Although it is not uncommon to perceive age-old Jewish rituals as rooted in stone or in Sinai, all ritual was at one point new. Whether inspired by historical events, communal circumstance or spiritual osmosis from surrounding cultures, Jewish rituals have emerged and evolved as a means to connect with history, with community or with notions of the Divine.
The current chapter of the American Jewish story is unique: Never before in Jewish history has a society been so receptive to Jewish culture, ideas and people. Here Jews experience not only tolerance, but celebration. This has engendered a central paradox of the Jewish engagement industry: the effort to entrance American Jews about Jewish experiences might seem superfluous in an era in which America itself affirms Jewish culture and values.
In a recent piece for The Washington Post, Naomi Klein argued that an overlooked cause of the current economic crisis was “Brain Bubbles.” Running down a list of highly regarded presidential economic advisors in the current and former administrations whose theories and prognostications turned out to be decidedly wrong, Klein wrote that in a Brain Bubble, “the intelligence of an inarguably intelligent person is inflated and valued beyond all reason, creating a dangerous accumulation of unhedged risk.”
The Jewish communal world often operates in a vacuum. By its very nature, the enterprise of nurturing and sustaining a particular identity in the multicultural quilt of American society necessitates a seemingly introverted focus. Thus it is that much of the innovation in the Jewish world percolates in its own universe, separate from the outside world.
In the Jewish community, the concept of leadership often conjures thoughts of professional development, management training, or the relationship between lay leaders and professionals. What is often lost is the larger question of what constitutes genuine leadership, and what attributes the Jewish community needs in its leaders.
As the most recent buzzword occupying the minds of Jewish professionals — replacing “continuity,” “renaissance” and “Matisyahu” — the term “Peoplehood” has been given much attention lately as the newfound rhetorical panacea in Jewish life.
In recent years, the Jewish community’s widely successful forays into total-immersion experiences have received much attention and praise. From long-standing institutions like summer camps to more recent innovations like Birthright Israel, immersion experiences offer unparalleled opportunities for intensive Jewish encounters shorn of the distractions of everyday life.
There is arguably no venue of Jewish education that has received greater condemnation and scorn than afternoon schools. To hear many community leaders tell it, Hebrew schools are both cause and symptom of seemingly ubiquitous declines in levels of Jewish affiliation.
As Jewish camping has achieved almost universal recognition as a top-notch arena of informal education, the camping movement is increasingly focusing on ways it can maximize camping’s potential and broaden its appeal.
As the Jewish community continues its sometimes effective, often comical quest to capture the attention of younger Jews, it would do well to consider the enormous possibilities for engagement among new parents and families with young children. Many new parents are at a stage in life in which they are receptive to larger connections to culture, spirituality and community
