Category Archives: Jewish Community

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The Jewish comm…

The Jewish community will only be considered a serious partner in campus discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once we demonstrate our commitment to making the necessary sacrifices for peace. If we can back up our rhetoric with serious action and sustained political engagement to achieve a two-state solution, hopefully we will empower pragmatic moderates on the other side to do the same.

Shayna Howitt and Zoe Lewin, “Frustration, but with Hope,” The Jewish Journal (31 May – 6 June 2013), 26.

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The Goal of a Jewish Educator…

The goal of a Jewish educator should not be to remain in the sublime, deeply personal experience…, but to build upon it, recognizing that only by facilitating a community comprised of individuals of rich, meaningful experience will Jewish communities be compelling enough to want to join.

Dr. Stephen Hazan Arnoff, “Jewish Peoplehood and the Biblical Landscape”, eJewish Philanthropy (21 May 2013).

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The basic problem with Jewish life today is its overwhelming emphasis on crisis

The basic problem with Jewish life today is its overwhelming emphasis on crisis. We fight. We “weigh in”. We identify enemies and proclaim loyalties. We hold high-level meetings to discuss our “brand”. We defend Israel as though our lives were at stake or criticize Israel with the passion of a democratic evangelist. We accost those Jews who fail to enlist in the cause, as though any minute we may need them to storm Washington, as we did in the decades when a million of our brethren were imprisoned behind Soviet lines.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with combating activism or fighting the Iranian bomb. There are dangers out there, both political forces and simple ignorance that put Jewish life at risk. Our crises are not manufactured. But just as an individual’s life cannot be defined solely through his struggle for survival, isn’t there something disturbing about a Jewish identity defined principally by the constant effort to put a halt to terrible things? Welcome to fire extinguisher Judaism.
What’s missing is a coherent content to our identity, a positive message, a set of beloved things and ideas – other than ourselves and our organizations and the state we’ve built – to which we proclaim allegiance, in which we invest time and effort to understand, which we embrace as possessing the keys to ourselves and our future.

David Hazony, “Welcome to Fire Extinguisher Judaism” Moment (May/June 2010), 20.

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I am not ungrat…

I am not ungrateful for the institutions your generation built. But you went well beyond protecting these institutions. You got so involved in them you forgot their higher purpose. For me, sitting in a folding chair in a basement praying with real feeling is better than sitting quietly in a cold cathedral.
In reality, much of your Judaism is about defense. Like the fighters of Masada pitted against an intractable foe, your generation’s sense of purpose is derived from some ever-present, impending crisis — anti-Semitism, Jewish survival, the survival of Israel.
Deep down, it’s all motivated by fear. And a commitment rooted in fear is bound to bear bad fruit. Out of fear, you pushed away those who intermarried. Out of fear, you pushed away those who questioned Israel. And out of fear, you pushed away Jews who don’t agree with you. Fear is no basis for a Jewish life. Ultimately, that fear will dominate your inner life and choke it to death. Dad, I want a Jewish life based on love, spirit and joy, and not fear.

Rabbi Ed Feinstein and Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas, “Father and Son”, Jewish Journal (7-13 September 2012), 37.

The American Jewish community has been radically decentralized

Without a master plan, the American Jewish community has been radically decentralized. Thirty-five years ago, local federations owned the Jewish community. They were, as they loudly claimed to be, “the central address of the Jewish community.” The three-and-a-half denominations (sorry, Reconstructionist friends) were in rather placid waters, with the Reform movement growing, the Conservative just beginning its protracted journey into the wilderness and the Orthodox, many of us mistakenly believed, half asleep. To the extent that younger Jews wanted “in”, they wanted into the existing structures, which now and then grudgingly made room for them. Here and there, there were local innovations and initiatives but, by and large, Jews were not into new and self-organized modalities.
Today, the action has shifted quite dramatically. Everywhere one turns, there are bands and choirs, newspapers and magazines (in particular, the electronic kind), worship and study minyanim, Moishe Houses, Chabad Houses, new day schools, new vehicles for adult Jewish education and film festivals. There are more groupings of Jews who may not receive funding from their local federations but instead rely on either individual philanthropists, including young ones, or one of the growing number of consortia of such philanthropists in search of compelling innovations in Jewish life.

Leonard Fein, “Oh, The Things I Have Seen…” Moment (May/June 2010), 22.

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No people has been counted out so often – and always outlives those who bet against them

Every few months a national magazine comes out with a bombshell article on how American Jews are vanishing. The article always cites the low Jewish birth rate, the growing rate of intermarriage and the alienation of Jewish college students. The reaction is always the same. Jews panic. The magazine sells out by morning. Jewish masochism is briefly gratifies. For months, the synagogue pulpits of the land resound with dire sermons on the imminent disappearance of the Jews while the congregants, experiencing a mild sensation of déjà vu, sigh sadly, facing the end – once again – with resigned fortitude. Then the article vanishes; the Jews plod on.
This has been going on for three thousand years. It will go on for another three thousand years. If you are a gambling man, put your chips on the Jews. No people has been counted out so often – and always outlives those who bet against them. Believe it – Jews are here for the duration. They are the greatest survivors in history. (Have you seen any Babylonians lately?)

Albert Vorspan, My Rabbi Doesn’t Make House Calls (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, 1969), vii.