Rabbi Wein, America and Aliyah

Here’s the text of a piece by our member Rabbi Paul Bloom, which will appear in this week’s Jewish Link. Thanks, Paul, for giving us a chance to enjoy it. Paul explains:

I had the distinct privilege of being a member of Rabbi Wein’s shul, Beit Knesset Hanassi, for over twenty years, and of deepening my connection to him and his Torah since making Aliyah with my wife four years ago. While he was not a Navi, he was perhaps the closest we had — through his masterful analysis of Nevi’im, Jewish history, and world events. I have read many of the appreciations written by his friends, students, and colleagues, and I agree with them all. Yet, what I feel was not emphasized enough was not only his love for Eretz Yisrael, Medinat Yisrael, and Bnei Yisrael — which many have already noted — but also his penetrating analysis of the state of American Jewry and the urgency of planning to make Aliyah.

I was privileged to hear a discussion that Rabbi Wein gave about five years ago, in which he spoke candidly about the trajectory of America and the pressing need to consider Aliyah. What follows is a summary of that conversation.

For those who wish to hear it in full, it can be found here (duration: 23 minutes 50 seconds).

Here a summary of Rabbi Berel Wein ztz’l said.

History does not move in circles — it moves in patterns. Anyone who wishes to know what tomorrow holds need only look at yesterday. The story of the Jewish people has been written in every exile: communities flourish, assimilate, decline, and ultimately close down. This has happened across Europe, North Africa, and the Arab lands. It is happening, slowly but surely, in America as well.

American Jewry once prided itself on size and vitality. In 1950, there were six million Jews in the United States. Today, the numbers are smaller, despite population growth. Assimilation and intermarriage have eroded Jewish continuity, and even the Orthodox community faces new external pressures that will make life in America increasingly difficult. The truth is that there are likely fewer committed Jews in America today than there were 70 years ago.

This is not just about demographics. Great civilizations collapse not from outside threats but from within. Greece, Rome, the Soviet Union — all disintegrated because of internal corruption and the acceptance of values that undermined their own foundations. America is showing similar signs. Once a country proud of religion and family, it now elevates values that run directly against Torah. As the Navi warns: "הוי הגוי חוטא, עם כבד עון, זרע מרעים, בנים משחיתים" (“Woe to the sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, children who deal corruptly” – Yeshayahu 1:4). Societies built on such moral decline do not endure.

I am not a pessimist, but I am a realist. The curve of American Jewish life has flattened. The freedoms our parents enjoyed will not last. Governments will dictate how our schools operate, whether we can separate boys and girls, what we are allowed to teach. Orthodox Jews in America will face restrictions they never imagined possible.

What then is the response? The Torah has already provided the answer: the Land of Israel. "כי רצו עבדיך את אבניה ואת עפרה יחננו" (“For Your servants have cherished her stones and favored her dust” – Tehillim 102:15). Our love for the Land is not theoretical — it must express itself in practical attachment. It is not easy to move, nor is it simple to succeed. I know from personal experience how much sacrifice Aliyah requires — my wife and I planned for forty years, scrimping and saving to buy an apartment in Jerusalem. But the effort was worth it. In Israel, Jewish life is not a side project; it is the air you breathe. Shabbat is felt in the streets, even among the secular. Every struggle here is balanced by the simple truth that this is where Jewish life belongs.

To those who ask whether it is realistic — yes, it is. Professional skills are transferable. Opportunities abound. Israel needs families with talent, resources, and vision. The adjustment can be difficult, especially for teenagers, but history demands that we see the larger picture. If you come with modest expectations, every success is a blessing; if you expect perfection, disappointment will follow.

Some argue that leaving America weakens Jewish outreach there. My response is simple: no one is indispensable. As Chazal teach: "אין הקדוש ברוך הוא מקפח שכר כל בריה" (“The Holy One, Blessed be He, does not withhold reward from any creature” – Bava Kamma 38b). Others will rise to the task. But the Jewish future cannot be built on prolonging exile. It must be built where it has always been destined to flourish — in the Land of Israel.

A Call to My Students and Colleagues

 My dear friends, history is speaking to us with a clear and uncompromising voice. Every exile ends — some slowly, some suddenly, but all inevitably. America has given us much, but it is no longer the safe, welcoming haven it once seemed. The warning lights are flashing, and to ignore them is to gamble recklessly with the Jewish future. 

Do not delude yourselves into thinking, “שָׁלוֹם יִהְיֶה לִי, כִּי בִּשְׁרִרוּת לִבִּי אֵלֵךְ” (“Peace will be mine, though I follow the desires of my own heart” – Devarim 29:18). That is exactly what Jews said in Berlin, in Warsaw, in Baghdad — in countless communities that flourished and then vanished. We cannot afford to repeat their error. 

