I recently engaged Neumann in a two-hour-long conversation via video-conferencing about his background and the book. Though he was raised and educated in London, it was his time living in America that got Neumann thinking about how progressive Jews use the concept of tikkun olam to construct their identities and escape any religious affiliation.

In his twenties, Neumann went to live in New York City and became alarmed by how widespread anti-Zionism was among American Jews. Not only did many left-wing Jews criticize the specific policies of the State of Israel, they questioned the value and legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty. For them, as for Chabon, the mixing of Jews and gentiles in the Diaspora is the fulfillment of the Jewish world mission. And they frequently cited the universalistic ethic of tikkun olam as the basis for their views.

At the same time, Neumann noted a second phenomenon: a parallel discomfort with the whole idea of Jewish peoplehood. As Ammiel Hirsch, the head of Reform Zionists of America, said in response to Chabon’s speech, “We liberal Jews never seem to speak about Jewish solidarity anymore. We speak about our obligations to the world with profound conviction and eloquence, but never seem to speak about our obligations… to care about fellow Jews, to feel connected to the Jewish people.”

Much more so than in his native England, Neumann found the American Jewish community convinced that Judaism mandates political liberalism, even though the most observant Jews tend to be conservative. “Tikkun olam,” he told me, “was being used to justify any and every progressive political nostrum. And Judaism was being enlisted in the cause of partisan politics.”

That reduction of Judaism to progressive politics, under the rubric of tikkun olam, effectively rendered Judaism irrelevant — little more than a source of prooftexts for progressive positions. Many Jews, it seems, find it comforting to learn that their politics are endorsed by their birth faith. But if the two are identical, Neumann observes, then progressive Jews have no reason to inform themselves to any degree about Jewish texts or practice. “They are already experts in Judaism with no texts,” says Neumann.

If everything in Judaism is already prescribed by progressive ideology, who needs Jews or Judaism anymore? Behold, the diminished sense of mutual obligation and peoplehood. And if the Jewish people are no longer needed, then certainly neither is a Jewish nation-state.

Step to the Task

Neumann did not grow up in a religious home, and he did not have the opportunity to learn for an extended period in yeshivah. Since becoming observant around the time of his bar mitzvah he’s relied on chavrusa learning and individual rabbis to build his Torah knowledge. I ask him if that lack of formal training made taking on Reform and Conservative “theologians” intimidating.

“For sure,” he says. “I never thought I was the person to write the book that I have. I kept waiting for someone else to do so. Only after years of waiting, did I feel I had to step up and do so. As Chazal say, ‘Be’makom sh’ein ish.’ ”

Upon reflection, he understands why no one had previously stepped to the fore. Those who have a high level of command and fluency in classic Jewish texts tend not to be highly interested in politics. And those who are interested in politics tend not to be so textually fluent.

“But it should be emphasized that I did not intend to write a primer on Jewish theology or on halachah,” he says. “I leave that task to talmidei chachamim. Rather what I have attempted to do is to highlight the claims of those who have rallied to the banner of tikkun olam and to refute them based on logic and honestly engaging the texts they quote to advance their political agenda.

“It is beyond implausible, for instance, that a faith over three thousand years old should wondrously be found to coincide with whatever the current progressive zeitgeist is: radical income redistribution, a preference for multilateral organizations over nation-states, the advance of non-traditional marriage, radical environmentalism, and dramatic reductions in defense spending,” he explains. “The utopian belief in the ultimate perfectibility of society through human actions and the embrace of the central role of government in creating what progressives call the more just and compassionate society, removes G-d from the picture and is the antithesis of traditional Judaism.”

The exclusively universalistic concerns of tikkun olam advocates, he adds, render Chumash incomprehensible and irrelevant. The entire Five Books of Moses is an account of first the family of one man, Avraham, and later of a single people, Bnei Yisrael. The laws of the Torah were revealed at Sinai to a particular nation and binding only upon that nation. To subscribe to what is advocated in the name of tikkun olam, he says, one must ignore all that and such fundamental Torah concepts as revelation, covenant, and commanded-ness.

Nothing Too Particular

If the claims of tikkun olam advocates were nothing more than political verbiage in support of a particular candidate or issue, the harm would be damaging enough. But instead, this new liberal nostrum has replaced Judaism with a different set of rules and commandments, and further claimed that authentic Judaism demands that we do as much.

One startling aspect is that the term “tikkun olam” is nearly non-existent in Jewish literature. “The term appears nowhere in Tanach,” Neumann points out. “There are a handful of references to takkanos enacted mipnei tikkun olam in Talmud. But each is very limited in scope, and designed to preserve and protect the existing status quo, not radically remake it. They even turn to Lurianic kabbalah as a source for the centrality of tikkun olam. But the tikkun referred to in kabbalah is affected exclusively through mitzvos and prayer, neither of which have anything to do with what is today being advocated in the name of tikkun olam.”

