The American Jewish -Experience and the Emergence of the Muslim Community in America Jonathan D. Sarna Efforts to foretell the future of the American Jewish community date far back to the nineteenth century, and for the most part the prophecies have been exceedingly gloomy. Former %dent John Adams predicted in a letter to Modecai Noah in 1819 that Jews might ’’possibly in time become liberal Unitatian Christians.” A young American Jewish student named William Rosenblatt, writing in 1872, declared that the grandchildren of Jewish immi- grants to America would almost surely intermarry and abandon the rite of cir- cumcision. Within fifty years “at the latest,” he predicted, Jews would be “undistinguishable from the mass of humanity which surrounds them.“ Just under a century later, in 1964, Look magazine devoted a whole issue to the “Vanishing American Jew,” at the time a much-discussed subject. More re- cently, in 1984, Rabbi Reuven Bulka, in a book entitled The Orthodox- Reform Rijl and the Future of the Jewish People, warned that “we are heading towards a disaster of massive proportions which the North American Jewish community simply cannot afford.”’ So far, thank God, all of these predictions have proven wrong. The Jewish people lives on. Some might consider this a timely reminder that (as someone once said) “prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.“ Othem may view our continuing survival as nothing less than providential: evidence that God, in a display of His divine mercy, is watching over us. A third view, my own, is that precisely because Jews are so worried about sur- vival, we listen attentively to prophets of doom and mpond to them. Gloom- Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, Wdtham, Massachusetts. ‘John Adams to M. M. Noah (March 15, 1819), reprinted in Moshe Davis, With Eyes towardZion (New York Amo, 1977), 19; W. M. Rosenblatt, ”The Jews: What Are They Com- ing To,” Galmy 13 (January 1872): 60, Thomas B. Mor?an, “The Vanishing American Jew,” Look 28 (5 May1964): 42-46, Reuven P. Bdka, l?te Corning Cataclysm (Oakville, Ont.: Mosa- ic Press, 1984), 14; see also Stephen J. whitfield, American Space, Jewish Time (Hamden, C T Archon Books, 1988), 171-91. Sama: 'Ihe Emergence of the Muslim Community 37 I and-doom prophets function historically as a kind of Jewish early-warning system: their Jeremiads hit home and produce necessary changes. For this reason, contempomy pmphets, much like the Biblical Jonah, are often fated to spend their lives as "self-negating prophets." Their widely publicized pro- phecies, instead of being fulfilled, usually result in the kinds of changes needed to "avert the evil decmx." With this in mind, I should like to focus here on a basic challenge to the character of contemporary Amencan religion that seems to me fraught with serious implications for American Jewish identity in the coming decades, and which is all too little discussed in professional Jewish circles. Specifkally, my subject concerns the decline of the Judeo-Christian, Protestant-Catholic-Jew model of American religion, and the growth of non-Judeo-Christian religions, particularly Islam. While, broadly speaking, I see this development as part of a larger process that Robert Wuthnow undemtands as nothing less than "the restructuring of American religion."' I am going to focus hete on the subject at hand, and postpone discussion of other aspects of this "restructuring" for another occasion. To understand the decline of the Judeo-Christian, Protestant-Catholic- Jew model of American religion q u i r e s first a brief exculSion into history. For well over a century after the Constitution was promulgated, a great many Americans still believed that they lived in a Christian, often more narrowly defined as a Protestant country. The First Amendment did not bother those who held this view, for they believed, following Justice Joseph Story, that [tlhe real object of the amendment was not to countenance, much less to advance Mahometanism, or Judaism, or infidelity, by prostrating Christianity; but to exclude all rivalry among Christian sects, and to prevent any national ecclesiastical establishment, which should give to all hierarchy the exclusive patronage of the national goverr~ment.~ "Christian America" advocates were also not bothered by challenges from non-Christians. Given late-nineteenth-century figures showing that Protestant churches outnumbered all the others by a factor of more than ten to one, dis- senters could be safely dismissed, if not altogether ignored4 'Robert Wuthnow, The Restrwturing of American Religion: Society and Faith since 3Jeph St? Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (Boston, 1833), as Wilson and Donald L. Drakeman, Church and State in American History World War ZI (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). re rinted i John (&ston: 1987),92-3. Robert T. Handy, A Christian 4 York Oxford, 1971), 118. America: Protestant Hopes and Historical Realities (New 372 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 9 3 Even the Supreme Court agreed in 1892 that "this is a Christian nation." The justice who wrote that decision, David Brewer, the son of a missionary, subsequently defended his views in a widely published lecture unabashedly titled The United States: A Christian Nation (1905).' Jews certainly objected to this formulation, and consistently battled against the whole "Chtistian America" idea. But they did not make a great deal of headway.6 The mox inclusive conception of America as a "Judeo-Christian" nation, referring to values or beliefs shared by Jews and Christians alike, developed only in the twentieth century, though adumbrations of it may be found a cen- tury or more earlier. Mark Silk, whose account I follow here, traces the con- temporary use of this term to the 1930s. "What brought this usage into regu- lar discourse," he writes, "was opposition to fascism. Fascist fellow travelers and anti-Semites had appropriated 'Christian' as a trademark ... 'Judeo- Christian' thus became a catchword for the other side." Using a wide m g e of examples from this period, Silk shows how "Judeo-Christian" gradually became the standard liberal term for the idea that Western values rested upon a shared religious consensus. "We speak now, with still inadequate but steadi- ly expanding unde-ding, of the Judeo-Christian heritage," Hebrew Union College president Julian Morgenstem thus wrote in 1942. "We comprehend, as we have not comprehended in all of nineteen hundred years, that Judaism and Christianity are partners in the great work of world-redemption and the pmgresSive unfolding of the world-spirit" Ten years later, president-elect Dwight D. Eisenhower spoke of the "Judeo-Christian concept" that formed the basis of "our form of government." "As of 1952," Silk concludes, "good Americans were supposed to be good Judeo-Christians. It was the new nation- al creed.'" Side by side with this creed, there developed in America a new and more pluralistic model of how the nation's religious character should be conceptual- ized and described. Earlier, the standard textbooks, from Robe~t Baird's Re& gion in America (1843) to William Wamn Sweet's Story of Religion in 'Morton Borden, Jew+ Turks & lnj'i&ls (Chapel Hill: Universi of North Carolina Press, 1984), 62-74; Nsorm W. Cohen, Ehcowrter with Emancipation: k German Jews in the United Stures, 1830-1914 (Philadelphix Jewish Publication Society, 1984), 98-100,254- 56. 6Jonathan D. Sarna, American Jews and Church-State Rehtionr: m e Search fbr "Equal Footing" (New York American Jewish Committee, 1989), esp. 4-10. 'Mark Silk, Spiriruul Pofitia: Religion and America since World Ww I (New York Simon & Schuster, 1988), 40-53. Silk ovides numerous other otatiom from this rid in addition to the ones I have used here. & also Silk's "Notes onge J u d e u ~ i m P d t i o n in America," American Quurterfy 36 (Spring 1984): 65-85. In a forthcomtng article, Benny Kraut wil l argue that the Judeo--an concept actuall arose in the 1920s as part of that d-s @terreligioF "goodwill" .movement. I am gr&&l to Professor Kraut for sharing his mated w h me pnor to publication. Sama: "he Emergence of the Muslim Community 373 America (1930), adhered to what might be called the "Protestant synthesis"; they were overwhelmingly concerned, as Sydney Ahlstrom points out, with "the rise and development of the Protestant tradition."' With the twentieth- century decline of mainline Protestantism, the remarkable growth of Catholi- cism, the interreligious assault on wartime and postwar hatred, the rise of the interfaith movement, and the coming of age of non-Prohtant intellectuals, this synthesis broke down. In place of the "Protestant tradition" paradigm, there a- a new tripartite model of American religion, the familiar tMty of Pmtestant, Catholic, and Jew. As early as 1920, before this ideology had fully crystallized, "leadets of the Protestant, Catholic and Jewish groups united in an appeal to the people of America to help safeguard religious liberty from the menace of bigotry, prejudice and fanaticism." Seven years later, the National Conference of Jews and Christians was established (the name was changed in 1938-39), and by design it had h e co-chairmen: Newton D. Baker, ProtestanG Carlton J. H. Hayes, Catholic; and Roger W. Straw, Jew. The NCCJ's education program featured hundreds of local "round tables," each one "a body of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish leaders" who joined together "to further the aims of the National Conference in its community." Everett R. Clinchy, the NCCJ's long-time executive dimtor, developed this idea into a full-scale ideology, arguing that America consisted of three coequal "cultwe groups," each of which made valuable contributions to American life and should be en- couraged to flourish. Within two decades, this tripartite a p p m h to American religion was enshrined in countless symbols, from "equal-time" radio allotments on NBC to the famous Chapel of Four Chaplains, "an interfaith shrine" commemorating