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NEW JEW COOL by Sue Fishkoff
Or have they? At Temple Israel in Boston, Rabbi Jeremy Morrison attracts "a couple hundred people" at his monthly Soul Food Fridays. In San Francisco, 800 to 1,000 young people show up twice a month for "The Late Shabbat" at Temple Emanu-El, which word-of-mouth has turned into a hot ticket on the Jewish singles' circuit. In Birmingham, Alabama, Shabbat and holiday gatherings for young Jews at the home of Rabbi Scott Hausman-Weiss have morphed into an ongoing lay-led outreach group for Jews in their 20s and 30s. In Brooklyn's Park Slope neighborhood, the Brooklyn Jews project, with its arts-infused adult Jewish learning, functions as a kind of rotating living-room chavurah for the post-baby-boom generation; and in Boulder, Colorado, Rabbi Jamie Korngold takes young Jewish adults into the wilderness for free spiritual hikes. A Replicable Formula While these well-attended outreach programs are still the exception, their organizers may have found a replicable formula to engage young adults in Jewish life. They use the same buzzwords: inclusivity, creativity, intimacy. They say the young Jews they meet want to study texts and explore deep questions of identity. This new generation is web-savvy, they have busy social calendars, they're often critical of Israeli policies, they don't look to the Holocaust to define themselves--but they feel Jewish, and want to figure out what that means. And they want to do it with people who listen to their music, share their worldview, get their culture. "This is a generation without community," writes Toronto-based cultural commentator Hal Niedzviecki, 31, in the March 2004 World Jewish Digest. "We are connected through networks, friendships, and entertainment interests, not neighbors, family, nationality, or religion. In many ways, pop culture is our community. Call it liberating or sad, but there's no denying that the new Jewish-influenced pop culture is a way to communicate a sense of some communal yearning for deeper meaning and more intimate connection." As a group, this generation of young people--the tail end of Generation X (the 45 million Americans born between 1964 and 1977) combined with the oldest members of Generation Y (the 60 million people born between 1978 and 1994)--is ambitious, independent, pragmatic, and highly individualistic. They crave information but are wary of easy answers; they respond to humor and irony; and they are less politically engaged than their parents. They're also marrying and having children later than their parents, staying single and/or childless into their late 30s and early 40s--a trend which has serious implications for Jewish organizational life. Until this generation, American synagogue life has followed the pattern of children growing up in two-parent Jewish families, drifting away during their college years, but coming straight back soon after graduating, marrying, and having children of their own. For decades this model has not fit reality--a fact much of the organized Jewish world seems to have ignored--and it leaves young Jews out in the cold for ten, even twenty years. Sometimes they never return. But that doesn't mean young American Jews are turning away from their Jewishness. Parallel to the "involvement gap" plaguing synagogue life is the new and vibrant phenomenon of 20-something Jewish cultural creativity. Centered in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and a handful of other cities, this New Jewish Cool is expressing itself in music, poetry, fashion, film, and publishing. It's klezmer jazz and Hasidic hip-hop; it's oversized Star of David necklaces and T-shirts by the new Jewcy label; it's Madonna studying Kabbalah, "Storah-telling" nights at downtown clubs, and the HBO sleeper hit "The Hebrew Hammer" starring Adam Goldberg as a Jewish secret agent. New Jew culture is also expressed on websites such as Reboot.com, the web-based forum aimed at bringing young Jews together both locally in small salons and nationally at annual conventions; the webzine Jewsweek.com, out of Atlanta; and in the Brooklyn-based Heeb magazine, with its irreverent, in-your-face take on Jewish culture and politics (see sidebar). It's clear--Jewish identity and pride in these venues are on the upswing--but is there a relationship between this edgy, urban Jewish culture and the larger Jewish community? Does it represent a turning away from Judaism or is it a sign of revitalization? Are the smart, articulate young men and women who are creating this new culture--and consuming it--rebel outcasts or future Jewish leaders? The Outsider/Insider Hypothesis Brandeis University Professor Jonathan Sarna, one of the foremost historians of American Judaism, says that Heeb, Jewcy, Reboot. com, and the like fit squarely within the time-honored Jewish tradition of continuity through change. He explains that