The time has come for action. Invest in Israel, plant roots in Israel, live your Jewish life in Israel. Lower your expectations of comfort, raise your expectations of holiness, and you will discover that the sacrifices are small compared to the privilege of shaping Jewish destiny in the Land of our fathers. 

To my students, to my colleagues, to all who hear these words: the window of opportunity is open, but it will not remain open forever. Do not wait for it to close. Jewish history has brought us to this decisive moment. “כִּי מִצִּיּוֹן תֵּצֵא תוֹרָה וּדְבַר ה' מִירוּשָׁלָ͏ִם” (“For from Zion shall go forth Torah, and the word of Hashem from Jerusalem” – Yeshayahu 2:3). The future of our people will not be written in exile. It will be written in the Land of Israel. The only question is: will we be part of it?

“If not for us, then for our children”: Jews in the USA

Yesterday Rabbi Wein delivered the fifth of his eight lectures in the current series, The Jewish World 1880-1914. In this lecture the audience was treated to a potent mix of hard fact, penetrating analysis and personal recollections.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century around 2.5 million Jews had entered the United States. This began a wave of migration that both saved Jewish people and allowed for creation of State of Israel. But why was the USA so eager to welcome Jews? After the Civil Law, the USA had became a continental power. It took over an enormous amount of land—but was short of human resources and needed people. At the start of its industrial revolution this new power needed workers and customers in great number. Thus Immigrants encouraged to come until the 1920s.

The earliest Jews to arrive came in colonial times, but they comprised only around 1,000 out of a population of around two and a half million. In the main they were Sephardi, and traditional in their religion observance. This was a good time for them to come, being businessmen and middlemen in a land that had no income tax, no poll tax, and practically no restrictions on trade: this was the beginning of the era of the robber barons. Thus the USA offered great opportunities and a world of freedom and enterprise that simply didn’t exist in Europe.

In the 1840s there was an influx of reform Jews from Germany, but this wave of immigration left little behind since second and third generation Jews of German origin chiefly converted to Christianity. Though they created federations, institutions, hospitals and schools, the aim of these institutions was to Americanize any Jew that came to America. Rabbi Wein cited the extreme example of the Pittsburgh Platform – a document that called on Jews effectively to abandon their Jewish practice and to divorce themselves completely from traditional Judaism.

Non-Jews who thought that the assimilationist position of the Pittsburgh Platform was real Judaism were deeply shocked at the sudden massive influx of Jews from Eastern Europe towards the end of the century. Yiddish-speaking and very different in their behavior and dress, they looked quite out of place in their new social environment. In the eyes of America, the USA was supposed to be a melting pot, so there was no tolerance of diversity. The norm throughout the land was a six-day working week, with Sunday being universally recognized as the day of rest. This posed enormous problems for immigrants who sought to remain observant Jews, who also had to face the challenges of urban life as they exchanged the city for the shtetl.

Life was tough for those who kept Shabbat since jobs were lost on a weekly basis. Poverty was rife and tenement life was tough. However the prevailing attitude was positive and forward-looking: “I won’t make it, but my children will”.

Rabbi Wein did not neglect the unseemly side to Jewish immigration—our involvement in crime. This was a field in which the immigrant Jews and Italians dominated, but there was a crucial difference between them: the Jews never put their children into the crime business, preferring to spend the proceeds of crime on educating them and putting them through college, whereas the Italians put all theirs into the family crime business and thus became the scapegoats for all crime.

Around 10 percent of Jewish immigrants were involved in left-wing politics, which was seen as anti-American. There were no pogroms as such, but there was the occasional spontaneous blood libel. Although the Jewish populace was generally not liked, such fighting as there was tended to be along ethnic, not religious lines. But the hold of religion on the new Jewish Americans was weak. Rabbi Wein quoted a telling aphorism of Dr Twerski: parents were giving their children what they didn’t have, but forgot to give them what they did have.

Given the powerful pressures towards conformity and Americanisation, it was not surprising that European rabbis had little influence even on their own families. After all, this was the United States, not the shtetl, and everything was different. Against this, the early 1900s saw the creation of the Young Israel movement. This was an attempt to preserve halacha while giving it an American tinge. Young Israel encouraged communal singing in shul, spoke English and looked for English-speaking rabbis. Against this, the Conservative movement sought to make concessions to religious observance and custom on the basis that this was the only way to prevent the complete assimilation of American Jewry. There was little else to choose from, since even by 1914 there were only a few truly orthodox institutions, and they weren’t seen as forerunners of any successful movement.

In conclusion, Rabbi Wein reminded his audience, when contemplating the calamitous situation he had depicted, not to be too judgmental. Times were hard and so were the decisions that people had to make.