Yossele-affæren

In the winter of 1959, an eight-year-old boy by the name of Yossele Schumacker disappeared from his grandparents' home in Jerusalem. The boy’s parents, Ida and Alter Schumacker, Russian Jews who had immigrated to Israel two years earlier, had little doubt that their son was being held by his ultra-Orthodox grandparents. Since their immigration, there had been mounting tensions between the Schumackers and the grandparents, particularly over the religious education of Yossele. Ida and Alter were practicing Orthodox Jews while in Russia, but in Israel they had gradually abandoned their religious practices; Alter had declared himself a communist and intended to return to Russia. The grandfather, Nachman Starkesh, who had himself served seven years in a Russian gulag for his defiance of Soviet laws opposed to his religious beliefs, could not allow it. He feared that disconnected from his grandparents the child would become an “atheist.”

In January of 1960, the Israeli court ordered Nachman Starkesh to return the boy to his parents. Starkesh preferred imprisonment. Despite the court’s assertion that nothing should be done against the child’s wishes, neither Nachman nor the scores of other Orthodox Jews that the police investigated divulged any information about the boy’s whereabouts. Yossele’s disappearance soon became an intensely debated public dispute. The “Yossele affair'' became a symbol for the rifts between the majority of secular Israeli Jews and the community of Orthodox Jews who were, in this case as in many others, defying the laws of the state for what they considered the authority of a divine law.

As the emotions intensified, the Israeli Secret Service took over the investigation. In the summer of 1962, more than three years after his disappearance, Yossele was finally found in New York, living with an Orthodox family as their “Argentinian nephew.” As the details unfolded, it became clear that one woman had masterminded the intricate conspiracy that had kept Yossele in hiding. It was Ruth Ben-David Blau who had smuggled the boy out of Israel, disguised as her daughter, and who had accompanied him through several stations and forged identities in Europe and in the USA

Ruth Ben-David Blau’s part in the affair captured the public’s imagination. It was intriguing not only in the light of the extraordinary initiative and ingenuity this Orthodox woman had shown in this struggle with secular authorities, but also in the light of her background. Ruth was a convert, a newcomer to Orthodox Judaism. She had been born in France, to Catholic parents. In her autobiography (The Guardians of the City, 1979) she outlines the story of her life. She describes her father as an atheist, a tyrannical and unstable man who had been a constant source of distress for his wife and daughter. Her mother, on the other hand, is portrayed with love and admiration, and Ruth refers to her as her closest ally. The mother was “a believer” and raised Ruth as a Catholic. Prior to her new life as a Jewish woman, Ruth herself had been briefly married and divorced; she had studied history at the Sorbonne and had been an active member of the French Resistance during World War II. In 1951, while in her early 30s, raising alone her only son, she converted to Judaism. She gradually became more Orthodox in her observance of the Halacha, the Jewish religious law. During a visit to Israel, she became familiar with the Neturai-Karta (in a literal translation, “The Guardians of the City”), the most extreme Hassidic sect in Jerusalem, and after immigrating to Israel with her son, she decided to live in their midst. It was then that she was approached by one of the leaders of Neturai-Karta and was asked to employ her experience as a Resistance fighter in the service of saving Yossele' s soul.

Ruth’s story raises conflicting attitudes. From her autobiography she emerges as a woman of great courage and dedication. One cannot help but admire her willingness to sacrifice personal comforts and safety in her pursuit of principles. At the same time, one is struck by the rigidity and the one-sidedness of her account, by the distortion of facts to make these fit into her new world view, and by her ruthlessness towards those who belong to a different camp. She then seems a captive, a blind follower of a zealous community, unable to reflect and unable, in consequence, to bring her own actions under moral scrutiny. The reader of Ruth’s autobiography is also struck by the missing links in her story. Reading the story of her life, one still knows little about her conversion. In her efforts to glorify her present salvation she seems to gloss over her Catholic past and the circumstances that had led her to abandon it. The life she led seems disconnected and her conversion remains an enigma.

Konvertering kan forstås som en kjærlighetsaffære

Converts' accounts of their religious conversion were rich in complexity and nuance and reflected the varieties of religious experiences, but a common pattern united them. The picture that emerged from my data is that conversion pivots around a sudden attachment, an infatuation with a real or imagined figure which occurs on a background of great emotional turmoil. The typical convert was transformed not by a religion, but by a person. The discovery of a new truth was indistinguishable from a discovery of a new relationship, which relieved, at least temporarily, the upheaval of the previous life. This intense and omnipresent attachment discovered in the religious experience promised the convert everlasting guidance and love, for the object of the convert’s infatuation was perceived as infallible. It was this relationship that had come to dominate converts' lives as well as their self-perception and that was powerful enough to affect a change in it. The new relationship seems to have provided an “alliance” reminiscent of the one that psychotherapists search for in their efforts to help their clients change

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The major thesis presented here is, then, that conversion is best understood in the context of the individual’s emotional life. It occurs on a background of emotional upheaval and promises relief by a new attachment.

