What Giles Coren gets wrong about Judaism - The Jewish Chronicle

In a recent article published in The Times, Giles Coren shared his fraught journey from atheism towards embracing religious practices –albeit in the Christian tradition, despite his Jewish roots. I feel compelled to address a few points where his portrayal of Judaism, as he experienced it, diverges significantly from the rich, compassionate, and enduring faith tradition and practice that has sustained the Jewish people through millennia.

Giles’ experience growing up in a household with atheistic leanings yet culturally Jewish highlights a critical challenge within our community: the transmission of a meaningful Jewish identity to the next generation. It is a clarion call to our community to ensure that our children are not only Jewish by birth but also engaged with Judaism through faith, practice, and learning. The essential Jewish principle of mesora – “delivering” charges us not just to let tradition fall to our children, but to actively entrust them with it. It is our responsibility to pass down faithfully the full beauty of the tradition to successive generations in ways that they can understand and receive. And that we must work hard at communicating it to them in a way that they love and cherish.

His description of the Jewish God as "brooding, vengeful, unforgiving" is a common misunderstanding of the Judaic concept of the Divine. It is an old trope with a long history in the Christian church. The truth is that Jewish theology embraces a God who is, above all, merciful and loving. The attributes of God, as understood in Jewish thought, include compassion, grace, and slow to anger, which are repeatedly emphasised in our liturgies and scriptures. It's essential to recognise that any portrayal of God that leans excessively toward judgment or wrath is incomplete without the counterbalancing qualities of mercy and redemption that are core to Jewish teachings.

Giles’ personal reflections remind us that we are wrong to believe that our children do not need spiritual and religious teachings. The void that he says he was left with is real and not at all uncommon. Judaism was designed to make sure that our children were faithfully bequeathed the fullness of their tradition—to fill that potential void. We rob them when we don’t faithfully transmit it to them.

Giles rightly states that regardless of the faith he practices, he will always be a Jew. But there is a difference between being a Jew and espousing Judaism – the practices and rituals that have been synonymous with being Jewish for centuries. By leaning into Anglicanism, the only religious system he knew, given the fact that he was raised in Britain and was immersed in British society, he has decidedly forsaken the richness of Judaism, its rituals, its ethics, and its community life. The sad part is that it was never delivered to him. For me, that is a tragic result, if not for Giles, then for the British Jewish community.

There is a vital distinction between being born Jewish and practicing Judaism that our community often does not consciously consider. Being Jewish is not merely an ethnicity or a cultural identity; it is a path, a practice, a way of life that calls for active participation and learning. It is the birthright of every Jew.

It is also important to note the impetus for Giles’s choice. It seems to spring more from a place of emotional need rather than a search for a theological framework. He has chosen his religion because its God “speaks English”. Emotional responses are valid entry points into a spiritual journey, but they should be the beginning, not the end, of our engagement with faith.

I encourage those who may find themselves estranged from their Jewish roots to reach deeper into the tradition. Judaism offers centuries of wise and meaningful dialogue between the divine and the human, filled with the potential for personal and communal growth and transformation. It is, after all, the mother religion, and it has stood the test of time like no other.

My wish for our people is that they will be stirred and inspired to reach for the vast and deep spiritual wisdom that is their treasured inheritance. May they see that the figures of the Bible are not just remarkable people of virtue, but their own grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Let them resist the alluring ease of secular life, and strive to impart our rich spiritual and religious heritage to their children with the same dedication they show towards their secular education.

Judaism is the author of the Psalms that echo through the vaults of Giles’s church. Judaism birthed the deity with whom Giles has cast his lot. Judaism belongs to him still, as it does to us. Giles’s story serves as a call to us all to rise and, with full embrace, live our precious heritage.

Rabbi Joseph Dweck is the Senior Rabbi of the S&P Sephardi Community of the United Kingdom.

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Judaism