The best-known reference to tikkun olam is, of course, in the Aleinu prayer recited three times daily: “lesakein olam b’malchus Shakai.” Unfortunately, the “b’malchus Shakai” portion is typically ignored by the tikkun olam-ists.

“Ironically, many non-Orthodox congregations leave out the recitation of Aleinu: The vision of the second paragraph of the disappearance of all other forms of worship other than that of the G-d of Israel is too particularistic for their tastes.”

From the time of classical German Reform those justifying their departure from halachic observance have styled themselves as following in the footsteps of the Hebrew prophets, who frequently decried the ritual observance of their time and emphasized instead justice and concern for the oppressed. Jewish social justice warriors, like Tikkun magazine editor Michael Lerner, use these passages to denounce ritual observance as an obstacle to ethical living.

Neumann quotes a number of their favorite passages from Isaiah and Jeremiah in his book. But in his research he discovered that “if one opens up the lens just a fraction on the passages they quote a very different picture emerges.”

True, the Prophets denounced a lack of concern with the poor (not with the failure to eliminate poverty through government programs). But what they criticized so powerfully was those who brought the required sacrifices — the mitzvos bein adam l’Makom — but failed to heed Hashem’s voice with respect to mitzvos bein adam l’chaveiro. The Books of Prophets are filled with descriptions of the ultimate redemption of Israel by the G-d of Israel and the return to a rebuilt Jerusalem. But that vision is far too particularistic for those who claim to be following in the footsteps of the Prophets.

“What You Call Politics, We Call Torah”

To Heal the World has been published by a major publishing house, and to judge by the extensive publicity campaign and Neumann’s book tours, they have invested heavily in its success.

But that raises the question of the book’s intended audience. It can’t be the social justice warriors that the book criticizes so thoroughly. And Orthodox Jews, while they would surely nod their heads approvingly don’t exactly have to be told about real versus invented Judaism. Neumann deflects the question by suggesting that liberal Jews do indeed have an interest in the book. He points to reviews in major Jewish outlets like Tablet, Los Angeles Jewish Journal, and two in the Forward. Even if some of the reviews were unfavorable, liberal Jews are taking notice, he says.

Moreover, there are other Jews, like many in the politically conservative but not necessarily mitzvah-observant Russian Jewish community, who would benefit from a work that reveals that Torah does not mandate progressivism.

And even within the Orthodox community, there are those who would find value in the book. “Many modern Orthodox kids attending university will be exposed to and challenged by the tikkun olam arguments,” he says. “To Heal the World is a protection for them. And I think the book will wake up the Orthodox community to be more concerned about what is being said in the name of Judaism and more active in refuting it than they are today.”

Neumann says the politicization of religion riles him in particular because it places the emphasis on mouthing particular pieties rather than turning ourselves into godly human beings.

“The tikkun olam advocates make clear that they are not talking about giving charity or helping one’s neighbors, but about societal transformation,” he explains. “As the Third Jewish Catalogue, which played a large role in promoting tikkun olam, put it, the goal is “not the perfection of individual souls, but tikkun olam, repairing the world. They demand too little from us in terms of working on ourselves, our middos.”

David Wolpe, the rabbi of very large Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles, recently announced that the synagogue was not the place for the discussion of politics. Inevitably there was pushback. One congregant responded: “What you call politics, we call Torah.” But he is an example of someone who is aware of the disaster of reducing Torah to a series of political nostrums.

The book is also for any American who cares about Israel, and that still includes millions of American Jews. These supporters of Israel will be surprised and concerned to hear that an “alternate leadership” has emerged among liberal American Jews.

J Street has dropped the pretense of being “pro-Israel”; they found the label no longer necessary. Alan Dershowitz labelled Tikkun magazine, “the most virulently anti-Israel screed published.” Jill Jacobs, who was ordained at the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, claims to have 2,000 American rabbis affiliated with her Soros-funded organization T’ruah. There is a constant pattern: the more emphasis on tikkun olam the greater the hostility to Israel.

While Neumann’s book rejects the claim that Judaism can be reduced to the talking points for the Democratic Party, is it any more true that Judaism adheres to conservative principles? Neumann is emphatic in his response.

“While I think the Torah is opposed to aspects of the progressive political agenda, I am not trying to equate the Torah with any political position,” he explains. “The Torah does not have a position on the appropriate marginal tax rates. And I am definitely not arguing that one cannot be a liberal and a Torah observant Jew.”

Tempest in a Teapot?

Neumann has seemingly read almost the entire corpus of the Jewish social justice movement, and that reading is reflected in To Heal the World. But prior to our conversation, I’m still left wondering if the whole thing is not a tempest in a teapot. Yes, American Jews are very left-wing, on the whole. And yes, their level of concern with fellow Jews and with Israel is plummeting, as sociologist Stephen Cohen has documented. Approximately 50 percent of young Jews under 35 say that they would not view the destruction of Israel as a “personal tragedy.”

