Category: 2019 Cohort

The Part-Time Dual-Role Rabbi: Secular and Spiritual Entwining

2019 Cohort, Rabbi David Evan Markus 0 Comments

If I’m a Jewish trendsetter, it’s at least partly by accident and, because “There is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9), the trend that I am setting is a rabbinic “Back to the Future.”

I am North America’s only pulpit rabbi simultaneously maintaining a full-time public oath of office.  I serve full-time in the New York Judiciary, and part-time as rabbi of Temple Beth El of City Island (New York, NY).  Judicial ethics rules generally bar me from fundraising and politics, and specifically bar me from engaging publicly about Mideast matters that most inspire “tribal” affiliation.

So how can a 21st century pulpit rabbi succeed if he can’t fundraise, can’t pull Judaism’s tribal heartstrings, and doesn’t serve full-time?  Very well, it seems. My synagogue is growing, Shabbat and adult education attendance are high, internal community cohesion is strong and growing, and congregants and visitors report coming away feeling touched and sometimes even transformed by their experiences.

Increasingly I understand my community’s successes flow from a perhaps counter-intuitive approach to rabbinic identity and service that force the spiritual over all else.  My experience as a part-time dual-role rabbi offers lessons for a rabbinate whose calling demands more focus on spiritual experience than money, tribalism and administration.  In turn, this experience validates the propositions of Megatrends and presses them somewhat beyond their initial forms.

Jewish life too often forgets a key truth: today’s prevailing rabbinate is a relatively new construct, not fixed in stone and certainly not descended from Sinai.  The rabbinate’s broad public evolution from function to calling to profession happened only two centuries ago – barely a blink in Jewish time.  In their days, Hillel was a woodchopper; Yochanan ben Zakkai was a businessman; Huna was a farmer who raised cattle; Chisda and Pappa were brewers; Rashi was a vintner; Rambam was a physician.  When the Talmud’s rabbis went “out into the market to see how the people are accustomed to act” (B.T. Berakhot 45a; B.T. Eruvin 14b), they immersed themselves in the community’s daily routines with regular jobs, sometimes struggling to make ends meet.  At least in these respects, the rabbis positioned themselves among – not above – the people and communities they served.

In hindsight, this dynamic seems no accident.  Part-time clergy service is so qualitatively different in ways that, I am coming to believe, are demonstrably healthier for Jewish life and that resonate with the propositions of Megatrends.  

That a part-time rabbinate might more “successfully” serve Jewish community sounds counter-intuitive to many in modern institutional Judaism.  To be fair, this intuition has pastoral legs: part-time status accords limited time for keiruv (connection and engagement).  In like fashion, judicial ethics strictures on what I can and can’t do also may seem like a straitjacket, if the standard for a successful pulpit rabbi is engagement with the “tribalism” of past-decade affiliation and identity dynamics.

In reality, however, I’ve come to discover that the part-time nature of my role and the judicial restrictions on my rabbinate each is a focusing device for my rabbinate, and that together they frame a far more spiritual and engaging rabbinate than the stereotypical pulpit rabbinate.

As a part-time rabbi, I must get to the “point” efficiently: there’s no time to fall down the endless rabbit holes of administration, and most everyone knows (or quickly learns) that ethically I can’t fundraise.  What’s left to do as a pulpit rabbi? To me, what’s left are the three pillars on which the “world” (Jewish community) stands: Torah, prayer and acts of lovingkindness (M. Avot 1:2) – not administration, not the politics of tribalism, not fundraising, not stroking egos.  Clergy colleagues hear this and express a mix of shock, incredulity and jealousy: a rabbi whose job is to be a rabbi?  Wow, what a concept!

With the freedom of my part-time, dual-role “straitjacket” (that actually is quite liberating), I’ve found that experience is the beacon, fulcrum, glue and guts of Jewish life.  On the “wisdom” axis, I can speak the language of contemporary culture wholly outside the spectrum and strictures of tribal identity.  I’m freer to weave Torah, Hasidut, Talmud and cousin traditions to help illustrate, differentiate and light a known and felt Jewish path.  I can speak the language of “deep ecumenism” (not just tolerance but deep engagement), on wholly Jewish terms, in ways that honor the spiritual experience of a diverse community (and community of communities), for I too live in that diverse community (and I represent it in my judicial role).  As a result, often I hear, “I didn’t know that Judaism could be like that.” Congregants become learners, teachers and ambassadors for an alive Judaism whose covenantal core is collective experience.

This covenantal core drives all that we do, and all that I aspire to be as rabbi and fellow seeker.  As a fellow traveler “in the marketplace” with my congregants, I can’t preach about social justice from the safe convenience of my rabbinic perch: I’m busy with a “non-Jewish job,” like so many others in my community.  So, when I engage in acts of social justice as a cornerstone of Jewish life, I do so from where we are together – busy, caring and often distracted. It helps that my day job is in the justice arena: as a “symbolic exemplar” against my will, I represent justice and inspire others to put tikkun olam first.

This social justice message threads through synagogue life.  Every service speaks it somehow (e.g. “What we say here is irrelevant if we don’t do it there: it’s Aleinu, on us, to make these words real”).  Social justice is a core covenant of our community creed.  Volunteer opportunities sometimes attract more volunteers than we can accommodate.  This year, the synagogue Board – always strapped for funds – donated fully 10% of its annual budget to a nearby church that lost its roof in a storm.  

A communitarian feel arises in response.  It helps that the synagogue is based on an island in the vast sea of New York City, literally adjacent to the sea of Long Island Sound.  Islands – even urban ones – tend to arouse an “island feel” of community cohesion, informality and closeness. But it’s more. The fact of part-time clergy means, as Megatrends identifies, that the congregation itself must fulfill some functions that past decades devolved to “professional Jews.”  Administration, fundraising, tikkun olam, some pastoral care, and some service leadership, all must arise from the community (with clergy support and training, but still from them).  Put simply, my part-time role means that I can’t be my community’s “professional Jew,” and this message of empowerment also wends its way through community life.

A further benefit of the part-time rabbi is its potency to diminish the dangers of charismatic leadership.  I’ve seen too many communities that define a successful rabbi as one whose charisma shapes a sense of belonging and connection.  Charisma and positive transference have their place, but a rabbi who relies on charisma puts the community at risk if/when he or she leaves.  Even more, charismatics tends to conflate clergy relationships with community itself. Part-time service cuts against charismatic dangers in ways that uplift resilient community building and empowerment.

