“The reasons that the federated and legacy systems have been teetering are not simply size, but about capacity to pivot into trends, a weakness that innovative organizations have exploited effectively”
As we are all aware, the good processes of innovation – which changed communal priorities, shone light on the marketplace that Jewish organizations are meant to serve, and promoted a wide array of new voices and leaders who were able to lead organizations sooner than they would have through toiling in the legacy system – […]continued…
“Part of what makes the modern use of ‘winning’ so strange is that it’s often used in contexts that are not competitions”
Part of what makes the modern use of “winning” so strange is that it’s often used in contexts that are not competitions. The Trump campaign, for instance, only occasionally applied it to winnable things, like wars or the election itself. For the most part it remained notional, conceptual, a state of being. This makes more […]continued…
“The gap is real between American and Israeli Jews, with the exception of small pockets of like-minded communities…”
The gap is real between American and Israeli Jews, with the exception of small pockets of like-minded communities, and it has been expanding even after decades of bar mitzvah tours, Birthright trips, intense investment in Israel education, and the growth of the pro-Israel advocacy agenda. I’ve spent intense time here in Israel over the past […]continued…
“We entered the war against Germany in 1941, but not because they were Nazis…”
We entered the war against Germany in 1941, but not because they were Nazis. We did so because the Japanese had attacked us at Pearl Harbor, and in response, Congress declared war on the Empire. In a rare case of keeping his promise, Hitler abided by his mutual defense pact and declared war on the […]continued…
“The central challenge facing the process towards M&A in the Jewish ecosystem is money…”
The central challenge facing the process towards M&A in the Jewish ecosystem is money, in two ways: 1) there is no payout to investors, which is what incentivizes the culture in the tech and corporate innovation world; and 2) most organizations cannot simply absorb the full budget of a smaller organization (and frankly it is […]continued…
“In our time, the Jewish community’s “functional consensus”, forged in the mid-twentieth century, has nearly unraveled…”
Historians of American Jews are accustomed to a different conceptualization of the past, one that depicts the broad sweep of American Jewish experience as a steady process of voluntary adaptation to a free, democratic, and prosperous society. The regnant view is basically linear and progressive: Jews immigrated to the United States, struggled to earn a […]continued…
“The pull-up is the apotheosis of beauty-strength, a motion that unites virtually every muscle group — and one that is surprisingly hard to perfect”
A proper pull-up is a yogic feat of concentration and grace. It is possible only when multiple muscle groups are working in tandem: the biceps, the latissimus dorsi, legs, abs and lower back to keep the body straight. ‘‘Calisthenics’’ comes from the Greek words kallos, which means beauty, and sthenos — strength. The pull-up is […]continued…
“Parenting is a universal phenomenon, so it is hard to say that there is a Jewish way to parent”
Parenting is a universal phenomenon, so it is hard to say that there is a Jewish way to parent. There is no uniquely Jewish way to conceive or to breast-feed or to discipline a child. Nevertheless, how we express the universal desire to create life and pass it on is embedded in the culture and […]continued…
“Fighting for the holy, big, silent majority, mainstream middle I think is going to be one of the major moral battles of our time”
They are playing in a social climate that is increasingly characteristic both here and in America where loud, destabilizing voices – voices do NOT represent the societal mainstream – are simply privileged by cultures of fear and collective silence with taking over more of the public culture than they should be permitted. This is a […]continued…
“It is time to start treating the gap between Israeli and American Jews as spectral in color rather than monochromatic
It is time to start treating the gap between Israeli and American Jews as spectral in color rather than monochromatic. Activists who try to name the root causes of this problem often point to single-causes: the chief rabbinate, the occupation, intermarriage, the preoccupation of American Jews with idiosyncratically American Jewish ideas about Judaism, etc. Often, […]continued…