Brit Tzedek v'Shalom

Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace

5766: Us Jewry, with focus on youth
By Chanan Tigay
October 19, 2006

During Bill Clinton's successful run for the White House in 1992, campaign strategist James Carville famously impressed on campaign staffers that, when it comes to reaching American voters, "It's the economy, stupid."

For Jews, 5766 may well be remembered as the year when American Jews looked into the crystal ball and discovered that, "It's the youth, stupid."

With leaders of US Jewry increasingly concerned about continuity and watching fretfully as many younger Jews opt out of traditional forms of affiliation, each month seemed to bring with it a new study of 18-25-year-old Jews - offering insights into their likes and dislikes; where they're doing their Judaism and spots from which they're shying away; and what turns them on, as well as what turns them off.

There was Brandeis University's study of Jewish college students, which found that, while proud of their heritage, these young Jews were basically unaffiliated, had relatively weak ties to Israel and Jewish federations, and were attracted more to Jewish culture than religion.

A study by Reboot, a nonprofit that promotes creative Jewish initiatives, found college-age Jews, also proud of their heritage, were avoiding institutional affiliations and were particularly interested in Jewish culture.

As study after study emerged, observers started to see a pattern: Many younger Jews in America are engaging differently than their forebearers and expressing their Jewish identities in different ways.

With intermarriage rampant, synagogue membership among young Jews on the decline, and a general sense that younger Jews are less connected to Judaism, Jewish communal leaders are on the lookout for ways to get the younger generation to connect and to engage in a conversation about Jewish identity, community and meaning.

But given what the recent slew of studies tells us about younger Jews, how should this be accomplished?

If you ask some of the young people themselves - and, increasingly, some of their elders - they say that the way to their hearts and minds and pocketbooks is through artistic and cultural exchange: Jewish music, books, movies and art.

To be sure, recent developments have given young Jews plenty of outlets for the Jewish cultural impulse and seem to demonstrate that there's a large market for these cultural efforts. Matisyahu, a Chasidic reggae singer, has sold more than 500,000 albums. Heeb, a Jewish magazine aimed at hip young Jews, has been the subject of much chatter and numerous articles in the mainstream media. And Guilt & Pleasure - "A magazine for Jews and the people who love them" - has been selling out at newsstands and bookstores across the country.

Times, in other words, are flush if you're a young, culturally minded Jew. But the explosion in material led some observers this year to ask whether the arts should be viewed as a gateway to further Jewish involvement or are valuable as a destination in and of themselves.

Another study of younger Jews, this one by the American Jewish Committee, suggested that Orthodoxy will become a larger and more influential force in coming decades. The survey, which looked at the 1.5 million US Jews between the ages of 18-39, found that Orthodox Jews comprise some 11% of all US Jews and 16% of 18-29 year-olds.

Among even younger Jews, the percentage of Orthodox is even higher, those behind the report speculated. Further, the survey found, Orthodox Jews marry at a younger age, have more children, and are more Jewishly engaged than their non-Orthodox counterparts.

The same study found that the Holocaust is proving more important than Israel in positively affecting Jewish identity among many young Jews.

Still, as tensions flared along the Gaza-Israel border and Israel's northern border erupted into war over the summer, American Jews mobilized quickly and decisively to aid the Jewish state.

Jewish groups, meanwhile, raised large sums of money to help Israeli causes, from shoring up dwindling blood supplies to helping children living in the line of fire escape to safer ground.

Even before the war, Israel was at the center of American Jewry's agenda. An effort in Congress to cut off assistance to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas's landslide electoral victory in January met unexpected resistance from a coalition of dovish Jewish groups.

AIPAC strongly favored the bill, but Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy forum and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom objected. The groups said the measure would suffocate any attempts by Palestinian moderates to push back at Hamas.

In the end, both bills passed overwhelmingly, though the House version recorded 37 votes against - far more than the usual dozen diehard Israel critics. The Senate and House have yet to reconcile substantial differences between their versions of the bill, casting doubt on whether it will land on President Bush's desk this congressional session.

Meanwhile, the Arab-Israeli conflict also was being played out on movie screens across the country as two films - Steven Spielberg's "Munich" and Hany Abu-Assad's "Paradise Now" - took on the hot-button issues of terrorism and counterterrorism.

"Munich" was based on the story of Israel's hunt for the Palestinian terrorists who killed 11 athletes, including native Clevelander David Berger, at the 1972 Olympic Games. "Paradise Now" told the story of two fictional Palestinians preparing to carry out suicide bombings in Israel.

Elsewhere, the Jewish community, all-too-cognizant of where silence in the face of genocide can lead, took a leading role in efforts to end ongoing atrocities in the Darfur region of Sudan.

As surveys focused on the new ways youth are engaging, some Jewish organizations, too, were thinking outside the box. In April, the Jewish Theological Seminary, Conservative Judaism's flagship institution, selected Arnold Eisen as its next chancellor.