the 1943 sinking death-"standing on deck, arms linked, praying"-of four army chaplains, one Catholic, one Jewish, and two protestant, on the S.S. Dorchesfer.' What did more than anything else to make "Ptotestant-Catholic-Jew" a household concept was a book that appeared in 1955. Written by Will Her- 'Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Reli ious History of the American People (New Haven: Yale UniverSity Press, 1972), 8-12; see i. Laurence Moore, Reli ious oukriders and the Making of Americans (New York Oxford, 1986); and, more broadly, hemy W. Bowden, "The Historio- p p h y of American Religion," in Encyclopedia of the American Reli?ious Ex rience, ed. hark H. Lippy and Peter W. Williams (New York Charles Scribner s Sons, g87). vol. 1, 3-16. 'Everett R. Clinch "Better Understanding," Universal Jewkh Encycfopedia (1942) vol. 2,257; Louis Miasky, & a t i d Conference of Christians and Jews," ibid, vol. 8,114; Benny Kraut, "Towards the Establishment of the National Conference of Christians a d Jews: The Tenuous Road to Religious Goodwill in the 192aS," American Jewish History 77, no. 3 (March 1988): 388-412; idem,. "A Wary Collaboratim Jews, Catholics and the pmtestant Goodwill Movement" (f )- Alex J. Goldman, "Alexander D. Goode " in Giants o the Faith: Great A m e r i c a n m F w York, 1964) 311-29; see alsy, Lance Sussman, "&ward Bet: ter Undetstandm g : The Rwe of the Movement m Amenca and the Role of Rabbi Isaac Landman," American Jewish Archives 34 (Apnl 1982): 35-51. 374 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 9:3 berg, recently chamcterized by David G. D a b as "one of the most interest- ing Jewish intellectuals of the last half-century," it made the case for "the per- vasiveness of religious self-identification along the tripartite scheme of Pro- testant, Catholic, Jew." According to Herberg, America had become a "'triple melting pot,"' restructured in three great communities with religious labels, defining three great 'communions' or 'faiths.'" "Not to be ... either a Protes- tant, a Catholic, or a Jew,'' he warned, "is somehow not to be an American."" By the mid- 195oS, then, both the Judeo-Christian tradition and the "triple melting pot'' had become firmy entrenched components of American identity. Both models-and they were clearly linked-pointed to a more pluralistic un- detstanding of America, an America that embraced Jews as equals. For Jews, all too used to being cast in the role of petsecuted minority, this was a pleasant change. Indeed, it was so congenial that in a paper entitled "The Basic Task of the Synagogue in America," the Conservative Jewish lay leader Maxwell Abbell matter-of-factly read these assumptions back into history. "Americans," he explained, "have always spoken of the Judeo-Christian tradi- tion as the basis of the religious life of the modem world, thus giving us Jews credit for the basic elements of this tradition. Americans have always spoken of the thtee great religions of this country as Protestantism, Catholicism and Judaism, despite the fact that we Jews number only about five million out of about 160 million population."" Abbell, and I think many other Jews as well, understood that Jews did not quite deserve the coequal status that America accorded them. They apparently hoped that Jews might compensate for their manifest numerical inequality by making a substantial contribution to American life. But there was a great dan- ger here that I think we are only now beginning to appreciate; namely, that there was a large and indeed growing disjunction between myth and reality. Neither the Judeo-Christian tradition nor the "triple melting pot" adequately or accurately conveyed the full extent of American religious pluralism in all of its complex manifestations. For a long time, Americans lived with this dis- junction, cognitive dissonance notwithstanding. Jews found their exaggerated status particularly convenient; an overwhelming number of Americans be- lieved that Jews formed a far larger proportion of the nation's population than they actually did, and treated Jews accordingly.12 But today these myths are %'ill Herberg, Protesta-Catholic-Jew: An E&ay in American Reli8ious Sociology (rev. .256-57; David G. Dalin, "Will Herberg in Retro- "Maxwell Abbell, "The Basic Task of the Synagogue in America,'' Torch (Winter 1955), '2Charles H. Stembet et al., Jews in the Mind ofAmerica (New York Basic Books, 1966), 1 ed.), (New York Anchor Rooks, 1960), spect," Commentary 86 (July 1988): 3 8 - 3 rqrhted in Milton Berger et al., Roads to Jewish Sm'vu l (New York Block, 1967), 153. 