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“While we focus on young adults who desire to impact the future of our communities, we lack meaningful ways for them to get involved”

While we focus on young adults who desire to impact the future of our communities, we lack meaningful ways for them to get involved. Many communities have shifted to support innovation and start-ups, but these new efforts can’t be the only way to engage for the future. Ultimately, the challenge of improving our leadership is not just about young adult involvement. Few of my own peers find enjoyment from traditional committees, even when they are committed to the organization and Jewish life.

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

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It’s not really the fault of synagogues not connecting with Jews in their 20s & 30s…

They don’t connect to these synagogues because there is no framework for them; synagogues are really structured for families. … Until they marry and have a family, they are trying to build a career, working long hours and maybe in graduate school. There are thousands of single young professionals between 22 and 35 who are not connected too much Jewishly.

I don’t blame the synagogues for not addressing this; synagogues look at them as transients and feel they often don’t pay membership. This is the Birthright generation that is used to getting everything for free. And in college, Hillel and Chabad give them free dinners.

Rabbi Perry Tirschwell quoted in Stewart Ain, “Vows to Serve The Young in Young Israel”, The Jewish Week (29 November 2013), 5.

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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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“There is no young leadership if the young people branded as such have no real place in these bodies”

We have to make space for these young leaders in our normative governing structures. There is no young leadership if the young people branded as such have no real place in these bodies. Observing may be informative and donating a certain minimum gift is nice too, but to have young leadership means that they have a proportional share of the leadership body of the organization.

Sarah Eisenman, “A Young Leadership Lesson, From 1960?” eJewish Philanthropy (3 July 2012) {http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/a-young-leadership-lesson-from-1960/}

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Aesthetic Identity versus Collective Identity in the Jewish World

In referencing Jewish sociologist Steven Cohen, Smokler distinguished between the normative and aesthetic approach to Judaism – with the normative approach meaning anything larger than oneself and one’s immediate family while aesthetic refers to the more personal and journey oriented approach.

 

“We have reached an extreme where the normative approach has become the purview of the Orthodox community,” said Smokler. “Without the normative approach, the very idea of community is strained, [and what we’re left with is] a lifestyle enclave, a group of individuals with similar consumer patterns.”

 

“We face a challenge that young potential leaders do not have a collective identity – they have an aesthetic identity. We need both,” he continued.

Abigail Pickus, “The Search for the Jewish Holy Grail: NextGen Leaders,” eJewish Philanthropy (3 July 2012) {http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-search-for-the-jewish-holy-grail-nextgen-leaders/}