The fourth proposition of Megatrends – sacred purpose (kedusha) – follows from the other three, and from something more.  My part-time rabbinic role isn’t a profession: I already have one of those.  By design and identity, my part-time rabbinate locates itself as a calling amidst holiness – sometimes very inconveniently so, and thus all the more so.  I’m there for holiness – not for a paycheck and not because I’m a professional Jew. And as for me, so for people I serve. And because I must focus on the spiritual over tribalism and administration, experiences of transcendence and purpose are all I can do.

The teacher of some of my teachers, Zalman Schachter-Shalomi z”l, famously quipped that it’s okay for a synagogue to be a business, so long as we know what business we’re really in.  Perhaps by accident, my “back to the future” part-time dual-role rabbinate accords me the great blessing and freedom to immerse in the spiritual business we’re in. Along the way, I’m learning that this spiritual/covenantal approach is what more and more people most crave in their own lives as Jews, seekers and citizens in a changing world.

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Rabbi David Evan Markus serves as rabbi of Temple Beth El of City Island (New York, NY), rabbinics faculty at the Academy for Jewish Religion (New York); spiritual direction faculty and past Board Co-Chair at ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal; and senior builder at Bayit (a spiritual innovation start-up). In his parallel career in government service, he presides in the New York Judiciary as North America’s only pulpit rabbi simultaneously to maintain a full-time oath of office.

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What My Children Have Taught Me About Jewish Identity

Rabbi Evan Krame 0 Comments

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 shul goer. I am an avid reader of Jewish books.  I dress liberal and accessorize conservative. 

Of my four grandparents none were observant.  None had Jewish education or any formal education.  None had any wealth to bequeath. Their best expression of Jewish identity was to feed us gefilte fish and fight with family. I know of no relatives that died in the Shoah and have no ties to distant cousins living in Israel. Yet, I have obsessed about the Holocaust and I identify as a Zionist.

Even without a family rooted in institutional, ritualistic, rabbinic, or practiced Judaism, I grew up longing to participate in Jewish community.  I asked my father to build me a sukkah, which was a rarity in our predominantly Jewish neighborhood.  I attended synagogue on holidays even when they occurred on school days.  I liked Hebrew School.

And at 56 years old, I was ordained.

The cosmic Jewish joke in my life is that I gave my children every Jewish experience I thought I lacked growing up.  Thirteen years of day school, 11 years of Jewish summer camp, sleeping in the sukkah, sumptuous Seders, and hikes on Shavuot. We visited Israel often. We participated in Jewish events, demonstrated the need for philanthropy and made shabbos, even when were weren’t at home. One of my children rejects Judaism as a religion. The other understands Judaism as a motivation and an opportunity for joyful community.

I have a research sample of one. We are one family of four that made Judaism a focal point of our lives and the result was wide-ranging.  Do you want to say that attachment to institutional Judaism is on the wane? I have a child to prove that. Do you want to say that millenials employ Judaism as an entryway to community and meaning? I have a child to prove that too.

My path was to increase my Jewish learning and adapt my practices to new understandings.  My insight is that Judaism is an ever-evolving religion and I now welcome the next phase of Judaism. As a rabbi, I followed the advice of financial guru Peter Lynch, who said invest in what you know. I created a new-fangled, not-a-synagogue targeted to adults.  I determined that the best-educated, politically powerful, financially secure Jewish generation – the baby boomers – was ripe for engagement with Judaism. Why? As we age we have more need for answers about mortality. As we near retirement, we often have more discretionary time. 

Moreover, I have been disturbed by a pediatric approach to Jewish philanthropy that invests most of its resources in children, teens and young adults. I believe that if young Jews see their parents and grandparents as disengaged, they will believe that Judaism is an institution from which you graduate. I want to create vibrant Jewish life from birth all the way through mature adulthood.

I read about the megatrends and know that all seem valid to an extent. But no one explanation completes the discussion for me and no one survey predicts the future accurately.  

Perhaps Judaism as a religion of rules and obligations is undergoing a necessary corrective. I have tried to understand Judaism as a reference guide or a constitution. I approach Judaism for how it correlates to my lived experience rather than define my life by the rules of Judaism that I obey.  

My day school educated children aren’t devoted to a halakhic lifestyle. Yet, their identification is Jewish and their Jewish practices, while limited, resonate strongly for them. Here’s an example. My son reported with great pride that he made a break the fast meal in his New York apartment. Yet, he had gone to work that day. I wondered how he worked on Yom Kippur but found a break fast meaningful?  I wondered if less observance is sometimes sufficient, and, if so, sufficient for what purpose?

As Irwin Kula asks, what is the job we ask Judaism to do? For me, Judaism gives my life structure, meaning and purpose. Engaging in Jewish practices I connect with community. For my children, Judaism is an association of people and ideas.  I think they are missing out on the depth and beauty of our religion. They disagree. They think that membership as a world citizen of the 21st century surpasses particularism or tribalism. And they are disinclined to hold sacred the rules codified in the 2nd century.

I am not decrying my children’s choices.  I think that they are fabulous human beings with the potential to reconfigure Jewish life for the 22nd century.  I am reminded that not all ethical and moral precepts are particular to God-given rules.  Even in Torah, Abraham has to chide God into reexamining the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah with an internal sense of saving a city even if for the sake of only ten righteous people.  God didn’t teach Abraham those values. Abraham brought them forward and shared them with God.

The trends that identify the transformation of Judaism for the 21st century are often couched in terms of what is being lost.  Lost support for institutions; abandonment of halacha; and diminishment of Jewish identity are all of concern to me. I have cherished my experience of Jewish organizations, my adherence to codes of Jewish life and expressions of my Jewish identity.  At the same time, I am encouraged that the changes to come will be based upon values that preserve the planet and respect all people. My children have taught me to know that I have given them a foundation in Judaism that informs their contributions to the future.  It just might not include a Judaism that looks much like the one I love.

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Rabbi Evan J. Krame was ordained by ALEPH: the alliance for Jewish Renewal in January 2015. He is the co-founder of The Jewish Studio and Bayit, and continues in his career as lawyer focusing on estate planning and disability law.

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Birthing as a Portal into Jewish Life

2019 Cohort, Na'amah Wendy Kenin 0 Comments

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 Jewish rite of passage and to be a voice of Jewish thought and culture, building women and family wellness networks on an international scale.

For doulas and other practitioners, we provide traditional Jewish framework and sisterhood to support our professional birth work. For clients, our members deliver a Jewish start including ancestral birth traditions for parents growing their families which enhances the holistic wellness approach of the birth worker’s service.