77. Sama: "he Emergence of the Muslim Community 375 dying. It behooves us to know why they are dying, and what the implications are for Jewish identity in the coming decades. Silk demonstrates that the Judeo-Christian idea first met with resistance as far back as the 1940s. Criticisms included the charge that the concept was fuzzy (Harvard's Douglas Bush, for one, asked for "fuller hints of what the Hebraic-Christian tradition, to which all pay at least vague lip service, ac- tually does or can mean in modem terms for modem men of good will"), and that it obscured ageold Jewish-Christian differences. The concept was futther attacked in the wake of the 1967 Six Day War, an event that exposed deep theological fissures between Jews and Christians, especially with regard to Israel, and hastened a trend toward greater Jewish self-pride. More recently, "Judeo-Christian" has been attacked as a rhetorical ploy used by right-wing elements in order to promote an exclusively christian political program. l3 The so-called triple melting pot proved no more adequate as an explana- tory concept. It seriously underestimated the importance of ethnic differences, totally misunderstood the significance of Evangelical Protestantism, and wrote off other American faiths completely, as if they did not exist at all. David Dalin points out that "even as Herberg was writing, new evangelical sects were arising and older ones were undergoing revitalization. Less than five years after the publication of Protestant-Catholic-Jew, the sociologist Sey- mour M. Lipset could note that such fundamentalist sects were 'far stronger today than at any time in the 20th century,' and that the much-heralded gmwth in church membemhip was taking place precisely among these 'fringe sects,' rather than within the traditional Protestant 'mainline' denominations in which Herberg placed so much SfOCk"l4 Admittedly, Herberg's model did help pave the way for subsequent discussions of American "civil religion." But the triple melting pot by itself was scarcely an adequate depiction of American religion in the 1950s, and was even less adequate thendter. Today, assumptions about America's Judeo-Christian character and its Protestant-Catholic-Jew makeup confmnt an even more critical problem: the rapid gmwth of American religions that are not Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish, and that are totally outside the Judeo-Christian spectrum. I refer pin- cipally to Islam, among the fast&-growing religions in the United S t a b , but we should also bear in mind the presence in America of so-called hidden reli- gions (the term is J. Gordon Melton's), including metaphysical faiths, Eastern religions, Psychic or New Age religions, and the like. Sociologists Wade Clark Roof and William McKinley found in 1985 that non-Judeo-Christian faiths commanded the loyalty of twice as many Americans as Judaism and '3Silk, Spiritual Politics, 42-4, 142-46, 180. '%alin, "Will Herberg in Retrospect," 42. 376 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 9:3 that nearly one American in ten reported no religious affiliation. In other words, at least 13 percent of all Americans do not fit our standard assump- tions about America's religious character. This represents more than a four- fold increase in just thitty yeats, and there is every reason to believe that the number of t h s "exceptions" will Continue to expand at a rapid rate." From the point of View of American Jews, the growth of American Islam me& special attention, especially given the orgdzed Muslim community's hostility to Israel. Islam's emergence as a major American faith has failed until now to elicit much discussion in Jewish circles, probably from a fear of appearing religiously prejudiced. I am not familiar with a single scholarly study of what this development means to Jews, certainly none that investi- gates how Islam's rise may affect Jewish identity and life in the decades ahead. No detailed study can be attempted here either, but given my topic, "Jewish Identity in the Changing World of American Religion," some pteliminary remarks anz in order. fIistorically, individual Muslims came to America as early as the colonial period. Small numbers of Muslims m known to have lived in various com- munities in the nineteenth century, but always as individuals; there was no organized Islamic pmnce. During the era of mass immigration (1880s- World War I), migration from what was then called Greater Syria increased owing to a wide variety of factors: political and economic insecurity, agricul- tural problems, overpopulation, the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and the l m of economic advancement in the New World. Most of the immigrants were actually Christian Arab, but a number of Muslims came too-"they hoped to earn as much as possible and then return home."16 The oft-told story of the small Muslim community established near Ross, No& Dakota, around 1900 demonstrates the difficulties that Muslims faced in a nowMuslim environment. To Jewish ears, the story sounds remarkably familiar. 