What My Children Have Taught Me About Jewish Identity
Who is wise? I believe it is the one that learns from his children. As I read about megatrends in Judaism and religious life, I understand what I read through the lens of my two adult children. Here’s my Jewish background so as to explain what may seem to be my approach. I am a […]
Birthing as a Portal into Jewish Life
Imeinu Jewish Birth Workers Collective is a network of birth professionals and other service providers who are committed to offering physical, emotional, informational and spiritual care to the laboring mother, her baby and her family to encourage the most positive pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum experience. We are honored to offer resources for childbirth as a […]
A Congregation Without Walls
Mine is a congregation that doesn’t read books such as Jewish Megatrends (though it occurs to me that I should send them the chapter on which we’ve been asked to write this essay), so its members don’t quite get how at least two of the three factors Rabbi Schwarz described (the two that aren’t about […]
Extending our Values to all God’s Creatures
My work with Jewish Initiative for Animals (JIFA) engages institutions and individuals of all stripes to turn the Jewish value of concern for animal welfare into action—a mission that aligns with and transcends the four propositions that Sid Schwarz outlines in Jewish Megatrends. Chochma /Wisdom There are ways in which the traditional Jewish framework for […]
Challenging the Jewish Establishment on Israel/Palestine
IfNotNow was founded in the summer of 2014, during the war in Gaza. The movement’s founders were all Jewish millennials, some with roots in the institutional Jewish world, having grown up going to Jewish day school or summer camps, and others had little to no connection to the organized Jewish community. The founders of this […]
An Intercultural Minyan in Washington D.C.
When the American Synagogue came into being, the institutional structure had to respond to, and contend with, the societal challenges of the time: social circles being segregated by race, class, and religion; the push and pull of assimilation vs. maintaining a strong – but foreign – identity; and the concentration of resources and communication around […]
Jewish Community: The Other Side of Plenty
The “forced continuity” of the Jewish community of the 80s and 90s, as mentioned in Jewish Megatrends, gave birth to frustrated Jews who felt that it was an all-or-nothing reality– do and believe what the religion required, or abstain from it. Meanwhile, these same individuals were told that they could change the world. The Boomer […]
Beyond Fear-Driven Survival
The quote from Talmud at the beginning of Jewish Megatrends is very beautiful: “Fortunate is the generation in which the elders listen to the youth” (Rosh Hashana 25b). We should be so lucky. I agree with Rabbi Sid’s assessment that Jews are seekers of wisdom (dorshei chochmah), seekers of social justice (dorshei tzedek), seekers of community (dorshei kehilla), and […]
The Alberta Shul: Building Kehilla Through the Lens of Tzedek
In his thesis, Rabbi Sid Schwarz offers that the downturn in Jewish communal affiliation does not “suggest that Jews are no longer seeking each other out. It simply means that Jews are turning their backs on larger, mainstream organizations that are experienced as top-down institutions in an era when Jews want to do it themselves.” […]
A Community of Meaning for Young Adults
My roommate and I are both alumnae of Barnard-JTS and both of us have been very Jewishly connected for most of our lives. We had been living in Philadelphia for about six months when, one shabbat afternoon, we sat and pondered why it was that we did not feel part of a regular Shabbat community […]
Never Too Old to Engage
Since 2013, I have directed UJA-Federation of New York’s Engage Jewish Service Corps at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan, a volunteer initiative that helps baby boomers find meaning and community as they begin to envision what retirement may look like for themselves (very different than how it may have been for others in the past […]
Kesher Pittsburgh: An “Everyone-Friendly” Community
As I read Rabbi Sid’s introduction to Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Community, I felt a sense of relief. It affirmed much of what I’ve sensed about current trends in the American institutional framework and it acted as a sort of mirror, reflecting that the work that Kesher Pittsburgh* is doing […]
Building Community through Shabbat Dinners
I grew up in a household that valued Shabbat. We children were required to be home for dinner every Friday night, no exceptions, and all of our friends were welcome around the table. While at the time I may not have appreciated this rule, I am now thankful that I have an understanding and deep […]
The Power of Play
Ben Zoma says, “Who is wise? One who learns from every person.” This teaching from Pirkei Avot is a powerful guide for our mission with the Bible Players. This idea is central both to the concepts of chochma/wisdom and kehilla/community. At the Bible Players, we believe that improvisation is a crucial way to explore these […]
Jewish Pathways to Wisdom
Ben Bag Bag omer hafoch bah, vahafoch bah, d’chola bah. Ben Bag Bag said: Turn it and turn it, over and over, for everything is in it. Mishna Avot 5:22 Ben Zoma omer eizehu hakham, ha-lomed mikol adam. Ben Zoma said: Who is wise? One who learns from every person. Mishna Avot 4:1 Turn it […]
Class, Racism and Oppression
In 1984, I founded the National Coalition Building Institute (NCBI), a non-profit organization that trains leaders in diversity, equity, and inclusion skills. I was a consultant to the National Affairs staff at the American Jewish Committee, leading workshops on East Coast campuses for Blacks and Jews. The director, Irving Levine, thought we needed an organization […]
Jewish Liberation that Spans Generations
The megatrends Rabbi Sid invokes in his article are mega not in their grandiosity but because they are the root stock that has held and sourced and given life to the Jewish people from time immemorial. In shifting winds, roots hold the ground and, in times of drought, it is deep roots that can still […]
Thoughts on Kehillah/Community
When I was twelve, my father ordered some yarmulkes for my upcoming bar mitzvah. Inside the skullcap was a simple inscription “Daniel Mordecai Brenner – Now Available for Minyan.” In some ways, I love this story as an example of how I was welcomed into Jewish community – the message I was receiving from my […]
Searching for Covenantal Judaism
“Most American Jews that gravitate to Chabad Houses… like the feel of “doing the real thing,” even if they don’t show up every week.” Rabbi Sid Schwarz, Jewish Megatrends This statement caught my attention for a couple of reasons. Raised as a tribal Jew in the Bronx (my early narrative shares many similarities with that of […]
A Center for the Study of Existential Torah
I am reluctant to say that Etz Hasadeh, a center for the study of existential Torah, is guided by a single value, especially since, as Heidegger teaches, a value is, as its name implies, relative. To say truth is a value is already to devalue it, to make it seem to be valuable only insofar […]
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