Who Needs Think Tanks?

The common sense way to ensure a Jewish future

Every few years the Jewish community starts to obsess once again on the subject of the future. And as one would expect the community has addressed the issue with a bevy of “think tanks”—study groups peopled by Jewish “leaders.”

The Jewish Agency set up The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, which in turn sponsored a conference on “Alternative Futures for the Jewish People.” Israeli President Moshe Katzav organized a group of machers to meet yearly in Jerusalem, calling his project Beit Yisrael: World Jewish Forum. This past summer, New York Jewish Week sponsored a chi-chi version of all this with “The Conversation”—a weekend in Aspen where Jews who are leaders in their respective fields (though not necessarily Judaism) discussed the Jewish future. Meanwhile, CLAL has been hosting Aspen “Jewish Future” get-togethers for a few years now.

Not to be outdone, the various Federations have set up their own commissions to prognosticate on the Jewish future. My own Washington Federation, as example, has created a “Commission on Jewish Engagement” to chart the community’s future strategic imperatives.

A weekend spent reading the reports of these meetings, however, makes clear that the results are pretty thin gruel. The reports all recognize that we live in a voluntaristic society where all of us in some sense are “Jews by Choice.” Most recognize that they are failing the challenge to secure the Jewish future.

Until the Enlightenment, unless you converted, you were Jewish, like it or not—and often even conversion did not let you “escape.” After the Second World War, American Jews tried to ensure Jewish continuity by trumpeting the Holocaust (let’s show Hitler we won), fear of anti-Semitism and existential dangers to Israel. Such mechanisms worked for those who already felt an attachment, be it guilt or pride. It did not work as American Jews became more and more established, more and more in a position to choose Judaism or not.

All this think-tanking, in my view, avoids the obvious. If you want to promote a Jewish future, you have to give young people reason to be Jewish. And you can’t do that by appealing to emotion alone. You need initiatives that offer people Jewish content.

Communities also need to intensify their focus on providing Jewish education to young professionals, many of whom grew up with an astonishing lack of knowledge about Judaism beyond bagels and lox. David Gordis, the president of Hebrew College in Boston, points out that while American Jews may well be the most educated and economically successful community in America, their Jewish knowledge is, at best, at bar-mitzvah level. How can you expect them to take Jewish content in their lives seriously when theirs is the Judaism of pre-adolescence?

Consider the following examples of innovative programming:

In Boston, Hebrew College founded Meah, an adult education program that calls on successful adults to commit to two years of adult education at the level they are accustomed to in their professional lives. Last year, Meah expanded to New York City where it has already drawn more than 500 students, and an on-line version is in progress.

In Washington, DC, Rabbi Joshua Haberman created the Foundation for Jewish Studies to promote serious adult education. The Foundation hosts world class scholars who spend a month or two lecturing (sometimes twice a day) at synagogues of all denominations and at scores of “lunch and learn” programs in offices, law firms and doctors’ offices.

The AVI CHAI Foundation funded Nextbooks, a program that offers book club discussion and lectures about Jewish literature.

None of these programs offers a “watered down” Judaism, either religiously or intellectually. All of them recognize that young Jews in America are largely an educated professional community. If you want to attract these Jews to Judaism, you have to offer something serious. You don’t need a think tank to figure out what works.