Since Imeinu exists on the cusp of the creation of Jewish life and the growth of the family, our work encompasses the entire spectrum of Rabbi Sid’s propositions. Jewish wisdom is central to all we do, as it enters the childbirth experience through embodiment and stories, and is at the core of the Jewish birth worker’s approach. Jewish wisdom guides and unites the Jewish birth workers in our professional networking, and sets us apart from other doula programs. We are growing Jewish knowledge and practice among our members regarding Jewish birth, in part so that we can bring it to our clients and the Jewish community at large, but also so that we can specialize in serving the specific needs of religious Jewish women. 

Patient rights, women’s autonomy and best medical practices are only some of the social justice topics that Imeinu members are experts at. We are acutely aware of disparities in birth outcomes and the social factors which impact the clients we serve. At the postpartum stage of birthwork, our attention to the women’s mental and emotional health, the family dynamics and support for the mother-baby dyad, breastfeeding issues or poverty and wellness all are at play.

The history of misogyny in childbirth continues to influence the sector, as does racism and so Imeinu is intentionally proactive in engaging and supporting Jewish and non-Jewish birth workers of color within and outside our collective. Imeinu is authentically post-denominational in that our membership is comprised of all types of Jewish-identified persons, from secular or Reconstructionist to ultra-Orthodox, from gender-conventional to gender-fluid.

Imeinu provides a kehilla/community to our members, for mentoring, partnering, collaborating and learning while also helping our clients plug into Jewish community. This might include Jewish mother’s groups, mommy and me programs, Jewish LGBT groups, Jewish domestic violence organizations, preschool/synagogue/holiday experience or health service referrals within or outside our Jewish professional network. The private contractors who make up the majority of our members have found a home in our Jewish network of women professionals. Some of our members experienced their first birth through our alliance. And since doulas are a library of resources, we are a natural catalyst for new families to engage in Jewish opportunities.

Imeinu adds “spirituality” to the menu of services that doulas provide, which introduces kedusha/sacred purpose into our professional scope. Being aware of the spiritual rite of passage of childbirth is one thing, but giving form to it and connecting families with mikva, ancient prayers and wisdom, or other learnings and rituals are only some of the ways that we embody the sacred way of living in accordance with our ancestral Jewish heritage. Bringing Jewish sanctity into the birth worker’s scope elevates her practice and infuses it with deep, tangible meaning.

Outside of the four propositions, Imeinu operates by an alternative business model, functioning as an anarchist affinity group, (or an ad hoc committee of volunteers if you are more comfortable with that). This type of open, volunteer structure allows for participants to contribute their best talents at will and with passion to the best of their capacity while keeping the organization operating in a flow that works with the members’ availability and commitment. Considering that the “Open Door” approach to Jewish engagement makes Jewish programming most accessible to the least affiliated, Imeinu’s affinity group model allows members to participate and contribute from their highest place. Involvement in Imeinu is understood as a professional development investment by our Imeinu members.

At times Imeinu has established a working group that steers the organization or that creates educational or networking events, or marketing campaigns. As necessary, the doula members of the Imeinu network comprise the Board of Directors, if that is be required for nonprofit dealings, and we have acquired a nonprofit partner to be our fiscal sponsor if needed. We have considered creating a nonprofit arm of Imeinu in order to be able to scale up and raise the funds to hire administrative staff that could invest more time and resources into our membership, programming and services.

Imeinu birth workers and health professionals work independently but in the San Francisco Bay Area, the doulas also sometimes collaborate to serve clients as a team. This innovative healthcare model is set up so that clients benefit from the best offerings of each of the members of their Imeinu Doula Team, which can number from 3-7 doulas. It also allows for doulas to be on call for a 4-12 hour blocks of time. An on-call schedule is arranged that covers the 4-weeks that the doulas are responsible to attend the birth. Our clients have been pleased with the team service; and though the doulas don’t earn as much pay because the funds are divided and distributed according to how many direct service hours they each contribute, they benefit from the time flexibility and the collaboration which often involves mentoring. 

Imeinu is on the global scene in the arena of coexistence and intergroup relations, making sure there will be no erasure of the Jewish people among convenings of birth traditions by disenfranchised communities, as well as confronting antisemitism such as the demonization of religious circumcision. We have been approached for collaborations with faith-based midwifery groups around the world.

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Na’amah Wendy Kenin founded Imeinu Birth Collective in 2008 so she could attend births at night as a doula while working and raising her children during the day. As an advocate for wellness and social change, Na’amah is a certified domestic violence counselor and a sought after community organizer also known for countering antisemitism, and provides social media “grassroots communications” consulting for nonprofits, small businesses, and educational institutions.

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A Congregation Without Walls

2019 Cohort, Rabbi Cantor Ellen Jaffe-Gill 0 Comments

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 medinat Yisrael) affect its ability to grow. They know our part of the world contains a lot of unaffiliated Jews and spiritual seekers, so why aren’t they showing up for our events?

I was happy to note that one of the propositions that Rabbi Sid presented as a path by which American Jews may be able to turn our decline in numbers and spirit is in fact a guiding principle of my rabbinate; another is one that my chavurah is embracing; and a third, social justice, is starting to appear on some members’ radar. I’m hoping this calendar year will include a few breakthroughs for the congregation in terms of ruach, participation, and learning.

By the time I arrived at rabbinical school, thirty years older than I should have been, I had researched and written a book on Jewish-Gentile intermarriage, had been certified as a cantor by the Reform movement, had become a tutor for b’nai mitzvah, and had written dozens of articles and essays for local and national Jewish press. All of this happened after I turned 40. These experiences, plus my former career as a teacher in public schools, showed me that Jewish knowledge, gained through any number of methods and media, was necessary for non-Orthodox Judaism to thrive, especially in the Diaspora. I met legions of Jewish parents and grandparents who knew little about Jewish ritual, history, and philosophy other than what they’d grown up with, let alone Jewish texts. These Jews had no idea how to gain more Jewish knowledge and pass it on to the next generation. To my chagrin, they were very comfortable with what they didn’t know; it is the predominant mindset among my congregants. And we, of course, experience the phenomenon of childhood Jewish learning being given no more priority than soccer or cello.

My mantra became, “The more you know about Judaism, the more Jewish you’ll feel.” Long before I became a rabbi, I was insisting on my b’nai mitzvah students going well past rote learning to a real understanding of what they were chanting/davening and of what it meant to become a bar/bat mitzvah. Since being ordained and moving to a part of the United States that has a significant number of Jews but is somewhat isolated and underserved in terms of Jewish learning, I’ve led ongoing and one-off educational programs, including in-depth Torah study, and have exhorted countless over-50s to become knowledgeable grandparents. I’m applying for a grant to present a variation of Reform’s “A Taste of Judaism” on the Reconstructionist template of belonging, behaving, and believing. And I’m planning another series of text-study classes. My work as a rabbi will be completed when every American Jew has a JPS Tanakh in the house — which is to say, never.