16Anthm B. Toth, "The Syrian Community in New Castle and Its Unique Alawi Compo- nent, 1900-19db," Western Pennsylvanif HistoricalMagazine 69 (July 1986 : 221-239; Newell S. Encyclopedia of the American Reigious Er erience, ed. Char es H. Lippy and Peter W. aliv. (!Uew.York Charles Scribner's Sons, 1987)' vol. 2,725. For earlier sources, see George Dlrmtn S e l y m p . , Ihe Arabs in the United States: A Seleced List o References, Mideast Directions bi liographies of the Library of Congress Jr., "Islam in North Ameri (w- 19 cf 3). Sama: "he Emergence of the M u s h Community 377 Before a mosque was built in the 192Os, prayer and ritual were con- ducted in private houses and led by the best informed among the group. Without a mosque for almost 30 years and without any cul- tural reinforcement from newcomers, the Muslims rapidly lost the use of Arabic, assumed Christian names, and married non-Muslims. The community dwindled as children moved away, and the mosque was abandoned by 1948.'7 The most visible early centers of Islam in America were in Michigan, especially in the Detroit and Dearborn areas, for many Arab immigrants took jobs at the Ford plant. Other Muslim communities were established in East Coast and Midwest industrial centers. But given immigration restrictions and assimilation, the number of Muslims in America remained small-"a little over lOO,OOO"-into the early 1960s. Since then, the nation's Islamic popula- tion has mushroomed, owing both to large scale immigration (14 percent of all immigrants into the United States now ,are Muslims) and to thousands of converts, especially blacks. Significant Islamic communities may be found in New York, Lus Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, and Toledo, Ohio. One tecent study lists 598 mosques and Islamic centers operating in the United States, and estimates the number of American Muslims as "somewhere in the range of two to three million"-a conservative estimate.'* "The high rate of birth, the growing number of converts, and the continuing flow of immigration," the study's authors conclude, "make it possible to predict that by the first decade of the twenty-first century Islam will be the second largest religious com- munity in the united states.""' The Muslim community stands in the forefront of those who seek to break down the Judeo-Christian, Protestant-Catholic-Jew models of American religious life. Quite undemndably, Muslim leaders feel that these models are exclusivistic; they imply that Muslims cannot participate as equals in Ameri- can society. 'We'd like people to start thinking of the U.S. as a Judeo- Christian-Muslim society," said Salam Al-Marayati, spokesman for the Mus- lim Political Action Committee. Another Muslim told researchers that he " A h Naf€, "Arabs," in HaMard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, ed. Stephan Themstmm et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 132. '&Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and Adair T. Lummis, Islamic Values in the United States (New York Oxford, 1987), 3. Time, 23 Ma 1988, 49, quotes Carol Stone's &hate of 4,644,000 Muslims, and New York Times, 21 Lbruary 1989, 1, speaks of "6 million Muslims in the United States." '%addad and Lumis, Islamic Values in the United States, 3; Time, 23 May 1988, 49, makes the same point: "U.S. Muslims are expected. % surpass Je? m number apd, in less than 30 years, become the counhy's seco11(I largest rehgrous commmty, after chnsitaas." 378 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 9:3 looked forward to the day "when all will say 'Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims.'"2o While such a change would not go far enough for those Muslims whose ultimate goal is to bring about an Islamic state in America, and would certainly not meet the needs of those whose faith is neither Judeo-Christian nor Muslim, it does bear out our earlier analysis. America's religious identity is changing; the way Jews understand American religion must change as well. What are the implications of these changes for American Jews and Amer- ican Jewish identity? Given what we have seen to be the rather poor results of earlier efforts to foretell American Jewry's futm, I might be forgiven if, echoing Amos, I declared myself to be neither a prophet nor a prophet's dis- ciple, and left it at that. But since the organizers of this conference have in- structed me to pay special attention, at the very least, to the policy implica- tions of my analysis, let me suggest ten possible changes that we may see in the years ahead, bearing in mind my earlier caution concerning self-negating prophecies. Some of these changes relate broadly to the new world of Ameri- can religion that Jews must confront; the rest deal more narrowly With the growth of Islam and its possible ramifications. 