many of the great 19th-century Jewish leaders who shaped the American Jewish reality of the 20th century--among them Louis Brandeis, Henrietta Szold, and Emma Lazarus--were rebels, even troublemakers, in their own time. He also points to the fact that many of today's Jewish leaders--those considered "the establishment" by Gen X Jews--cut their political teeth in the anti-establishment student and chavurah movements of the late '60s and '70s. The writers at Heeb and those organizing salons via Reboot.com are doing pretty much the same thing, Sarna argues. "These folks are trying, as so many have tried before--as Reform Judaism always tries to do--to synthesize Judaism and contemporary culture," he says. "They are deeply involved in contemporary visual culture--they assume everyone has seen certain TV shows, certain films, instead of certain novels. They're not willing to define themselves denominationally, any more than Mordecai Kaplan was. Down the line, historically, these kinds of folks have found their way into the Jewish community. They may be alienated from the current structures, but one day they will be the people who transform those structures. "The most creative ideas for revitalizing Jewish life often flow from the bottom up...from outsiders rather than insiders," Sarna concludes. "That does not mean that all of their ideas are worthwhile...but we dare not close our ears to them." "Establishment" Largesse And yet, despite their self-declared alienation from the mainstream Jewish community, these new Jewish publications and web projects are receiving Jewish "establishment" funding. In late March 2004, for example, the editors of Heeb and Zeek, a gay Jewish youth magazine, spoke at a conference organized by New Voices (published by the Jewish Student Press Service) at New York University's Bronfman Center for Jewish Life--a conference "totally funded," Westbrook says, by UJA-Federation of New York. Two years earlier that same federation provided Heeb magazine with half its initial $120,000 budget. The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies have also been large supporters, allocating $20,000 to Heeb; and Steven Spielberg's Righteous Person Foundation bankrolled Reboot.com. "It's all grounded in the philosophy of engaging young Jews," says ACBP vice president Roger Bennett. Bennett spent most of 2001 traveling across North America interviewing "thousands" of Jews in their 20s and 30s. "I'd ask them about their Jewish identity, and they'd say, 'dude, I'm the last person you want to talk to.' And I'd say, 'that's exactly why I'm asking you.'" Bennett discovered that young Jews had a tremendous desire to explore Jewish identity. "They're fascinated by it; it's the core of how they see themselves." But they are "tired of being sloganeered," he says; they are turned off by the particularism of their parents' and grandparents' generations; and they don't look to the Jewish community to build their social life. "This is a tremendously fertile time," Bennett notes. "The Jewish community needs to trust in the hunger of the next generation and create mechanisms that allow these young people to come together, frame their own questions, and explore their identity--without anyone telling them how to do it." A Reform Model in New York Several years ago, Manhattan's Central Synagogue created such a mechanism, enabling Jacqueline Arroll, 36, to find a home in Judaism. Arroll, who grew up in the Reform Movement, had found "nothing for Reform students" while in college, and "nothing for my age group" when she moved to New York City after graduation. Jewish singles' events didn't cut it for her. "I was looking for Jewish community, not just social events that happened to be Jewish," she says. Then in 1995, a friend took her to the Central Issues Group (CIG) at Central Synagogue in Manhattan, one of the earliest such synagogue-based groups specifically created by and for Jews in their 20s and early 30s. Arroll has been involved ever since. CIG works, Arroll believes, because it maintains a fluid relationship with the larger congregation. "We have our own budget and activities," she notes, yet CIG members segue easily into the larger congregation. "We go to temple lectures, we participate in Central's social action work, and we engage in many parallel activities to those of the 'larger' congregation. And the rabbis are very supportive." In the past five years, Arroll estimates that fifty young people have become Central congregants because of their CIG involvement. And these young members aren't marginal; they use their years of involvement with CIG to move into leadership positions on committees and boards. In 1999, Arroll was invited to speak about CIG at the Union's Biennial. She was "horrified" to find so few people her age who weren't, as she puts it, "paid to be there." Afterwards, she wrote to Union President Rabbi Eric Yoffie, suggesting that