My chavurah does better in terms of community as described in Jewish Megatrends. For one thing, it’s a “congregation without walls,” meeting in living rooms and rented or borrowed space, and it bills itself as such, which in fact is intriguing to many Jews who hear about it. The chavurah has a book club, sponsors social events and is learning how to be cohesive without being cliquish. We determined that events featuring cooking and eating probably should be a staple of our programming. The social justice component right now is limited to a few random passes at collecting nonperishable food, but there are a couple of congregants who are interested in going deeper into social justice advocacy and I hope to develop that aspect of our communal life in the coming years. 

Demonstrating the link between Jewish engagement and sacred purpose is a tougher sell. It was actually easier when I was just singing. I began studying for the cantorate after a few people at our Los Angeles temple, where I was a frequent lay service leader, said to me, “When you sing, I feel closer to God.” I say this not to brag — it was always a surprise to me that I could do that — but to show how important connection to God is for many Jews. I would love for my congregants to explore different God-concepts and, in the process, their own souls.

If there is anything outside of the four propositions that informs my rabbinate, it is probably my goal of making Jews.  I do work with converts and encourage conversion to Judaism — that’s a door that should be flung wide open. But making Jews also means convincing Jewish seniors to foot the bill for their grandchildren’s attendance at Jewish summer camp; urging men to have a second bar mitzvah that means more than the one they had at thirteen; teaching biblical Hebrew to adults; inviting folks to sit at a shabbat table every month.

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Rabbi Cantor Ellen Jaffe-Gill is a former schoolteacher, a graduate of Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, and the author of three books. At present, she is spiritual leader of Tidewater Chavurah, a small “congregation without walls” in Virginia Beach, VA.

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Extending our Values to all God’s Creatures

2019 Cohort, Melissa Hoffman 1 Comment

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 the treatment of animals is too distant and narrow for the challenges our food systems pose for us today. We live in a time of factory farming, a phenomenon our sages couldn’t have fathomed. And yet, Judaism has a robust tradition for interpreting and navigating the human-nonhuman relationship in every genre of Jewish text. Before JIFA was launched, I conducted formal research interviewing Jewish leadership across the country which found that “animals in contemporary Jewish settings… are of interest to people as a topic of Jewish education and experiential programming, and relationships with animals in general are both fundamentally important to many people and raise serious issues that often lack a developed contemporary dialogue.” JIFA has responded to this desire for such dialogue.

 

JIFA’s educational curriculum both enhances the educational resources offered by partner organizations with mission-aligned work, and creates novel opportunities for Jewish community members to explore the Jewish value of compassion for animals and its implications for ethical food choices. From resources like our educational signage developed for Jewish farms, to new sections in Hazon’s Food Guide, JIFA is combining forces with other innovators to bring a long-standing Jewish concern for animals to bear within our communal practice. Materials ranging from our comprehensive service-learning curriculum for b’nai mitzvah to our stand-alone text study guide on Jewish animal ethics, weave together classical Jewish text study with experiential Jewish and humane education to inspire new ways of thinking about animal welfare in Jewish tradition. 

 

Tzedek / Social Justice

JIFA leverages the buying power of Jewish institutions to align their supply chains with Jewish values like tzaar baalei chayim (concern about the suffering of all of God’s creatures) to change the way animals are raised for food. By offering educational tools and free consulting, we help ensure that institutions make successful transitions to source and serve food that is better for our communities, animals, and the planet. This is the essence of our justice work.

Jewish continuity takes on a much broader and basic existential meaning in the age of climate change. Young individuals aren’t only worried about the survival of their own communities and networks, but of the larger network of humanity, and the animals and ecosystems upon which our societies depend. JIFA is empowering Jewish communities to be part of the solution. Our work broadens our conception of tzedek by educating about these intersections within our food system. The food system does not exist in a vacuum, and animal welfare, worker rights, supporting local economies, addressing world hunger, and protecting the environment are not isolated issues. We urge communities to address this complicated web of abuse and oppression by meeting each individual and institution where they are at and supporting incremental change. By leveraging our communal and institutional buying power, we can indeed tip the balance towards a future free of destructive and abusive factory farms. 

Kedusha/Lives of Sacred Purpose and Kehilla/Community 

JIFA provides individuals with new entry points to connect to Judaism—especially to those who care about animals and where their food comes from. Food is also at the center of almost any Jewish gathering. JIFA’s work responds to a growing need among Jewish families and individuals to find communal support and celebration in venues that reflect their personal ethical values. By helping Jewish institutions align their choices with values like environmental consciousness and animal welfare—a growing and well-documented top concern among the consuming public—we are helping Jewish institutions and independent Jewish communities achieve more humane food practices that are important to their members. As Schwarz notes, especially in an age where, “there are even more Jews involved in groups that gather with a Jewish focus other than prayer,” there is perhaps an even greater opportunity to engage people for whom ethically produced food is a key part of their spiritual experience and practice. 

JIFA also advances the purpose of kehillot as culture-makers and changers. One way that JIFA departs from many other emerging initiatives in the Jewish community is that it was founded by a secular organization whose religious outreach takes seriously the impact that religious leaders and communities have on the greater world. Religious institutions often play a gatekeeper role for mobilization on topics of social concern, and engaging religious institutions is a crucial factor for gaining wide acceptance for factory farming alternatives. JIFA’s work therefore aims not only to keep mainstream Jewish institutions relevant to Jews with these values, but to inspire cultural shifts that transcend institutional settings and change the way our entire nation eats and farms. 

Interreligious Partnerships

Jewish Megatrends emphasizes the need for looking to other religious traditions for inspirational wisdom, and JIFA’s work strives to not just learn from, but work with other faith-based communities. Our mutual cooperation not only helps us achieve a shared agenda for change; it achieves our mission to carry out advocacy that “strengthens Jewish communities in the process.” By working in relationship with other religious leaders and faith-based initiatives, the Jewish approach to animal welfare takes unique shape and texture in relation to its other religious counterparts and has the potential to help strengthen the Jewish community’s attachment to its own heritage. For example, since its inception, JIFA has partnered with groups like the Humane Society of the United States, where JIFA has played the faith outreach department’s de facto “Jewish arm” for engagement around legislative campaigns. JIFA has secured multiple op-eds from Jewish clergy and leaders on vital ballot measures and federal regulations that impact animal welfare. Jewish readership not only learned about farmed animal welfare legislation, but saw their leader’s position as one rooted in core Jewish values. Through multi-religious partnerships, we demonstrate how collaborative work can respect the particularity of each tradition while fueling the collective energy to effect large-scale change.

