• "Continuity Crisis" and its Instrumentalizing Effects
• Michal Kravel-Tovi (bio)

I salute Lila Corwin Berman, Kate Rosenblatt, and Ronit Y. Stahl for speaking truth to power. I appreciated their well-timed act of principle when I read their opinion piece in the Forward in summer 2018, and I recognize the scholarly merit of this rich historical account. While I do not necessarily agree with each and every thread of their account—and offer below a number of questions, extensions, and nuanced additions—I nevertheless subscribe to the article's underlying rationale. The authors are right in flagging up the gendered structures of power embedded in the proliferating continuity paradigm. They are right in proposing a broadened definition of misogyny, tracing its workings in the male-dominated cultures of expertise that dominate the organized Jewish community. And, finally, they are right in highlighting how sexual politics shape the prescriptive role of the Jewish continuity discourse in the overlapping spheres of expertise, funding, and policymaking. Their contribution is a much-needed feminist perspective. It goes beyond gendered norms and their implications for women participating in public communal conversations. Just as importantly, this contribution interrogates the generally opaque apparatus of knowledge and intervention that feeds greater social hierarchies and regimes of values: a framework that enables a distinction between "core" and "peripheral" populations, as well as "usable" and "unusable" individuals and families.

Unlike the authors, I hesitate to conclude that Steven M. Cohen's (or Michael Steinhardt's) sexual misconduct is directly or necessarily related to the inherently sexist orientation of the continuity paradigm. It is safer, I think, to link his misconduct and disrespect towards women to his sweeping authority as an expert-cum-advocate across multiple and intersecting circles within the organized Jewish community. As the #MeToo revolution has shown us once and again, structures of power and privilege, across a wide array of fields and contexts, provide a breeding ground for the sexual abuse of power by men of stature against subordinated women. The salient position of the Jewish continuity paradigm (and of Steven M. Cohen himself)—of which the authors are well aware—is a key factor, I would argue, in Cohen's transgressions.¹ At any rate, even if the [End Page 215] link between Cohen's sexual misconduct and the sexist content of the continuity paradigm is less tangible or certain than that drawn by the authors (an option that, at least for me, remains open), the exposure of Cohen's (and others') sexual misdeeds is a productive springboard for this critical and feminist analysis of Jewish continuity. In what follows, I offer a few remarks to further illuminate my take on the topics at hand.

"The continuity paradigm" does include the sexist ingredients that the authors point at: it foregrounds the family, implies a heteronormative script of adulthood, focuses on in marriage, and posits elevated fertility rates as the appropriate means of safeguarding community numbers. However, these ingredients are far from exclusive. In fact, the term "continuity" is a rather expansive and vague rubric, like the closely related tropes "the Jewish future" and "Jewish life." Right from the outset (the 1960s, the decade of "the first continuity crisis"),² the term "continuity" has encapsulated and conflated biological reproduction with cultural reproduction, concerns over numbers with concerns over identity; Jewish bodies and Jewish souls.³ Over the course of my own study, I encountered various articulations and understandings of what continuity actually means: while some emphasized inmarriage, others posited intermarriage as the real key to Jewish continuity. Some associated continuity with population growth, while others called attention to communal institutional viability; some spoke about "Jewish engagements," deliberately distancing themselves from the crisis-filled lexicon of "Jewish continuity," while others used the term "Jewish continuity" [End Page 216] more neutrally, without adopting overtly numerical and alarmist overtones. Given how extensively continuity knowledge and discourses have traveled and debated within communal spheres, I think it is better to think of "continuity" as a floating signifier—or, at least, as a cluster of different schools of thought and policy, not all anchored by alarm and the regulation of bodies.⁴

Furthermore, following NJPS 1990, numerous "continuity and identity committees" in...

• “连续性危机”及其工具化作用
• Michal Kravel-Tovi（生物）

我向莉拉·科温·伯曼（Lila Corwin Berman），凯特·罗森布拉特（Kate Rosenblatt）和罗尼特·斯塔尔（Ronit Y. 当我在《前进报》上阅读他们的意见时，我赞赏他们及时的原则行为在2018年夏季，我认识到了这个丰富的历史记录的学术价值。尽管我不一定同意其帐户的每个线程（并在下面提供了许多问题，扩展名和细微之处），但我仍然赞同该文章的基本原理。这些作者正确地标明了在不断扩散的连续性范式中嵌入的性别权力结构。他们正确地提出了宽容的厌女症定义，并在以男性为主导的，有组织的犹太人社区为主导的专门知识文化中追踪其工作是正确的。最后，他们正确地强调了性政治如何在专业知识，资金和政策制定的重叠领域中塑造犹太人连续性话语的规定性作用。他们的贡献是迫切需要的女权主义者的观点。它超出了性别规范及其对妇女参加公共对话的影响。同样重要的是，这种贡献询问了通常不透明的知识和干预手段，这些手段提供了更大的社会等级制度和价值体系：一个能够区分“核心”和“外围”人口以及“可用”和“不可用”人口的框架。个人和家庭。

与作者不同，我犹豫得出结论，史蒂芬·科恩（Steven M. Cohen）（或迈克尔·斯坦哈特（Michael Steinhardt））的性行为不当直接或必然与连续性范式的固有性别歧视取向有关。我认为，将他的不当行为和对妇女的不尊重与他在有组织的犹太社区中跨多个相交圈子的专家兼倡导者席卷而来的权威联系起来比较安全。正如#MeToo革命一次又一次向我们展示的那样，跨越各种领域和背景的权力和特权结构为身材高大的男人针对从属女性对权力进行性虐待提供了温床。我认为，犹太人连续性范式（以及史蒂文·科恩本人）的显着地位是科恩过犯的关键因素。无论如何，即使[ Cohen的性不端行为与连续性范式中的性别歧视内容之间的[End Page 215]链接不如作者所描绘的那样明确或确定（至少对于我来说，这种选择仍然是开放的），科恩（和其他人）性行为的暴露对于这种对犹太人连续性的批判和女权主义分析是富有成效的跳板。在接下来的内容中，我将提供一些评论，以进一步阐明我对当前主题的看法。

“连续性范式”的确包含了作者指出的性别歧视成分：它凸显了家庭，暗示了成年后的异性规范，专注于婚姻，并认为提高生育率是维护社区人数的适当手段。但是，这些成分远非排他性的。实际上，术语“连续性”是一个相当宽泛和模糊的标题，就像紧密相关的比喻“犹太人的未来”和“犹太人的生活”一样。从一开始（1960年代，即“第一次连续性危机”的十年）开始，[ ^2] “连续性”一词将生物繁殖与文化繁殖，对数字的关注与对身份的关注进行了封装和融合。犹太人的身体和犹太人的灵魂。³在我自己的学习过程中，我遇到了关于连续性实际上意味着什么的各种表述和理解：虽然有些人强调通婚，但其他人则认为通婚是犹太人连续性的真正关键。一些与人口增长的连续性相关，而另一些则引起人们对公共机构生存能力的关注。一些人谈到“犹太人参与”，故意与充满危机的“犹太人连续性”词典区分开，而另一些人则使用“犹太人连续性”一词[结束第216页]更中立，而不采用明显的数字和警惕性色彩。考虑到公共领域内广泛的连续性知识和话语进行了传播和辩论，我认为最好将“连续性”视为浮动的指称物，或者至少将其视为一整套不同的思想和政策流派，而不是全部固定下来。通过警报和身体调节。⁴

此外，在1990年NJPS之后，...