Oppsummering

First, and most frequently, conversion stories rested on an infatuation with a powerful authority figure, a leader, a prophet, a mentor. “I fell in love with the rabbi,” a Jewish convert said. “I was transformed by his authority, his dynamism.” This figure was perceived as an omnipotent father who supplied order and protection, and the transformation that occurred relied primarily on the new structure and guidance provided by him.

Chapter 2 describes the conversions that center on this attachment to a perfect father. Ruth Ben-David Blau’s description of her father as a tyrant was echoed repeatedly in various versions in my interviews with contemporary religious converts. Consider the following from a Catholic convert: “My father never appreciated me as a son and I never appreciated him as a father.” From a young woman devotee of the Hare Krishna movement: “My father did not understand; anything you did was wrong and I started hating him.” I will describe this relationship with the absent, ineffectual, or hostile father and suggest possible ties between the lack of benevolent paternal presence and the actual conversion experience.

Second, there was a relationship with a group of peers who lavished acceptance and love. “I never had found any time of fulfillment with any group of people as I had with this group,” said a convert to the Baha’i faith. Chapter 3 describes the attachment to a new group of peers. Conversion is in most cases the occasion of turning away from previous affiliations to become a member of a new community. As it offers an emotional haven, the new faith also offers a tie to a new social network. The shift from despair to hope, from distress to happiness, the emotional rapture which appears to be the sine qua non of the conversion experience often occurs in the presence of a group. Members of the new community wittingly or unwittingly shape the converts' change of heart. Do the expectations and dynamics of groups affect the conversion experience itself? Do religious groups force their “ready-made” construction of reality upon the person who simply happens to be present at their gatherings? These questions are addressed in this chapter, which examines the interaction between the dynamics of groups and the desires of the potential convert. I will examine here the powerful direct or indirect processes through which groups exert their influence on their members, as well as the limitations of the view of conversion as a process of “thought reform” induced by groups.

Chapter 4 describes the infatuation with the group from a different angle: as a developmental phase related to the internal as well as external demands of adolescence. I will describe here the psychological characteristics of adolescence that seem to contribute to the heightened frequency of conversions at this stage. In particular, this chapter centers on the formation of identity during adolescence and outlines some of the implications of the data on adolescent conversions for the study of identity.

Third, conversion stories revealed a passionate attachment to an unconditionally loving transcendental object. It was, as described by a Christian convert, “an intangible blanket of love” that nevertheless became for the convert as real and as concrete as a next-door neighbor. Chapter 5 centers on those conversion experiences in which the object of infatuation is an imagined figure which is nevertheless perceived by the convert as a familiar companion. For some of the converts in my study, the traditional transcendental object of devotion becomes an unconditional provider of the self’s needs. Their transformation derives from a merger with this perfect object, which becomes the internal protector of a previously fragile self. Several recurring themes in conversion experiences are described in this chapter: the sense of being chosen for a special mission, the experience of fusion with an idol, and the conviction of personalized miracles, that is, special messages to the self that are revealed in common daily events. These themes are discussed in the light of clinical literature on narcissism and some empirical research on the development of selfworth.

A psychological analysis of religious phenomena raises the difficult but inevitable question of its value. The question has two parts. One derives from the reductionistic nature of the analysis: In charting common patterns in the emotional lives of converts of different religious persuasions and relating these part-patterns of personal history to the religious turnabout, are we distorting or omitting the spirit of the religious experience? The second part of the question more clearly derives from the nature of the major argument presented here: In describing conversions as an infatuation and as a search for psychological salvation, are we condemning the religious seeker and devaluing the religious experience? Are there motives that the religious conversion satisfies other than the avoidance of negative emotions? What of a religious quest that is fueled by a vision of a better world, by a search for moral principles, or by the hope of gaining truth?

The psychological analysis attempted here does not aim at providing a complete explanation of religious experience but at providing an understanding of individual lives, in particular, the life of the person who abruptly changes religious affiliation. In so doing, this book may merely touch on the question of the nature of religious beliefs and of religious experience, but it is my hope that it renders coherent lives that otherwise seem disconnected fragments of a puzzle, and that it sheds light on some of the general processes through which the self is formed.

The second part of the question is the focus of Chapter 6, which presents conversion experiences that seem a response to questions of meaning. I will also briefly address this question here: In The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902), William James suggests that one should distinguish the judgment about the origin of the phenomenon from a judgment about its value. James is scornful of those who “finish off” the apostle St. Paul by identifying him as an epileptic and “snuff out'' St. Teresa by describing her as a hysteric. The value of the experience cannot be decided by examining its causes. Religious phenomena, James argues, should be judged by their fruits, not by their roots.