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In her role at the Jewish Initiative for Animals, Melissa Hoffman consults with Jewish organizations across the country to develop and implement ethical food practices, as well as curriculum and programs that foster compassion for all living beings through the lens of Jewish values. 

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Challenging the Jewish Establishment on Israel/Palestine

2019 Cohort, Becky Havivi 0 Comments

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 movement were motivated by a commitment to justice in the Middle East (for Israelis and Palestinians), rooted in their Jewishness, as evidenced by the movement’s name – an allusion to Hillel’s three questions in Pirkei Avot.

The first IfNotNow gathering consisted of young Jews dressed in black, singing songs in Hebrew, reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish, and reciting the names of all who had been killed, both Israelis and Palestinians (during the 2014 war in Gaza). They stood outside of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and called on the American Jewish community to condemn the war in Gaza and support and end to the Occupation. 

These young Jews felt heartbroken and outraged by the rising death toll in Gaza, confused and ashamed about how to relate to violence enacted by Israel, and deeply alienated from mainstream Jewish organizations, that all stood unequivocally with Israel, without nuance.  

Mainstream Jewish institutions are dominated by a political stance that is “pro-Israel-at any-cost,” an ethos that can be understood by Schwarz’s articulation of the concerns and motives of “tribal Jews.” As described in the opening of Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Community, tribal Jews are concerned with “threats to Jewish survival, both from enemies of Israel and the Jewish people and from the rampant assimilation within the Jewish community. …Tribal Jews have a strong affinity for the State of Israel because it is the most public manifestation and validation of the Jewish people’s existence and survival.” Schwarz notes that this mentality is widespread among an older generation of Jews, many of whom lead and shape mainstream Jewish institutions. Therefore, this unwavering commitment to the State of Israel has come to dominate the mainstream Jewish community, and has become the status quo. 

Within this framework, IfNotNow’s founding can be understood as a refusal to let our generation’s relationship to Israel (and Palestine) be defined by a mainstream Jewish community, composed primarily of tribal Jews. Since the summer of its founding, the movement has found its footing and defined its goals. IfNotNow not only represents a rejection of the Israel-right-or-wrong politics that have defined our community for so long, but seeks to lead the way in transforming the American Jewish community’s relationship to the Occupation in Israel/Palestine.  

In the opening of Jewish Megatrends, Schwarz contrasts tribal Jews with “covenantal Jews” who “feel an affinity to Judaism … because of the ethics and values that Judaism has brought into the world.” Without having taken a poll, I’d venture to guess that the vast majority of IfNotNow’s membership would see themselves in this description. While Schwarz acknowledges the central role that a commitment to justice plays for millennial Jews as a cornerstone of their Jewish identity, applying this commitment to justice with respect to Israel is underexplored in this essay. 

Schwarz writes, “Because next-generation Jews more closely identify as covenantal Jews than as tribal Jews, the only way to reach them is to make sure that the Judaism they experience as youth reflects Judaism’s millennial commitment to tzedek, justice.”  At this moment in history, there is no shortage of experiences, fellowships and entire organizations that exist at the intersection of justice and Judaism, addressing issues related to the environment (Hazon), hunger (Mazon), and more. An entire sector now exists under the umbrella of the Jewish Social Justice Roundtable. And yet, the vast majority those organizations, such as Avodah or Bend the Arc, remain deafeningly silent when it comes to Israel. And so, despite a vibrant sector of Jewish organizations that cater to the commitment to justice that defines this generation’s relationship to being Jewish, when it comes to Israel, there is often silence, erasure and/or cognitive dissonance. The values that undergird this whole sector, defining a “Jewish” relationship to social issues in our midst, somehow get suspended when applied to Israel, Palestine, and the Occupation. 

Thus, IfNotNow is the logical outgrowth of a generation that is guided by a commitment to justice and rejects the notion that this commitment can somehow gloss over what is happening in Israel/Palestine. Schwarz writes, “the future vibrancy of the Jewish community depends on leaders of the Jewish community reaching out to this constituency [covenantal Jews] and finding ways to reach them, even as it will challenge many long-standing assumptions of what the Jewish community should look like.” We agree. And reaching our generation means applying a commitment to justice across the board. IfNotNow believes that the future vibrancy of the Jewish community depends on addressing the daily nightmare of the Occupation for those who live under it and the moral catastrophe that it represents for those who administer it. 

A quick note on Birthright Israel

In discussing the shifting relationship to Israel between an older generation of primarily “tribal Jews” and a younger generation of “covenantal Jews,” Schwarz cites a study that describes a diminishing emotional attachment to Israel as a threat to Jewish continuity and links this shift to growing rates of intermarriage. This chapter asserts that the most significant intervention in altering the trajectory of that trend is Birthright Israel, and lauds the 10-day free trip for its “ability to significantly impact the attitudes and behaviors of next-generation Jews on matters related to Jewish identity and ties to the State of Israel.” The fact that the impact of Birthright Israel is articulated as a net good without examining the costs is problematic.

While Birthright’s reach is impressive, as are its lasting impact on trip participants in their Jewish identity formation, the sanitized, simplistic and jingoistic portrait of Israel that is presented to trip participants comes at a cost. In many ways, Birthright can be understood as a well-funded effort of “tribal Jews” to indoctrinate the next generation into their belief system through a transformative free program that links Jewish identity unequivocally to the State of Israel. This puts many of the younger generation in a bind; they are essentially being asked to check their values of universalism, justice and human dignity at the door, as they tour a Disneyland-version of Israel with Birthright. Those who ask questions or offer critique are silenced or kicked off the trip. 

The lines of what is acceptable or unacceptable have been drawn by an older generation that requires blind support of Israel, right-or-wrong. For so many millennial Jews, this experience of silencing dissent around a sanitized portrayal of Israel, exemplified by Birthright Israel, leads many to feel that there is no place for them within the organized Jewish community. IfNotNow sees the organized perpetuation of a simplistic and tribalistic relationship to Israel and a rigidity around what kind of critique is permissible as a greater threat to Jewish continuity than intermarriage.

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Becky Havivi is a community organizer, facilitator, strategist and resource mobilizer within the progressive Jewish sphere. She currently works full-time supporting IfNotNow, with a particular focus on cultivating the infrastructure and resources needed to support a mass movement (i.e. fundraising, finance/operations, staff support, and more!)

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An Intercultural Minyan in Washington D.C.

