Moving a relationship to Israel away from "us"/"them" language

Today I stumbled on a blog post by Noam Planko's on Israel Diaspora relations that I found thought provoking.   Naom calls for a more sophisticated approach to American Jews relationship to Israel, one that is embedded in developing a broader connection between local and rich Jewish community life in the United States and the global Jewish community.

Read Naom PIanko's blog post

The only point that I’m not entirely comfortable with is his tendency to speak of “The State of Israel”.   If the goal is to get rid of the binary language of "American Jews" and "Israel" and develop a more nuanced relationship in which individuals grapple with their relationship to Israel, then one need not to speak of "The State of Israel."  Rather, there is a need to emphasize the multi-faceted nature of Israeli life and to encourage American Jews to pick their partners and develop a stake and opinion about where they stand.

As Planko points out, it is disastrous to demand that all American Jews "support Israel" without enabling each to  to think through what and they support and oppose.  "Israel" is not a homogeneous entity, but a vibrant civil society.  Every Jew can find within Israeli society a wealth of resources and inspiration by which to develop their Jewish life and a vision of Israel to which they can commit (and reject).  Jewish Peoplehood and Israel education are two parts of a greater whole; which, serve a common purpose of developing commitment to be a part of the global Jewish People.  "Israel" is a major strand in the weave that connects Jews to one another as a "global People," thus it is impossible to speak of one without the other.  

Teaching Torah to non-observant young adults

An area of Jewish education focused on young adults, which is at once ancient but at the same time very new is the teaching of the Rabbinic Tradition. “Learning Torah,” the study of Jewish text from the historic canon of Bible, Talmud, and Midrash, has until very recently been the domain of Jewish organizations which either focus on the religiously observant or preach religion to the non-observant. In the last five years, Torah learning initiatives are emerging, which aim to engage non-observant young Jewish adults without the intention of converting them to religion. These programs attempt to use traditional texts as a resource for sparking intellectual and emotional interest in Jewish life.   

Given the lack of existing research and the incipient state of knowledge about methods for engaging young Jewish adults in Jewish life in general, and for Torah education in particular, Hillel with the support of the Jim Joseph Foundation convened a conference in New York City on June 22-23, 2010, entitled “Towards a Third Space: A New Dimension in Jewish Education for Emerging Adults.”   

Rabbi Scott Aaron and I wrote up an overview of the lessons we took away from the conference.  Download article here.  

The conference website is found at: http://www.thirdspaceconference.com 

Talk to JDC about two paradigms for building Peoplehood

In this talk to the Joint Distribution Committee - Israel staff (Jerusalem June 7th, 2010) I describe two paradigms for thinking about Jewish collective belonging.  A description appears below.  Thank you to Yossi Abramowitz for posting this at: http://www.peoplehood.org/?p=1213

1. One paradigm stresses the difference between Jew and non-Jew, and is built on the assumption that Jews share a common set of practices and will search one another out in order to spend time with other Jews. In this paradigm a Jewish organization provides a place for settlement and socialization.  Provide the place and Jews will come.  
2. The second focuses on "Jewish journeys," Peoplehood is about enabling individuals to search out and find a personally meaningful connection to other Jews.  The focus is on the journey and not the destination.  A Jew should want to pursue a life long journey with other Jews, where he or she will choose to do that, and in what exact way, is not the primary focus.  Jewish organizations provide the knowledge, skills and experiences that will motivate and enable Jews to connect to other Jews.    

Jewish pluralism as a core Peoplehood practice - two research reports

Much of my current work concerning Jewish Peoplehood is focusing on, what I argue is new type of practice by Jewish organizations - one which focuses on enabling Jewish pluralism.  These can be divided between two types: 

1. Organizations, particularly religious organizations, which have a clear world view and whose programs are not internally pluralistic, but which embrace collaboration and cooperation with organizations who are different from themselves; hence, contributing to an inclusive Jewish public sphere. 
2. Organizations whose programs are pluralistic, in that they are designed to accommodate different Jewish worldviews and life-styles.

Prior to the 1990s most who dealt with Jewish education or community building were either avowedly secularist, Zionist and/or denominational in their focus, this situation is changing in a big way.  For more have a look at these two research reports.

1. Best Practices of Organizations that build Jewish Peoplehood: A Policy-Oriented Analysis of a Field in Formation, co-authored with Shlomi Ravid. Click here
2. Furthering Pluralistic Jewish Education in Israel: An Evaluation of the Meitarim School Network, co-authored with Stephen Markowitz. Click here

An alternative to a national census

The following is a response I posted to a recent article on e-Jewish philanthropy calling for a new national survey of the American Jewish population.  


The article
http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/the-loss-from-lack-of-a-national-jewish-census/


My response
I make my living doing research work for Jewish organizations and have often used comparisons of our survey data to NJPS data in order to enable comparison to the National Jewish population. That said, I look at the whole national Jewish population survey enterprise with tremendous ambivalence. The notion that there is intrinsic value in gaining a comprehensive picture of the American Jewish population is appealing, but I think its value limited to creating “policy through buzz”. Good social policy comes out of data that is contextual – read, enables a good understanding of how people interact with institutions. Hence the desire of Federations to focus locally. For the same money, a series of well designed studies that focus on particular groups which represent key populations(young, old, core Jews, assimilated Jews, Israeli and Russian immigrants, board members of Jewish organizations)in different regions should be carried out. These studies should draw on small, well selected samples and should be designed to enable comparisons across generations and different types of Jewish populations AND to get a qualitative as well as quantitative understanding of what it means to live as a Jew today. What is the paradigm of a rich and compelling Jewish life and how does that play across different segments of the American Jewish population?  I have no doubt that this type of work can be done for $2m and provide far more compelling data for the purpose of policy making that a generic national survey.

Peoplehood - Organizational Best Practices. TAU Presentation

On February 15, 2010 I gave a presentation at a conference at Tel Aviv University about the best practices of organizations which sponsor Peoplehood programs.

• Click here to download a copy of the presentation
• Click here to download accompanying handout
• Click here for a copy of the conference program

Public life and Jewish collective identity in Israel

This blog post continues a post made earlier this week on the need for "territory" or "space" as a condition for group identity: click here to read that post.

The public sphere, that area of social life in which social norms and laws sanctioned by public authority shape human interaction always plays a dominant role in the manner in which Jews construct their Jewish identity.

In 2005 I wrote a position paper for the Jewish Agency which focuses on the importance of the the Israeli public sphere in shaping Israeli Jewish identity.  The paper looks at the popular leisure activities (sports, backpacking, shopping and dance) of young Israeli Jews. Through the prism of leisure activities we look at the ways Jewish belonging is built in everyday life of contemporary Israel and the different experiences of older and younger generations of Israeli Jews.

Unfortunately not much was done with the paper.  I hope to re-package it as a chapter in a book that I'll eventually write on Jewish Peoplehood issues.  In the meantime, you can download the paper and access an on-line bibliographical database by clicking here.  username: hello,  password: letmein .