The Jewish community is at a crossroads. Down one road is the further infantalization of Jewish life through the growth of institutional young adult programs and the over simplification our relationship with Israel. On this path lays a shrunken Jewish community both numerically and intellectually. Simply put it is the dumbing down of the Jewish people in an attempt to reach the least common denominator.
The race for bottom, already afoot, is readily observed in the alcohol infused meat market programs which constitute the vast majority of young adult Jewish programs. It can also be seen by the plethora of pro-Israel organizations each engaging in the same pedantry aimed at bolstering Israel’s good image but in effect simplifying our relationship to one of slavish support and creating a heightened sense of hysteria in the organized community.
This path downward and into panic only reinforces itself by creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Since the Jewish community is worried about attracting as many young adults possible it creates programs calibrated not to scare off any perceived demographic sub-set. This leads to disappointing and low participation numbers as programs designed to turn no one off often fail to have anything to turn anyone on. Thus, as programs become blander and more uninteresting, less young adults are attracted to them and those who do participate are less inclined to attend the next program. A person may go to a Jewish drinking night but it is not enough to make them a) choose it again over another drinking event (say with team mates or others in their field) and b) sends the subconscious message that being Jewish is alike any other easily quantifiable element of their identity. Moreover, anecdotal evidence suggests that the abundance of Jewish drinking nights attract the same in-group of young adults and there is no empirical data to suggest that these programs expand the community.
Down the path less taken is a more coherent community that empowers its stakeholders (especially young adults) to create their own communities, celebrates a diversity of opinions, each authentically rooted in the Jewish tradition, and that has a relationship with Israel that includes its positives and negatives. Down this path lay hard work both on the grass roots and the institutional level but the reward is a vibrant and diverse Jewish community with a range of communal, spiritual, and intellectual options that are embraced and facilitated by the organized community.
The attempt to create a homogenized Jewish community is underway. One need only look at Moishe House, an international but American focused organization, which has a stock formula for creating Jewish life serving young adults. It applies this formula to every city regardless of whether there is already a vibrant independent Jewish life for young adults. From independent minyanim, to progressive Jewish groups, and urban kibbutzim – the major Jewish cities have a large amount of self-organized Jewish life for young adults. Yet Moishe House goes for this low hanging fruit because it is part of the juggernaut of infantalization that has swept the organized Jewish community. Moishe House will soon open 4 branches in New York City, whether it will crowd out the existing independent young adult Jewish communities which exist without institutional support remains to be seen, but evidence from other programs point towards yes.
One example of the crowding out effect is Taglit Birthright Israel. This amazing ten day adventure in Jewish Levantine modernity has changed the shape of the Jewish community but not all for the positive. Jewish youth tours, whether private ventures or youth group tours, have suffered. Why send a child to Israel on a costly month or longer trip when they can go for free when they attain their majority? This economic logic has led parents to forgo a longer Israel experience with more meaning and educational depth for the eventual possibility of a 10 day trip that reduces our complex homeland to a ten day party tour.
On the Israel front the community is constantly up in arms about the hasbara battle on campus and in the general public arena. Programs on and off campus abound, all with the goal of creating a positive image of and for Israel. That our ancestral homeland is a modern nation in a rough neighborhood with problems – some of its own creation is a nuance lost. Instead a white washed picture perfect Israel is presented as unaccountable for any of its actions. That the Israeli public, Jewish and not, does not view itself this way is lost on pro-Israel activists and those who seek to challenge any of their narrative are labeled anti-Zionist and thus beyond the pale.
Both of these elements, the infantalization of Jewish life and the over simplification of our relationship with Israel, are intertwined. Both are primarily, though not solely, focused at the “next generation” – college students and the 20′s and 30′s set. Both have sought to supplant prior existing programs which had included a cacophony of voices. Both create homogeneity where diversity is needed. The sterilization of young Jewish life and the communal discourse has led to quiet conversations held off the record concerning the community as well as Israel. The young active Jewish community independently pioneering new creative Jewish life has already gotten used to holding it tongue on Israel related issues. With the creeping annexation by the institutionalized Jewish world of the independent Jewish scene, this danger has been redoubled.
The time for choosing has come. Down one path lays a Jewish community of artificially constructed boundaries and a narrowing scope of Jewish life. It is time that progressive Jewish movements and independent Jewish communities, both victims of the race for bottom, join forces. Progressive Jewish movements and institutions such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the New Israel Fund, Lillith Magazine, and the Kibbutz Program Center have infrastructure, speakers, programs, trips, and resources that can be used to bolster and enrich independent communities.
Moreover they have access to funders who have already spoken with their wallet on where they stand. Independent communities such as minyanim, urban kibbutzim, Yiddish speaker clubs, Jewish social justice groups, and intellectual salons offer the progressive movements a grassroots and self-selected audience, persons familiar with community organizing, and trend setters who influence others in greater proportions than most. More importantly, independent Jewish communities offer progressive Jewish movements a new generation of current Jewish leaders who are the most creative and capable of our times and who have created communities by will power and determination alone. Only by combing forces can progressive Jewish organizations and independent Jewish communities ensure the survival and growth of the last bastions of unique Jewish community organizing. Through the communities these movements can grow large enough to be taken seriously by the larger community and to mobilize people to take a stand for an open and complex discourse on Israel.