2019 Cohort, Mo Golden 0 Comments

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 institutions. Today’s America looks very different. It is not just the synagogue as an American institution that is changing. All identity, power, religion, and communication structures have changed drastically in the past few decades. Capitalism, assimilation, and technology have impacted our culture significantly, and in different ways for each generation. This has made the needs of each generation different from the next. And the change isn’t stopping; it’s actually speeding up.

In the preface of his essay, Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future, Rabbi Sid Schwarz states, “I believe that over the course of the next decade there is a unique opportunity for cross-fertilization between the established institutions of the American Jewish community and the robust innovation sector of American Jewish life. If each side recognizes the value of the other and commits to a program of collaboration, I believe that we are on the verge of a renaissance of American Jewish life.” 

For the most part, today’s Jewish institutions are responding to questions, challenges, and social structures of the past. They are asking how to get more young people in the doors, rather than asking how to get resources and support into the hands of, not just young people, but people operating in the new paradigm of the changing world. I find the idea of collaboration, as Schwarz describes it, between the old and the new, inspiring and hopeful. And it raises many questions: How does this mutual respect and collaboration happen? What is standing in the way of it happening right now? What would the collaboration look like? How do innovators get space without being bogged down by the conservatism of institutions and bureaucracy? How do institutions protect themselves against moving too fast or iterating too much? How can the differences between the old and the new become a sacred tension, rather than a polarization?

The Minyan of Thinkers CONNECT Cohorts are approaching these challenges and questions in a radically different way than any other Jewish initiative I have been a part of. The CONNECT approach is to create space for people to have conversations about difficult topics, with people they may not otherwise meet. We ignite socially conscious young people to make positive change in the world by bringing them in community and brave conversation with each other through an exploratory learning experience that includes discussing scholarly texts, engaging activities, and sharing our lived experiences. It is simple. And within its simplicity lies the magic. The encounters aren’t trying to solve a problem or elicit answers. CONNECT’s values are: curiosity, bridge building, equity, hospitality, continuous improvement, and diversity. The project’s central focus is social justice and one of the vehicles for this work is community. It is a receptive space that models deep listening and encourages participants to cultivate curiosity and positive regard. 

Many institutions recognize the trends and problems that we are facing today. And many build programs and design events that aim to appeal to millennial Jews, or unaffiliated Jews, or intermarried couples. While I think this is valuable work that is helping in the Jewish field, I think there is a step missing. We are at a pivotal moment in American Jewish history, as many people recognize. As Schwarz calls it, “a renaissance of American Jewish life.” But we are not at the stage of the process where we solve the problems or answer the questions. We are at the stage where we need to understand more deeply. CONNECT’s curiosity, receptivity, and welcoming of challenge are all precisely what is needed at this stage in the process.

The content and process of CONNECT addresses social justice issues, builds community, and supports wisdom as participants become more knowledgeable and articulate about social issues. Each cohort centers on a different topic. Some are explicitly Jewish, and attract Jewish participants. Other topics are broader or more multifaceted, and attract a more diverse group of people. The Jewish field does not exist in a vacuum. The diversity and interconnectedness of our society impact us as Jews, and is changing the face of Judaism. And the challenges facing the Jewish world are impacting other groups too. By connecting with one another and learning about our changing world from different angles, we not only learn more about our neighbors, we see ourselves more clearly. As the world becomes more interconnected, across identities and geography, it becomes increasingly important to approach the questions we have for the Jewish field within a broader context. To this end, I see great value in CONNECT’s model for cultivating multicultural minyans for rigorous learning and unlikely community building.

While social justice, community, and wisdom are central pillars of CONNECT, there is an underlying value that runs throughout. And it is one that, if present, would make many Jewish initiatives more successful. It is the respect for natural cycles, for the gradual unfolding of a process. CONNECT is addressing the pressing issues of our time. But the project is not aiming to fix or change the issues. CONNECT is an effort to clarify our questions, to understand more deeply where we are at this moment in history, and to strengthen our ability to be in the moment with what is happening around us.

My experience as an experiential educator and expressive arts facilitator has informed my approach as Curriculum Designer and User Experience Expert at CONNECT and it has also influenced how I see CONNECT’s role in the Jewish field. I have grown to understand that a process doesn’t make sense when you’re in the middle of it. I would never ask a student, while living with a host family in a rural village thousands of miles away from home, what they learned from the experience or what they will do with that learning. The student won’t know what they learned until they have returned home. And they won’t know what they will do with the learning until opportunities present themselves. So, as an educator with the student abroad, my role is to support the student to live in the moment as fully as possible. I encourage them to engage with their host family, try new foods, soak in the experience as much as possible. This same educational approach is needed right now in Jewish institutions and I see CONNECT leading the way. 

In its simplest form, what I am talking about is mindfulness. Within Jewish institutions, we need to train our minds to be present, to build awareness, and to resist the temptation to jump to conclusions or fix what we don’t like. We need to give ourselves, and our constituents, permission to be mid-process. Like in personal meditation, if institutions would adopt this approach, I think it would have a counterintuitive effect: rather than leading to inaction, witnessing and reflection leads to more impactful and intentional action. This way of being also forms a sense of arrival and deep belonging, which are not only sorely needed in the Jewish community, but are feelings that inspire people to take care of communities and invest in them. In fact, the greatest counter to assimilation and the negative impacts of capitalism is to offer people a sense of belonging and arrival. 

As I see it, the tendency to jump to conclusions and look for solutions stems from a strong wish for arrival and well-being. But a true sense of arrival and well-being is not cultivated through striving, but through learning to be with what is. When we learn to be with what is, we are more able to connect with people we disagree with, explore complex topics, and understand painful situations without turning away. CONNECT’s respect for process underlies every aspect of the project and is what enables its other tenants of social justice, community, and wisdom to exist. 

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Mo Golden, M.A. is an artist and educator with expertise in immersive/experiential learning, intercultural training, and healing ancestral trauma through the expressive arts. She has worked with organizations such as HIAS, Avodah, Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, and Asylum Arts and she has lived/worked in Spain, Nicaragua, Peru, Argentina, and Ecuador.

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Jewish Community: The Other Side of Plenty

2019 Cohort, Asher Gellis 0 Comments

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 generation, before them, felt that Judaism was limited to praying, studying, keeping kosher and Shabbat, which failed to inspire many of them. This gave birth to a generation of Jews who became merely cultural without understanding the essence of Judaism, which is rich and nuanced. Lacking inspirational infrastructure to support, what I argue, was that generations’ untapped paradigm shift; a shift that saw massive numbers of Jews confused about what it meant to be Jewish. Was it a religion? Was it a culture? Was it an ethnicity? Was it a nationality? Generally, it was understood that to be affiliated meant one of two things: 1) a synagogue membership; or 2) on the rare occasion that one existed in close enough proximity, involvement with a local JCC.

