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Whose dogma?

Even paranoids have enemies,” former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is supposed to have quipped.

Does being religious in America today automatically earn one enemies?

“Dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.” Sen. Diane Feinstein told Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation for the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. Barrett is a devout Catholic.

The United States is supposed to be a place where one’s religion is not a disqualifier for any public position. The founding fathers left that behind in Europe when they wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights. It is sad even to need to mention this. of religion” and the USA go together. If “dogma lives loudly” in a prospective judge, so what? Why is this even brought up?

It is surely ironic: The Catholic Church in Europe persecuted Jews unspeakably. “Catholic Church” and “Inquisition” were synonymous. So, too, “Catholic Church” and “Crusades,” which wiped out entire Jewish communities. The Vatican, according to documents long sealed but now open to scholars, did not do all it could to keep Jews from Hitler’s jaws.

That was there.

Here, in this country, Catholics, Jews and adherents of other religions find themselves — mutually exclusive dogmas notwithstanding — defending each other’s right to dogma. Adherents of no religion also expect their freedom under the First Amendment. Not all Jews do value this freedom, however. Not Diane Feinstein, who, as a US senator, ought to know better.

So should New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who set stricter limits for gatherings for prayer than for other gatherings. Specifically, he allowed 25% of capacity for indoor religious gatherings but 50% of capacity for other gatherings.

On June 26, federal judge Gary Sharpe enjoined NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio and Attorney General Letitia James from enforcing this.

But why was this order put in place to begin with?

Ask the same question in Colorado. Gov. Polis’ public health orders made the same discriminatory distinction. Denver Bible Church in Wheat Ridge and Community Baptist Church in Brighton sued. On Oct. 15, US District Court Judge Daniel Domenico agreed with the plaintiffs that they should be exempt from limits on indoor gatherings if these limits do not apply to secular institutions, such as warehouses, schools, restaurants and spas. Rules that are more severe for religious institutions than for secular ones violate the congregants’ right to religious freedom, reported Shelly Bradbury in the Denver Post.

“The Constitution does not allow the State to tell a congregation how large it can be when comparable secular gatherings are not so limited, or to tell a congregation that its reason for wishing to remove facial coverings is less important than a restaurant’s or spa’s,” Judge Domenico wrote.

Speaking for myself, I wear a mask, am davening at home and do not go to restaurants. I deem it best to err on the side of caution, given the COVID stakes. But my preference has nothing to do with others’ rights, with the Constitution, with elementary fairness, and still less with the idea that if religious institutions seek their rights, this is somehow an indication that religion trumps equality in the public square.

What gives?

Former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens once told me that no state-sponsored anti-Semitism would ever issue from his office. I wondered to myself, why is he telling me this? Who would ever think otherwise?

Alas, I am now wondering: Are there the beginnings of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, not in Colorado, but in New York?

True enough, Jews in New York City who do not follow recommended COVID guidelines needlessly and unwisely give the Jewish people a bad name. But what percentage of Jews flout the rules?

When we hear of increased COVID rates in “Jewish neighborhoods,” the indictment of Jews as especially responsible for the spread of COVID assumes that only Jews live in “Jewish neighborhoods.” There are concentrated Jewish neighborhoods, to be sure, but other than Satmar enclaves outside of New York City, there is no ethnically uniform neighborhood in New York City. Crown Heights: Jewish and black (and others). Borough Park: Jewish and Hispanic, Asian (and others). Williams- burg: Jewish and Hispanic, black (and others). That’s the New York mosaic, isn’t it?

So if the mayor of New York singles out Jews, and if the governor of New York reneges on an his own definition of appropriate COVID restrictions for Jewish houses of worship on the very same day he establishes them, as he did on Oct. 6, I wonder.

Chasidic Jews look different. So do Amish. Orthodox Jews pray together. So do evangelical Christians. Most Jews participate heavily in American political culture. So do mainline Christians and Catholics. If any American’s life is guided by dogma, and if this is found to be offensive, it is due to a dogma that calls itself by another name: secular culture. It may be a cultural arbiter, but under our system it should not be a legal arbiter.

Nor an educational one. A school principal in Florida refused to state whether the Holocaust happened, since there were different opinions on the matter amongst his parent body. To object to this stance, it is insufficient to counter it with facts. It is necessary to admit that this stance stems from the pervasive relativism of secular culture. That is what Sen. Feinstein reflected when she told Amy Coney Barret, “dogma lives loudly within you, and that is of concern.”

If unequal COVID restrictions are applied to religious bodies, if they reflect underlying bias, if Holocaust agnosticism is offensive, look past the particular offenders. It’s the cultural shift to secular dogma that propels all this.

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg may be reached at [email protected].

Copyright © 2020 by the Intermountain Jewish News



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IJN Executive Editor | [email protected]


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