses Feinstein—a leading figure among American Orthodox Jews, whose halakhic opinions are obeyed and studied today—wrote a letter encouraging Jews to vote in the upcoming elections. Feinstein, a talmudist of the old school, was born in a shtetl in the vicinity of Minsk, then in the Russian empire, before elections were known in that country. He came to the U.S. in 1937, at the age of forty-one, to escape the ever-worsening persecution of devout Jews in the Soviet Union. That experience no doubt shaped his view of democracy. Herewith, the letter in full:

On reaching the shores of the United States, Jews found a safe haven. The rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights have allowed us the freedom to practice our religion without interference and to live in this republic in safety.

A fundamental principle of Judaism is hakaras hatov—recognizing benefits afforded us and giving expression to our appreciation. Therefore, it is incumbent upon each Jewish citizen to participate in the democratic system which safeguards the freedoms we enjoy. The most fundamental responsibility incumbent on each individual is to register and to vote.

Therefore, I urge all members of the Jewish community to fulfill their obligations by registering as soon as possible and by voting. By this, we can express our appreciation and contribute to the continued security of our community.

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More about: 2024 Election, American Jewry, Democracy, Halakhah