My boomer dad studied for his Bar Mitzvah and grew up in a kosher home. After his Bar Mitzvah, he never went to shul again. As a teen he didn’t care about keeping kosher and, as an adult, his only connection to Judaism was some internal gut sense that he was a Jew. He was aware though of an inherited ethnic identity, mostly sustained from a passing sense of anti-Semitism that he experienced. My mother had no formal Jewish education, but rather a simple understanding that she was a Jew, also reinforced as an adult by her awareness of the anti-Semitism that surrounded her. 

Together, they raised my brother and me in the Conservative Movement. In our relative bubble, shielded from anti-Semitism, we had amazing Jewish experiences, but we understood we had to take what there was- the belief that there was only one way to do Jewish. It was hard to get passed the never-ending, Holocaust education, with “never again” repeated many times. This only served to re-traumatize and reinforce epigenetic anxiety on another generation of Jews. Beyond that there were celebrations of being Jewish with music, social action, spiritual exploration, and communal culture, but we had to fit perfectly into the community’s expected norms. If we ventured outside of the construct, we received a message from the Jewish community, albeit unintentionally, that we had no place.

Through Jewish formal and informal education, which highlighted social justice (tikkun olam), we were given tools that could rarely be used within the institutional Jewish community. This only reinforced the idea that we had all outgrown the existing institutions. We couldn’t use these tools in our community because our community was set in stone. We were often made to believe that things would remain as is- immovable, unchangeable, and not wanting to be transformed. We could wrestle with text but Jewish law was final. The very thought of changing our Judaism was blasphemous and left to esteemed rabbis we would never meet.

The boomer generation of lawyers and doctors brought in more money to the community in the US and gave birth to a generation of teachers, activist, and non-profit professionals. We largely broke the expected continuity norms set for us. Outside of our Jewish world it became an era of pick and choose. A meal was no longer the trifecta of a broiled animal protein, a baked starch, and boiled frozen vegetables at 6pm sharp. It was one of juice cleanses for days, a burrito too large to finish, or a vegan diet. 

Then, bam, the online reality hit us and today we find ourselves in the app world created by millennials, a generation removed from the boomers. It is the most personalized world we could ever live in; all of it is within reach while we never have to leave the comfort of our own bed. We have all this power at our fingertips and now, shockingly, we find ourselves lonely. Record numbers of young adults are in need of emotional support, animals to fight their growing internal sense of self-imposed isolation. 

We are at a pivotal moment and the Jewish world has an opportunity to create a plethora of ways of being in Jewish community. The need for community has become more desirable and sought after as a remedy to our increasing impersonal lives, as we struggle to combine our online virtual experiences with ones that are face to face. This presents a great opportunity for creating a paradigm shift for changing Jewish identity, organizing and, engagement for Gen Xers and millennials. 

It is not through Jewish education online or in the classroom that we will enable individuals to feel they can put their values as Jews into action, but through intentional community experiences. These experiences must be authentically transformational at their core and not the traditional transactional cookie-cutter institutional programming.  

JQ’s work enables community members to feel they can help change the world and have Jewish community all at once. The people we serve are given the opportunities to be leaders. They contribute on their terms but work within group experiences.  They get to use their desire for social justice to plot course corrections within the Jewish community while being a part of it.

Conceived, developed, and executed by a millennial on our professional team the Persian Pride Fellowship (PPF) is a prime example. Providing LGBTQ+ and ally millennials a community within a community. Allowing them to be change makers in the Jewish community, specifically within their own Persian Jewish community. 

PPF, a leadership program, trains and inspires LGBTQ+ and ally Persians to gain the skills with which to impact inclusion and equality. The cohort-based fellowship provides participants with advocacy training, activist resources, and tangible tools customized to help them move equality forward, addressing the unique needs of the Persian Jewish community. Reversing the long-experienced sense of excommunication and hostility from their own religious and spiritual upbringing by empowering them from within the community to repair our Jewish world. 

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Asher Gellis is the founder and executive director of JQ International, a pioneering LGBTQ and ally Jewish community building and direct service organization that has transformed the landscape of the Jewish world. His innovative and cutting-edge identity building programs have engaged, inspired, and supported activists across the world in their efforts to create and build queer Jewish community and design programs that foster the healthy fusion of LGBTQ and Jewish identities. 

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Beyond Fear-Driven Survival

2019 Cohort, Kohenet Rachel Galper 0 Comments

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 seekers of lives of sacred purpose (dorshei kedusha). This is a lovely container for the work that many of us are doing. However, Schwarz’s essay also gives evidence that the organized Jewish community is not listening to the very Jews it needs to speak with and engage (not all of whom are young). We are a long way from the vision of the Talmudic quote. 

The organized Jewish community frames the issue of Jewish disengagement in ways that I find deeply problematic. They see threats to the survival of the Jewish people because of: 

  • the dramatic drop in Jewish identification and affiliation due to the successful integration of Jews into American society; 
  • the weaker commitment of next-generation Jews that need to be “brought into the Jewish community” or be permanently lost;
  • shifts of power from the US and Europe (an unsubstantiated assumption), and globalization (now being challenged by nationalism, extremism, and xenophobia); 
  • the battle for direction among the world’s Muslims; 
  • new security challenges including the Iranian threat (not new and not among the most pressing security threats);
  • anti-Semitism and efforts to delegitimize Israel; 
  • and the division of the American Jewish community into two, roughly equal divisions: one healthy and engaged in all aspects of Jewish life—religious, cultural and political; the other division is near bankruptcy (wow) due to soaring intermarriage rates with low rates of conversion by the non-Jewish spouse, birth rates below replacement levels, and a dramatic decline in Jewish philanthropy for Jewish causes and membership in major Jewish organizations. 

I do agree that the organized Jewish community is in peril. And I applaud all efforts to revitalize it that are inclusive and progressive in nature. However, this peril is not necessarily a bad thing. As the Schwarz essay mentions, within the malaise lies the seed of the solution. Unconventional and amazing ways of being Jewish are growing and thriving everywhere in the U.S. and often go either unnoticed or deliberately disregarded within Jewish conventional communities that actively refuse to grapple with changing and evolving Jewish identity and practice. 

Grouping Jews into tribal and covenantal categories dramatically oversimplifies and distorts the nuances and trends in our Jewish communities and how Jews identify themselves. The assumption that inter-marriage is a menace to Jewish identity is a fundamentally racist and classist notion. Growing numbers of Jews feel that Torah narratives and the liturgy of our worship services are deeply skewed in ways that feel oppressive and alienating. Using that inherited language should not be the main litmus test for being a good Jew. 