But might that be more a reflection of their complete ignorance of Jewish texts and alienation from Jewish religious life than it is an attraction to progressive ideas contained in works like Arthur Green’s Radical Judaism. After all, the most recent PEW survey revealed that 45 percent of American Jews are hostile to all organized religion, and of those, 28 percent call themselves atheists. How likely is it that they have bothered to read any of the tikkun olam literature?

Eventually, Jonathan and I come up with an “experiment” that might suggest what impact the radical stances of many Reform and Conservative clergy have on the views of American Jews. In the United States, most Jews who are affiliated at all, are affiliated with heterodox congregations. In England, however, most synagogues are part of the Orthodox United Synagogue. Though the members might not be fully shomer mitzvos, they are unlikely to hear messages from the pulpit about how the Torah bolsters the case for left-wing political views, or even to hear much discussion of politics at all, apart from issues of immediate concern to the Jewish community.

And it turns out that there are significant differences between American and Anglo Jewry. Those differences don’t establish causality, but they are suggestive. One of Neumann’s arguments is that when politics becomes the primary expression of one’s Jewishness, it makes more sense to pick marital partners on the basis of shared politics, not religion. And indeed, there are substantial differences in intermarriage rates in the United States and Great Britain. That for America is usually given as 71 percent for non-Orthodox Jews. Figures for Britain are calculated differently, and do not include the entirely unaffiliated. But even in the worst-case scenario, the intermarriage rate is generally put at under 40 percent.

Another crucial difference is political party affiliation. On the one hand, British Jewry has created no pro-Israel lobby anywhere on the scale of AIPAC. On the other hand, British Jews have proven perfectly willing to change party affiliation and switch political homes when they feel disdained or that the party is actively hostile to Israel. Long before the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, British Jews had undertaken a massive exodus from the Labor Party. In the 2015 election, the Conservative Party headed by David Cameron, received approximately 70 percent of the Jewish vote versus 22 percent for the Labour Party headed by Ed Milliband, who is Jewish. Milton Himmelfarb’s famous quip about American Jews — “they earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans” — does not apply to Anglo Jewry.

By contrast American Jews, for whom politics is primary and religion secondary or less, nothing that either the Republican or Democratic parties do seems to swing the political needle greatly. The Democratic Party moves farther and farther to the left, and thus toward ever greater hostility to Israel, and American Jews remain unmoved. A Democratic president pursues an almost explicitly pro-Iranian foreign policy, and American Jews yawn and remain firmly ensconced in the Democratic party. Forty-eight percent of American Jews supported President Obama’s Iran deal versus only 22 percent of the rest of the country, even though Israeli Jews overwhelmingly thought that the deal increased the danger from a nuclear Iran.

So, it does seem that a case can be made for the negative impact of what the tikkun olam advocates are selling on American Jewry.

What Jewish Mission?

In the midst of our conversation, Neumann suddenly turns the tables and asks what I thought of his book. “I haven’t had feedback from too many Jews with a yeshivah background,” he tells me.

I’m quick to assure him that I think it’s an important work and that he has performed a major service by slogging through the voluminous material to compose his indictment. But I add that Orthodox Jews reading the book might conclude they could have provided better answers to the tikkun olam crowd.

But as I probe other possible answers with Jonathan, it becomes clear that he has thought long and hard about the kinds of arguments he wants to make.

In fact, many of the most powerful quotations against the conflation of Judaism and progressive politics come from non-Orthodox sources. “I’m seeking the largest possible impact,” Neumann says, “and therefore don’t want To Heal the World to be pigeonholed as an Orthodox book.”

The concluding chapters of To Heal the World are perhaps the most powerful. That’s where Neumann discusses the implications of the universalistic outlook of the tikkun olam crowd for the continuation of the Jewish people. If there is no belief in the Jews as a chosen people, no sense of a unique Jewish mission — nothing more than a general claim that “we thought of it first” with respect to progressive values — then there is, as Chabon said, no reason why the Jewish people should continue to exist. Neumann quotes the writer Hillel Halkin, who was one of the first to note the use of the term tikkun olam among progressives, saying, “If ethics make us like everyone else, they cannot also make us Jews.”

I ask Neumann what, short of an outbreak of violent anti-Semitism, might recreate a feeling among young Jews as being members of a unique people and with that have a renewed interest in our classic texts.

“You are right that the first step will usually require arousing a feeling that being Jewish is something essential to their identity — not just a taste for certain foods or a certain style of humor,” he says. “After strengthening Jewish identity, the next step is actual exposure to Torah and Torah living. The ultimate kiruv model is Sinai — naaseh v’nishma. The best way to witness and comprehend the wonder and majesty of Judaism is to experience it: Shabbos and the festivals, the joy of learning.

“In my experience, kiruv is best undertaken in a positive rather than antagonistic fashion: less an argument against tikkun olam warriors and more an argument for Torah Judaism. Still it might be a good idea to provide young Jews one meets with a copy of To Heal a World to open up their eyes to how they have been cheated out of marvelous treasures by the reduction of Judaism to mere politics.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 732)