the Movement create a separate track for her peer group. The two met, and Rabbi Yoffie gave the go-ahead; the 2001 Boston Biennial had, for the first time, a separate track devoted to Gen X Reform Jews, mostly representatives of synagogue-based groups like CIG from across North America. About thirty young lay leaders came together that year. Back home, they reinvigorated--or launched--their own congregational initiatives, and by the 2003 Biennial their numbers had doubled. The young activists maintain connections via regular conference calls and the URJ-CCAR Commission on Outreach and Synagogue Community, which runs a listserv (sparks-and-ruach@shamash. org) dedicated to them. In addition, the Union sponsors programs such as the Adult Mitzvah Corps, which brings young Reform Jews together for a week of study and worship each summer while they build a home for a needy family; provides free consultations to congregations looking to establish groups for Jews in their 20s and 30s; and publishes information to assist synagogues in reaching out to them (two ideas: reduce dues and hire young rabbis specifically for this age group). As of April 2004, sixty Reform congregations have created programs for 20- and 30-somethings, reports Commission on Outreach and Synagogue Community assistant director Naomi Gewirtz. "What's new is the variety of models," she notes. For example, many Reform congregations long ago reduced dues for younger members; now, she says, they're seeing that this discount has to be extended to people who are 30-plus. And it's not about the money, she points out. "People say, why does a 30-year-old lawyer need to pay just $36 a year, but what's important is the message this is sending," she says. "It's a recognition of where they are in their lives; hopefully it will help them see the value in full membership. The connection is made." Other Models While Gewirtz doesn't minimize the power and appeal of Heeb and Jewcy, she doesn't believe the Reform Movement needs to look to them for inspiration. "There's value in what they're doing, they're reaching our target audience of 20s and 30s who want some connection to Judaism--but I look at the T-shirts and everything and I don't see the people in our synagogues connecting to Judaism that way. They're looking for a more educational experience." A survey of some of the more successful Reform synagogue-driven programs for Gen X Jews, all developed within the past five years, reveals telling similarities. They're all very hands-on, starting (and often remaining) as intimate, face-to-face activities where the participants themselves determine the focus of those activities, whether it be text study, social action, or Shabbat meals in people's homes. In Boston, the Riverway Project (www.riverwayproject.org) began in the spring of 2001 when Rabbi Jeremy Morrison, a 29-year-old hired by Temple Israel specifically to work with Gen X, went out into Boston's neighborhoods to find unaffiliated Jews. "We asked them what they'd want if they had a full-time rabbi at their disposal." The answers he received? "Everywhere we went, people said they wanted ritual and worship, learning, and social justice programs." Accordingly, Rabbi Morrison organized "neighborhood circles," small groups of twenty or so young Jews who would meet in each others' homes for Shabbat dinners and services. He rotated among them, leading services with his guitar. "From the beginning, I stressed qualitative, one-on-one relationships. It was all word of mouth; I wasn't going for numbers. The idea was to extend the synagogue walls into the neighborhoods." At the same time, Rabbi Morrison began running larger-scale holiday programs at the synagogue, and monthly Soul Food Fridays that included "an hour-long, high-energy service, with a band, followed by an oneg of Jewish 'soul food.'" Now, a couple hundred young people attend each Friday, he says. "We built from the intimacy of the Neighborhood Circles towards that, knowing that some people find it hard to come into this building, while others find the intimacy [of the living-room Shabbatot] too frightening." Temple Israel also instituted a one-year, $36 membership plan for people age 35 and under. About 125 people signed up in 2003, and, Rabbi Morrison reports, "we're seeing 40 percent come back"--at full membership. Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham, Alabama, a 750-member congregation, hired Rabbi Scott Hausman-Weiss straight out of rabbinic school in 1999 to direct its adult outreach program. "The congregation wanted someone whose job it was to think outside the box, to create activities aimed at younger Jews," Rabbi Hausman-Weiss says. "I focused on helping them experience Judaism in a way that says, 'this is not my grandparents' Judaism.'" Rabbi Hausman-Weiss and his wife hold Shabbat dinners and holiday celebrations in their home. "Many young Reform Jews lack real Jewish memories," he notes. "That's why it's so important for me to do this in my home, to provide them with a picture of what a liberal Jewish home can look like." He organizes weekend Jewish study retreats; he runs "lunch and learn" sessions at the local university medical school; and he holds a monthly series called "Judaism and the Ethics of the Law" at a local law school. He finds out the names of the new young Jews in town, calls them, and takes them out to lunch. "For many 20-year-old Jews, it's been a long time since they've had a conversation with a rabbi--if ever," he says. "This is intimate, one-on-one conversation. And I have a budget for this!" Realizing, as he put it, that "this shouldn't always be the Rabbi Scott show," Rabbi Hausman-Weiss got together last December with Lisa Goldstein Graham, a young woman in his congregation, to create Highland Bound, a lay-led outreach group for Jews in their 20s and 30s. They held three focus group meetings in peoples' homes, and discovered that what their target audience was looking for, most of all, were "friendships and community, rather than Jewish programming," says Goldstein Graham. "So we've done a couple of potluck dinners, and now we're getting together a board." About thirty-five young people, couples and singles, are now taking part in Highland Bound. Some are members of Temple Emanu-El, some are members of the nearby Conservative congregation, and some aren't members anywhere. "We're trying to create Jewish community," she explains. "As a rabbi, it's tempting to create a program," admits Rabbi Hausman-Weiss. "But Highland Bound taught me that no matter how exciting the band, how spiritual the service, how good the food, if young people don't find the social connection--friendships--they probably won't show up." Rabbi Jamie Korngold, 38, executive director of Adventure Rabbi in Boulder, Colorado, makes her living running Jewish wilderness hikes, but once a month she leads free Saturday study-hikes for Gen X Jews. They spend the morning hiking or, in the winter, skiing, followed by studying texts that discuss Jewish attitudes toward nature. "Ninety percent of the people on our trips are unaffiliated," she estimates. "At age 20 or 30, their priority is outdoor sports. If they have to choose between synagogue or going hiking or skiing, they'll choose hiking and skiing every time, so I say, 'Okay, I'll go with you. I'll use the spiritual experience you're already having in the wilderness and show you how it can be Jewish.' There's something about struggling to reach a high mountain peak in the fresh air that gives one a sense of uplift, a sense there's something greater than yourself. When we recite the Amida or the Shema, that uplift is just there, you don't have to create it. The people who can do this in synagogue are already in synagogue; I'm dealing with the others. Afterwards, some of them are willing to walk back into the synagogue. Some won't, but they're saying kinder things about Judaism." Those who do join a congregation, she says, choose Reform. "This is very often the only Jewish thing they've done, and they associate this first taste of Judaism with Reform, since I'm a Reform rabbi." In January 2003, Rabbi Andy Bachman, who serves as executive director of New York University's Bronfman Center, his wife, and two colleagues created the Brooklyn Jews project, aimed at 20-somethings living in Brooklyn's Park Slope, an area rapidly filling with young, educated, largely unaffiliated Jews. They started out once a month, with a few young people meeting in the Bachmans' living room; a year later, they had 130 regular participants and a $40,000 grant. "We focus on adult learning, social action experiences, early childhood learning, and the arts, to create multiple points of entry," Rabbi Bachman says. Because it's New York, the center of the new Jewish music scene, Brooklyn Jews works closely with the reggae- and hip-hop-inspired JDub Records, and organized a July 2004 "Celebrate Brooklyn" event featuring Jewish and Arab musicians. "We also run literary nights in local cafes, where young Jewish writers read their work," Rabbi Bachman says. "We're trying to add a Jewish layer to things they're already interested in." Rabbi Bachman cautions congregations not to try to bring young people in too fast or too completely, sending likely "targets" on missions and pushing them to take leadership roles in the congregation. "They're very skeptical, so we need to move slowly," he says. "We have to spend the next five or ten years understanding this huge number of people looking for connection, but on their own terms." Real, lasting connections need more than slick visuals and fancy programs, adds Jaqueline Arroll. "Websites alone don't get people involved. A human touch does." Sue Fishkoff, a freelance journalist, is the author of The Rebbe's Army: Inside the World of Chabad-Lubavitch (Schocken Books).  