1. The one-time familiar trinity of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews will, in the futute, almost surely give way to a much wider religious circle. At the very least we shall have to include Muslims in the company of religious insiders; more likely, we shall have to expand the circle to include the full rank of American religious denominations, Eastern religions as well as Western ones. 2. Our image of American religion will have to change to comport more closely than it now does with statistical realities. As such, Jews may find themselves placed on an equal footing not with Protestants and Catholics, but, ironically, with Muslims, for both represent major world religions comprising less than 3 percent of the total U.S. population. A hint of what lies in store may already be found in J. Gordon Melton's Encyclo- pedia of American Religions (1978). The encyclopedia claims to explore "the broad sweep of American religions and describes 1200 churches.'' It divides American religion into seventeen "religious families," only ten of which basically follow Christian beliefs and practices. Jews do not even rate a religious family of their own in this classification; instead they are grouped together with Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists under "the Eastern and Middle Eastern Family." "The inclusion here of the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims in one family," J. Gordon Melton explains, "is "Time, 23 May 1988, SO; Haddad and Lumis, Islamic Values in the United States, 161. Sama: "he Emergence of the Muslim Community 379 3. 4. 5. 6. based on shared characteristics, peculiar to their American sojourn, without negating their fundamental differences."' Given the move away from the triple melting pot view of American reli- gion, and the almost inevitable devaluation of Judaism's place in the pan- oply of American religion, Jews in the next few decades will have to en- dure what mainstteam Protestants went through earlier in this century: the experience of status-loss, of feeling almost dispossessed. The rise in status that Jews experienced when the triple melting pot image gained ascen- dancy will, I believe, be partially if not wholly reversed. As a result, the Jewish community will have to learn how to live with a radically dif- ferent image of itself-a much less flattering one. As a consequence of all of the above, American Jews will receive far less textbook and media attention than they do now. Where for some years Jews benefitted from a disproportionate share of teligious attention, al- most on a par with Protestants and Catholics, now they will have to ad- just their expectations down to a more tealistic level in keeping with the Jewish community's actual size and significance. Jewish political power in the years ahead may also fall into decline. As politicians become aware of America's changing religious situation, m y may feel less inclined to listen when Jewish lobbyists come calling. Poli- tical power in America is, of course, more than just a function of num- bers; organization, intelligence, experience, participation, and money also count for a great deal. But given countervailing ptessure fmm constituents actively hostile to Jewish interests, the knowledge that America's Jews are a less significant group than they used to be cannot but have some impact. In the coming years, Jews will have to work much harder to achieve their goals and will not be able to take their power nearly so much for granted. Israel may well suffer the most from these changes. The declining status of American Jews, coupled with the rise of American Islam and the growing political maturity of the American Muslim community, will make it much more difficult in the years ahead for massive aid to Israel to win congressional approval. Already, the Muslim Political Action "Melton, Encyclopedia of American Religions, vol. 1, vfi-xii; vol. 2, 307-54. Melton's idicyncratic classification scheme is, of muse, easy to criticize. His depiction of American Judayn + filled with gross errors, and his inclusion of Jews for Jesus under "Mainstream Judam" IS offensive. 380 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 9:3 Committee is promoting pro-Palestinian policies. Having learned much from watching how Jewish political lobbyists work, American Muslims intend to increase their political activities in coming elections, and hope to elect a Muslim to Congress by 1992." 7. For a few decades, at least, we are likely to see a return in this country to the rhetoric of religious triumphalism. Faiths new on the American scene and flush with fresh converts often delude themselves into thinking that theirs is the faith of the future, the religion that will bring The Truth to all Americans and unite them into a single all embracing church (or mosque). Almost inevitably, this pious hope stirs up religious fervor, spurs the faithful to participate in religious crusades, and successfully thwarts liberal efforts aimed at promoting intemligious harmony. Catho- lics, Jews, and mainstream Pmtestants know from experience that sooner or later all such hopes doomed to disappointment; religious monism is not the American way. But this may well be the kind of lesson that every faith community must learn anew for itself. 