The rumblings could be heard far and wide. Ominous chatter, faint at first, then building in frequency until it became an overwhelming and all-consuming cacophony. There was no longer any hope of denying it: We were being treated to another Study.
Of all the Jewish holidays, Shabbat is arguably the most well-known — but it is also widely ignored. Lurking at the end of each week, Shabbat is prone to be taken for granted or to be seen as workaday — an odd paradox for a day meant to signify a cessation of work.
In the Jewish world, the college years are sometimes viewed as a potential engagement vacuum. Freed from educational outlets such as day schools or after-school programs and too young to fall in the crosshairs of young adult programming, college students are sometimes considered to be in a potential cul-de-sac on their Jewish journeys.
The allure of technology in education can be hypnotic. Like magic, it promises to lift us into a world of transformative wonder, unbound by the constraints of the rational and the workaday
The concept of Jewish identity in Israel would seem to be as self-evident as European identity in Belgium. Modern Israel was conceived as a beacon for the world’s Jews, inspired by Jewish philosophy and informed by a desire to chart the next stage in Jewish consciousness. One would expect Jewishness to be its lifeblood.
What is identity? “Identity” is a nebulous term, almost as difficult to pin down as terms like “consciousness’ or “faith.” Informed by history and culture, seeded by global currents as well as personal experience, it is both vast and fluid in its multiplicities.
For decades, Israel engagement in North America hewed to a narrow narrative line. If not overtly political, the methods of engagement frequently had politics just beneath the surface. Engagement meant understanding Israel’s importance to the world Jewish community as well as its right to exist — both in a general sense and in relation to the events of the day. This often turned engagement into a reactive enterprise — how the community could shore up support for this policy or for that war, and how Israel’s actions could best be presented and explained.
On its surface, Hebrew might seem to be irrelevant to the American experience. Despite America’s status as a beacon to immigrants from all parts of the world, the nation was born and persists in the English language. Even recent efforts towards bilingualism focus naturally on Spanish, the language of the country’s largest contemporary immigrant population. Hebrew would seem to be peripheral to the idea of America.
In recent years, the American Jewish community has focused much of its engagement efforts on capturing under-engaged young people. Self-perceptions of decline coupled with diagnoses of disinterest have led to fears that the “next generation”— and with it, the Jewish future itself — was in jeopardy. The result has been a major investment in outreach and identity-building endeavors aimed at youth.
As the global economy lurches fitfully back from the precipice of disaster, many in the Jewish philanthropic community might expect a slow but unwavering return to normalcy: a steady influx of resources, renewed funder commitment, and reliability of near-term as well as long-term giving.