HEEB NATION How do the purveyors of New Jew Cool fit into the larger Jewish community? Joshua Neuman, 32, has a masters from Harvard's Divinity School, is an adjunct professor of philosophy at New York University, and is the editor of Heeb magazine, the 2-year-old critically acclaimed "New Jew Review" that offends as many people as it delights. Even the magazine's name was consciously chosen with a marked "we're here and we're queer" bling-bling that makes many older (read: over 35) Jews cringe. "We're writing for anyone who has a nuanced relationship with all things Jewish," Neuman says, adding that the magazine's "target demographic" is "urban, left-leaning Jews in their 20s and 30s." But "left" doesn't mean knee-jerk liberal--Heeb's take on current events is often more libertarian than '60s-style peace and love. Like Gen-X itself, Heeb rejects political as well as religious labels. "People assume, erroneously, we're all Reform Jews at Heeb," Neuman says. "We have nothing against Reform Judaism, but we're post-denominational." Heeb is a distinctly Jewish publication, Neuman says, not because of its content so much as its form. "Instead of overtly Jewish content and a self-righteous, sanctimonious tone, we have an irreverent voice, a critical voice, an iconoclastic voice that is very much part of the Jewish tradition. We're looking to generate a conversation about what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century." That conversation is now taking place beyond the quarterly magazine; Heeb also sponsors wildly popular parties, a traveling storytelling series, and an interactive website that's become a lightning rod for young unaffiliated Jews looking to connect with one another. "We planned on a magazine and we found a community," explains Neuman. "It's clear that people are starving for community outside a religious context. We are literally barraged by letters, by people asking, 'How can I get involved? I've been looking for this my whole life!'" Benyamin Cohen, 29, the yarmulke-wearing son of an Orthodox rabbi who, in addition to being the founder and editor of jewsweek.com, is writing a book on Gen X Jews, explains that the New Jew Cool appeals to a generation that "takes pride in being Jewish," and that ultimately Heeb, Jewcy, and his own webzine have significant communal value as "entry points for Gen X Jews. All people see are the glitzy T-shirts, but these are just marketing tools that can be used to get people interested in meaningful Judaism." Jon Steingart, one of four founders of Jewcy--a web-based amalgamation of clothing vendor and theatrical events coordinator--agrees that the New Jew Cool is a steppingstone to Jewish connection. "We never anticipated creating anything like 'the Jewcy generation,'" he says. "It was a zeitgeist thing. It happened at a time when young people were feeling a counter-movement to the homogenization of the '90s. When people saw our shirts, they said, 'what a great way to express my Judaism!' For us, it [making the clothes] was just a fun thing; then we began hearing from youth groups about how wearing this shirt makes them feel proud of their Judaism." Steingart says it's no coincidence that young gay Jews in New York were the first to buy Jewcy shirts. "Our initial audience was people who felt culturally Jewish, but disenfranchised by mainstream Judaism. There are many new lifestyle orientations that have yet to be assimilated into the mainstream--people who grew up Jewish, who identify as Jews, but have not yet found a place in the 'Jewish world.'" It's in their 20s, he says, that people "try to reconnect" with their own history. Steingart himself is a classic example of his own thesis. Raised in a Reform household in southern California, this veteran of the West Coast Reform summer-camp system spent his 20s "just going to synagogue on High Holidays." Now 35, he's a dues-paying member of a Reform congregation. "I got married, and we just had a kid," he explains. "Guess that makes me not as hip!" Reform Resources For more information about involving young people in your community, e-mail Naomi Gewirtz at ngewirtz@urj.org or call (212) 650-4230. To join the Sparks and Ruach listserv, e-mail outreach@urj.org.
Copyright © 2004, Union for Reform Judaism |
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t's a familiar scene, and every social committee's nightmare: a handful of people in their late 20s and 30s stand around clutching plastic cups of white wine in a near-empty synagogue auditorium decorated with blue-and-white banners, maybe a couple of balloons. The dreaded Jewish singles' event is still the program of choice for most Reform congregations looking to draw in that elusive 20- to 30-something demographic, but not because it works. More often, it's simply because no one has come up with a better model.
Reform Judaism Magazine
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