Recent decades have witnessed a proliferation of programs designed to intensify Diaspora Jewish life. Although each has met with varying degrees of success, it has become clear that one of the most significant determinants of a program’s effectiveness is the retreat component.
In recent years, the Jewish world has come to appreciate the crucial importance of research and evaluation. It is now accepted that without formative analysis at all stages of an initiative’s creation and implementation, programs aimed at the revitalization of Jewish life will have a haphazard chance of success.
The most revolutionary innovation of the Internet is arguably its democratization of information and of communities. Not since the advent of the Gutenberg press have the barriers between people and data been so widely traversed. As China’s recent dealings with Google and Yahoo reveal, it is this open access to information that terrifies repressive regimes.
From Abraham onward, generosity has played a crucial role in the inception and evolution of Jewish values. Even today, in an age of interdenominational quarreling and competing definitions of Jewish authenticity, most Jews can agree on the primacy of tzedakkah. But there are varying interpretations of what tzedakkah entails.
