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“Can Jewish leaders work together with this silent majority to overthrow the regnant approaches to intermarriage?”

Can Jewish leaders work together with this silent majority to overthrow the regnant approaches to intermarriage? And if so, how?

First and foremost, a more assertive approach to intermarriage would require the dignified acknowledgement by Jewish institutions that endogamous families are the Jewish ideal—the best hope for transmitting a strong identity to the next generation. Once this crucial premise is openly espoused, the next logical step is to invest heavily in intensive forms of Jewish education through the college years and in helping Jewish singles, including the “alumni” of this education, to meet each other. Our advanced technologies and the ease of contemporary travel offer unprecedented opportunities to bring American Jews together with their peers and to nurture stronger connections with the Jewish people globally.

Practically speaking, it makes sense, as the previous paragraph suggests, to focus less energy on courting already intermarried families—once an intermarriage has occurred, it is far more difficult for communal institutions to intervene—than on encouraging as many single Jews as possible to marry within the community. Birthright Israel serves as one model for such programs; many more initiatives like it are needed in the United States. Their message should be transparent: instead of being infantilized with assurances that no strings will ever be attached, younger Jews need to hear without equivocation why it is important to build Jewish families. And they must be told the truth: the American Jewish community is in a fight for its life, and the younger generation is expected to shoulder its share of responsibility.

Jack Wertheimer, “Intermarriage: Can Anything Be Done?Mosaic (September 2013).

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“Synagogues must serve a constituency broader than their current membership…”

Synagogues must serve a constituency broader than their current membership. I suggest that congregations set aside 5 percent of their budget to create an innovation fund offering mini grants to anyone, member or not, who wants to develop a new Jewish initiative.

The initiative should then be made available to both members and non-members in that congregation. The monthly Shabbat program mix is the ideal venue for the congregation to benefit from this investment. Equally important is that young people, who want to reinvent their Judaism, will feel supported by and increasingly appreciative of the sponsoring congregation. Right now, they are nowhere to be found on the synagogue landscape.

Rabbi Sid Schwarz, “Jump-starting a Synagogue Stimulus Plan”, The Jewish Week (22 November 2013), 29, 31.

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“Promptly following the first arrival of Jews in colonial America, the synagogue became the most significant institution of Jewish life”

Promptly following the first arrival of Jews in colonial America, the synagogue became the most significant institution of Jewish life. Unlike in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, when other institutions, such as Jewish community centers and Jewish philanthropic organizations, often claimed to be the “central address” of the Jewish community, no other organization challenged the dominance of the early synagogues. In part, this was the case for two reasons: because, well into the nineteenth century, synagogues incorporated activities that later, as the Jewish population grew, could not all be contained within the synagogue or whose leaders did not want them to be part of the synagogue, and also because the Jewish community was so small…. The synagogue…was the Jewish community in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries . As American Jews slowly created philanthropic organizations, the synagogue enveloped them.

Marc Lee Raphael, The Synagogue in America: A Short History (New York & London: New York University Press, 2011), 2.

It’s surprising that anybody’s surprised with the Pew Forum Report results….

Since the release of the Pew Research Center survey on American Jews, the question I’ve been asked most often is what surprises me about it.

What surprises me most is that anybody is surprised.

The Pew report points to a series of phenomena that are well known in the world today: identity fragmentation, radical free choice, embracement of diversity, and the breakdown of organizational and ideological loyalties. For many of these phenomena we are the canary in the coal mine, the early adopters and the over-adapters.

The report is not good news or bad news. It shows us a reality we can’t ignore anymore. It is up to us to see the opportunities hidden in this new reality.

Andres Spokoiny, “Study Points The Way Toward More Avenues to Jewish Life”, The Jewish Week (8 November 2013), 42.

Change leaders have to create engagement not natural to the way we look today, but for how we want to be in the future

Change leaders have to create engagement not natural to the way we look today, but for how we want to be in the future.
Therefore, we must step back and create new entry points – new farm teams – from investing in diverse leadership programs, establishing brand new endeavors, and perhaps the hardest of all, challenging our traditional organizations to completely re-imagine how meetings are run and decisions are made. The status quo is not working.

Marci Mayer Eisen, “Where Did Our Farm Teams Go? Rethinking Committee Process“, eJewish Philanthropy (17 July 2013).