Minyanim and havurot (creatively and expansively defined) are actively addressing the needs of growing numbers of Jews who seek alternatives to mainstream and synagogue-based Judaism. Pouring money into decidedly biased Jewish educational institutions and trips to Israel that are designed to garner support for, what many feel is, a repressive regime is not the way to ensure our survival as a people. This is a regressive and fear driven measure that focuses on economic and geo-political survival at the expense of our integrity and soul as a people. 

We need to embark on a brave and potentially heart rendering analysis of the ways that Jews maintain and exert power within our communities that actively marginalize and oppress others within and beyond it. We must explore whose agendas we are furthering and why. We must embrace the notion that activism, community, deep spirituality, and seeking wisdom are at the very heart and soul of what it means to be Jewish.  We must give voice to the fact that avoiding elephants in the room runs contrary to Jewish resiliency as well as to spiritual growth and practice. 

If we want to survive as a people, we must position ourselves at the very edges and at the forefront of a revolution in which every life is sacred and protected. Too much of the effort to insure Jewish survival is driven by monetary concerns and the perpetuation of existing Jewish institutions. Many of the leaders of the established Jewish community fear that if younger Jews do not engage in the institutions that these leaders head up, that Jews will somehow cease to exist as a people. I don’t think that is true. Rabbinic Judaism, including synagogues, are an important part of our history and have sustained us to until now. I value their contribution and hope they remain part of our community. However, I do not think they should or will remain at the center of Jewish communal life. I would suggest that Jews are nothing if not resilient, and that we will continue to recreate and re-invent ourselves as we have in the past. 

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Kohenet Rachel Galper is the founder of Our Sacred Circles in Durham, NC, a multi-faith women’s collaborative that supports women activists, artists, educators, healers, and caregivers. She is a spiritual guide, ritualist, magic maker, arts educator, and activist. 

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The Alberta Shul: Building Kehilla Through the Lens of Tzedek

2019 Cohort, Eleyna Fugman 0 Comments

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.”

The Alberta Shul is a model for this thesis. We are a group of Jews who have all experienced marginalization from mainstream Jewish communities, mostly because we belong to groups that have experienced targeting or oppression, not just in the Jewish community, but in the world at large.  We are also a group that feels empowered in our Jewish identities and know that we can make a home for other Jews like ourselves. In our first two years, we have been able to do this. Much of our success has been based on the fact that our core team members are of the very constituencies we hope to serve. 

Within our small core team one will find many marginalized groups represented. We are queer Jews; we are Jews of color; we are young Jews (20’s and 30’s); female Jews; Jews of mixed parentage; single Jews; childless (by choice) Jews; Jewish elders; working class and poor Jews; secular Jews; Jews with disabilities; Jews raised outside Jewish communities; Jews by choice; and unaffiliated Jews.  A majority of us are under 40. A majority of us are from mixed parentage, with one parent who is Jewish and one who is not (both matrilineal and patrilineal.) A majority of us were not raised in practicing Jewish homes. A majority of us are not currently affiliated with a synagogue. 

We all passionately love being Jewish. We all love Jewish practices and Jewish traditions. We all love Jewish music and Jewish celebration. A few of us love Jewish prayer, a few do not. A few of us love Jewish learning. A majority of us have a background in activism. We see that building an alternative Jewish community, a home for Jews who feel themselves to be at the margins, is an act of tzedekah.

Infusing Tzedek in our Daily Work

When we think of tzedek in many of our Jewish organizations we often look outside our communities. We raise money for and volunteer at food banks; we send money and supplies to impoverished countries.

The Alberta Shul is focused on social justice. Many of our core team and volunteers come from an activist background. One of the inspirations behind our initial vision of preserving a small building in northeast Portland that was once used as a synagogue, was the way the building was passed gracefully and with much integrity by the Jews who had used it to an African-American Christian congregation, to the dismay of the neighborhood. 

One way that we thought about tzedek infusing our work was to build our leadership team slowly and thoughtfully so as to insure proper access and representation to a broad cross-section of the Jews we hoped to serve.  One of the advantages of going slowly is that you are less likely to have “blind spots” in your organizational culture. One of our initial intentions has been to start by addressing issues of social justice and injustice at home– to explore the issues of oppression that we see within ourselves and within our small group, in order to gain the experience and skills to act together in the world and to lead our community in that work. 

This means that we take 20-25 min at each meeting to read and discuss articles about anti-Semitism, anti-Jewish oppression, sexism, racism, classism and the internalization of these oppressions.  It also means that we try to make decisions collaboratively, mindful of the privilege and power that we have within our small group and listening to each other’s voices. It also means that we have moved away from hierarchy. As the Havurah movement modeled in its formative years in the 1970’s, one of the goals of our shul is to avoid building a Jewish community around a central leader. Instead we see ourselves as a leadership team. We take turns facilitating meetings and building agendas. 

We meet bi-monthly, intentionally building in plenty of communal time. In addition to our event planning, administrative tasks, and fundraising efforts, we take time in each meeting to offer kavod to one another, to check in, share personal stories, sing, joke, watch a video and we always, always eat together! This builds resilience. Resilience enough so that when we realized after 15 months of intense fundraising together to buy the crumbling “Alberta Shul,” that we would not have enough money to pursue this original dream and that it would be impractical to do so, we knew and trusted one another enough to figure out how to change course dramatically and keep our group intact.

Results of this Work

We have seen that moving slowly and deliberately has brought us success. We have hosted 10 events since June 2017–our largest being a raucous neighborhood Purim parade with a local brass band, a wild Hannukah Party with local Klezmer band and a perfect Portland-style “Bike Through Sukkah,” event and Kabbalat Shabbat gathering. With these and a few more small outreach events and almost no advertising we have convened over 400 people and now have over 500 people who follow our work via Facebook. We have received over 120 unique donations. We have gathered over 1000 volunteer hours. I believe that our ability to easily attract this large following (most of which fall into categories listed above) demonstrates that we are doing is resonating with a significant cross-section of young Portland Jews.  

Our next step is to slowly grow our leadership team, incorporating more voices, creating steady programming that is grassroots, DIY, and that supports our community to build Jewish programs that speak to their needs, abilities, and desires. I believe that we have laid the groundwork to now propel ourselves forward in our goal to build a healthy, thriving and equitable community for Jews on Portland’s east side.

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Eleyna Fugman is a full-time Jewish community organizer, based in Portland. She works both within and outside the organized Jewish community to create spaces for marginalized Jews: young Jews; unaffiliated Jews; Jews of mixed parentage/heritage; radical Jews; Jews of color; and Jews finding their way towards Jewish ritual and community.

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