Rabbi Jen Gubitz
“I wish there had been more ritual at the beginning of Shabbat dinner,” their feedback resounded. After the Riverway Project at Temple Israel of Boston helped lay-leaders host an LGBTQ+ Shabbat Dinner, we surveyed participants to understand how we might work together to offer explicitly welcoming experiences to the queer Jewish community. Feedback was unanimous. […]
Bob Goldfarb
The four propositions in the Schwarz essay form a solid basis for a purposeful community animated by spiritual values. Wisdom, justice, and community are essential for any society, and the dimension of the transcendent situates their source in God. At the same time, those values become problematic when Jews are collectively treated as a “market” […]
Carla Friend
My organization, Tkiya, uses participatory music experiences to help people of all ages find their unique connection to Jewish culture and to reinvigorate diverse Jewish communities. The work that we do aligns with each of Rabbi Sid’s propositions to varying degrees. Additionally, I believe that our work advances areas of Jewish life that are not […]
Deborah Fishman
I consider my work to be squarely aligned with the proposition of community/kehillah. There is no doubt in my mind that this idea mentioned in the Schwarz essay is true: Just because membership and affiliation rates in synagogues and other Jewish institutions are declining doesn’t mean that people aren’t looking for spiritual meaning. Over-use of […]
Rabbi Robin Damsky
Seven years ago, I embarked on a project that would transform my work in the rabbinate. I turned my property into an organic, edible, permaculture landscape with several goals: to address hunger issues; to decrease carbon footprint; to educate about healthy food; and to give those who are food-insecure greater ownership of their own fresh […]
Jeffrey Cohan
If a common thread unites the four propositions in Rabbi Schwarz’s important essay, it is this: Judaism must demonstrate its relevancy to contemporary Jews if our religion and our community are to thrive in the 21st Century. This thread is a part of the fabric of Jewish Veg, an organization that is addressing through a […]
Rabbi Shelly Barnathan
Or Zarua, an emerging community of meaning located in the western suburbs of Philadelphia, focuses on the spiritual needs of empty nesters/baby boomers who are engaged, socially responsible Jews searching for alternatives to the “traditional” synagogue model. Our name, Or Zarua, comes from Psalm 97:11, or zarua latzadik, “light is sown for the righteous,” exemplifies […]
Joshua Avedon
First as one of Ikar’s founders, then at Synagogue 3000, and currently at Jumpstart, I’ve had the privilege to work in the U.S., Europe, and Israel with leaders of new organizations and communities of all types and persuasions. I came to this work as someone who grew up disaffected from Jewish life, but who came […]
Rabbi Guy Austrian
“We’re like an 80-year-old startup.” That’s an apt description of the Fort Tryon Jewish Center (FTJC), an independent traditional egalitarian community-based in Washington Heights and Inwood, Manhattan. Founded in 1938 by refugees from Nazi Germany, an aging and dwindling congregation nearly shut its doors in the early 2000’s, then lost the use of its building […]
Rabbi Katy Z. Allen
In the face of the climate crisis, the human species faces an unparalleled existential crisis – will we survive, or will we follow the path of the dodo bird and other species now extinct? Can we both acknowledge the reality of anthropocentric climate change and respond with the speed and vigor required to reverse its […]
Judi Wisch
In my position of Director of Community Engagement for PJ Library I continue to fulfill my lifelong passion of creating Jewish community, especially among those who live outside the organized Jewish community. PJ Library is much more than a free program that sends books to families raising Jewish children. PJ is a tool that helps […]
Rabbi Michael Wasserman
I think of Rabbi Sid Schwarz’s four prescriptions for the revitalization of American Judaism as four aspects of a single broad prescription. Revitalizing learning (chochma), interpersonal responsibility (tzedek), community (kehillah), and a sense of purpose (kedusha) are not separate projects, but four sides of one large project. None can truly happen without the others happening […]
Aharon Varady
The work of the Open Siddur Project is directly aligned with proposition 4. When I founded this project, the initial negative responses I received was that for an “innovation” project, siddurim were not sexy, their liturgical content obscure, their management tedious and that denominational interests and private publishers were fiercely protective of their proprietary intellectual […]
Naomi Tucker
When considering how Jews find meaning in Jewish community, one significant area of disconnect has been the lack of organizations and opportunities that directly speak to women’s experience. For much of the 20th century, Jewish women found themselves gravitating towards social and support roles in synagogues, or found meaning in “professional volunteer” roles where they […]
Rabbi Joshua M. Z. Stanton
Reading the chapter from Jewish Megatrends made me feel as though I had independently begun the process of creating the wheel. What would my life (and work) have been like if I had read it earlier? Probably not much different, but I could have missed some early mistakes and more readily honed the core concept […]
Rabbi Ruth H. Sohn
The work of the Yedidya Center for Jewish Spiritual Direction is most closely aligned with Proposition 4, that today’s Jews are seeking communities and experiences of kedusha, experiences that provide holiness, transcendent meaning, and a sense of purpose to their lives. The Yedidya Center is dedicated to the development and support of the emerging practice […]
Rabbi Garth Silberstein
The idea for Organic Yeshiva originally came to me when I was studying full-time at the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, the “open and pluralistic yeshiva” mentioned in R. Schwarz’s essay, which serves as a mecca for young Jews looking to deepen their understanding of the Jewish tradition. Each year, Pardes would take […]
Rabbi Jeremy Sher
My approach at Ha-Emek is very simple: everyone is welcome. I’m a rabbi and I lead a Jewish congregation, and anyone who wishes to be in a Jewish congregation is altogether welcome at Ha-Emek. It doesn’t matter if they’re Jewish or if they’re just exploring. It certainly doesn’t matter who their parents are or who […]
Jane Shapiro
When you are in the business of teaching Torah there are moments when you wonder if you are the last person sitting in the Bes Medrash, like the Matmid of Bialik’s poem. But then the world shifts in subtle or not-so-subtle ways, and students come searching for the Torah’s wisdom so they can make sense […]
Rabbi Rami Schwartzer
Rabbi Sid suggested that at the foundation of American spiritual malaise lies the technological revolution that has propelled our culture in the new century, mentioning as support Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone, and “other students of American culture [who] followed [his] analysis.” But while Putnam was among the most widely read theorists on the subject, he […]
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