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“The divisions and politics of the Orthodox, the Modern Orthodox world are important – but only to a point”

As a rabbi, I spend most of my time reading writing, talking, discussing and arguing about Jewish things. There is a lot to argue about, a lot to talk about. From our perspective, these issues can seem not just important, but overwhelming, more important than anything else could possibly be. The divisions and politics of the Orthodox, the Modern Orthodox world are important – but only to a point. The question of the differences between Yeshiva University, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, between this group and that group, this rabbi’s statement and that rabbi’s counter statement – these are all important issues. But, for too many of us, for me, personally, they are given far more prominence than could possibly be justified.

Rabbi Shaul Robinson, “Priorities: Inside the Tent and Outside“, Lincoln Square Synagogue Blog (11 November 2013).

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“As things look now, the American Jewish group of the future will be anchored by the Orthodox and by those among the non-Orthodox willing to identify unambiguously with Judaism”

As things look now, the American Jewish group of the future will be anchored by the Orthodox and by those among the non-Orthodox willing to identify unambiguously with Judaism. Boasting higher fertility rates than other Jews, this population will insure the future viability of the American Jewish community, albeit considerably shrunken in its numbers and infrastructure. On the periphery will be the so-called borderland Jews whose interest in Jewish life will likely focus on one or another aspect of Jewish culture but will be episodic and in competition with other compelling aspects of their identities. Already, some children of intermarriage refer to themselves with sardonic self-consciousness as “Half-Jews” or “mongrel Jews” or “FrankenJews.”

Jack Wertheimer, “Intermarriage: Can Anything Be Done?Mosaic (September 2013).

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“The Jewish community needs to pivot from the current [synagogue] model to a more authentic one”

The current American form of Judaism developed as a reaction to the mass immigration of Jews into a free society and the headlong drive to acclimate and acculturate to the societal norms of the time. In order to prevent the masses of Jews from abandoning Judaism in the process of adjustment to a new land, a new emphasis was placed on the institution in Judaism. This emphasis reflected the prevailing religious norms of the society, namely those of Christianity, which is church-centered.

The practical result was that the synagogue, and membership in these institutions, became the distorted focus of Jewish religious life. It no longer mattered if one lacked in Jewish observance or Torah learning. So long as one was a dues-paying member of the synagogue or temple and attended regularly, or even just occasionally, one fulfilled the obligation necessary to be a good Jew. One could even become a prominent and respected member of the community in this way — particularly, if one contributed generously to the institution he or she belonged to, or contributed to the local federation and Israel.

I believe that it is this synagogue-focused paradigm that young people are rejecting — and I don’t blame them. Though it is true that the accumulated impact of close to a century of this misconception has left its mark, I believe that this is reversible.

The Jewish community needs to pivot from this current prevailing model to a more authentic one that emphasizes the personal observance of mitzvot and engagement in religious life. Whether it is the realm of “between man to man or man to God” they are both ultimately about man’s relationship with God. Without this core, nothing can be sustained for long.

Rabbi Shmuel Kaplan, “A Rabbi Sees Silver Lining In Study’s Finding’s”, The Jewish Week (1 November 2013), 26.

“We can come together as leaders, focus our resources, and build a generation of literate, committed and active Jews…”

We like to tell ourselves that Judaism is just another consumer product, but really it isn’t. And the fact that most Jews today view Judaism as a choice makes it that much more important that we remind ourselves, our leaders and our families why it matters to be an active and committed member of the Jewish people and why it is worth the time and effort.
It will take courage and effort for our rabbis and community leaders to step up and actually make this happen – to go against the conventional wisdom and the majority culture. As Jews, we are counter-cultural, and we should embrace and celebrate it.
We can keep lamenting the trends and the causes for another forty years, or we can come together as leaders, focus our resources, and build a generation of literate, committed and active Jews who live comfortably and meaningfully in both worlds: our larger secular world and our rich Jewish world.

Steve Freedman, “No Excuses – Time for Action“, eJewish Philanthropy (25 October 2013)

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“How much time in our synagogue schools has been spent on helping students cultivate their sense of the sublime?”

How much time in our synagogue schools has been spent on helping students cultivate their sense of the sublime? How much time has been spent providing an immersive and reflective experience of different mitzvot as possible responses? How much time has been spent on coaching them in the performance of those regularized practices so that they become a normative aspect of their life? To take an example from outside Judaism, when Jews are serious about undertaking yoga or Bhuddist meditation, they don’t learn about it. They take it on as a discipline that must be practiced regularly with a teacher that can help them develop their ability to perform properly.

Bill Robinson, “The Religion You Don’t Believe In, I Don’t Believe In Either”eJewishPhilanthropy (3 November 2013).