8. Until this and other lessons are learned, interfaith conversations will be- come much more difficult. In the past, leading Jews, Protestants, and Catholics have, if nothing else, established certain properties that p e d t - ted them to interace they all learned to practice what John Murray Cud- dihy calls "the religion of civility."" Faiths previously excluded from the mainstteam do not necessarily share these properties, and may in some cases openly scorn them-witness the intemperate rhetoric of some funda- mentalist pteachers or of Black Muslim leaders like Louis Fa-. Unless (or until) a new generation of religious leaders from a much broader spectrum of faiths can be initiated into the niceties of religious convesation, progtess can scarcely be expected. Discussions will either prove too limited to be meaningful or too acrimonious to be helpful. "Time, 23 August 1988, 50. Writing in the wake-of the Six Day War, the Arab pciologist Abdo A. Elkholy dreamed of. a far more radical agenda for Arab Ame4cans. Many of the great national movements whch have changed )he course of our modem history staxted will face on the 4fab elites in America and then role in a sweepin Arab revolution which would \rm the Middle East lon?" See Abdo A. Elkholy, "The Arab-Amemans: N a t l l s m and Trdtmnahstn a n % i o d Preserva-ticms," m The Arab Americ-: S@es in Assimilation, ed. Elaine C. Hagopian and Ann Paden (Wilmette, IL: Medina Umvemty Press, 1969), 17. 23John Murray Cuddihy, No w e m e : CivilReligion andProtestant Taste (New Y a k Sea- bury, 1978). he pointed out. "Could it be that future and liberate it from both intermtiom! 8ioni.m yd llpilitary domingjon ~p !.I co Sama: Ihe Emergence of the Muslim C m u o i t y 38 1 9. O n the brighter side, the rise of Islam and the widening parameters of American religion may in the long run promote closer Muslim-Jewish relations. confronted with surprisingly similar kinds of religious problems in a society that is still overwhelmingly Christian, Jews and Muslims have every teason to learn to work together in support of common inter- ests. Moreover, the neutral American environment should make possible a level of religious interaction between Jews and Muslims that would be unthinkable either in Arab countries or in Israel. For reasons that I have already outlined, I do not expect serious intemligious conversations to take place in the near futme. But the history of Catholic-Jewish relations over the past century in America demonstmtes that change is possible. Given what Robert Wuthnow writes about the "decline of denomination- alism"' in recent decades, improvements may come about even sooner than we think. 10. Finally, the changing world of American religion may prompt Jews fun- damentally to reevaluate their agenda and goals for the yeats ahead. If Jews are to be known once more as a religious minority, a so-called dis- senting faith, they may want to act the part, just as they did decades ago. This means that Jews would focus fitst and foremost on their own inter- ests, next on those issues of special concern to religious minorities, and only third on the great social and political agenda that majority faiths worry about. Historically, the Jewish community played a t re~ndous ly important role as leader and spokesman for America's religious minori- ties. It did more than any other faith community to promote inclusive the- ories of American life (the melting pot and cultural pluralism) and xli- gious liberty for all. Jews, in my opinion, have had far less impact as yea-saying membes of the religious majority, and have squandered precious resources on issues about which they have little new to say. By refocusing priorities back toward minority-group issues-particularly the age-old Amencan question of minority rights versus majority de-Jews may actually make more of a mark than they did as membets of the reli- gious "establishment" Such a refocusing would not only strengthen Jew- ish minority group identity, but would have the additional advantage of promoting group survival as a weapon against intermamage and as- similation. Let me close with this final thought. Jews have done exceedingly well in this country, both in the old days when they were viewed as membets of a %uthnow, Restructuring of American Religion, 71-99. 382 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 9:3 religious minority roughly akin to Turks and infidels, and mote recently when they became part of the religious majority, grouped together with Protestants and Catholics in a "triple melting pot." The fact that yet another change is now taking place should thus occasion concerned vigilance, but not neces- sarily alarm. Indeed, we have seen that some of the implications of this change may actually turn out to be positive. Moreover, it is a mistake to as- sume that Jews a ~ e merely the objects of history, tossed about by fomes total- ly beyond their control. While Jews may not be able to do anything about the realignment of American religion and the growth of American Islam, the way they respond to these challenges may in fact make a gteat deal of difference. American Jews survived earlier challenges, prophecies of doom notwithstand- ing, because Jewish leaders responded to them creatively-with wisdom, dis- cernment, and flexibility. Let us hope that our present leaders can do as well.