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Steven Windmueller
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Steven Windmueller
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Reconsidering the Jewish Organizing Model in an Age of Turmoil

Transformational changes are redefining the Jewish organizing model. As a result, we note major shifts impacting the Jewish religious and communal market space:

  • In periods of social upheaval, religious behaviors and patterns of c ommunal engagement become rewired. Often in such unsettled situations, individuals seek out community, resulting in institutional accommodations designed to be responsive to a changing landscape.
  • Correspondingly, in such periods of disruption, one’s identity as a Jew is itself redefined, as individuals renegotiate their beliefs and their practices.
  • Judaism and the Jewish experience represent a complex set of identity options, allowing for alternative gateways of Jewish connection and expression. And this becomes particularly evident in a period of civic threats and communal challenges.
  • At a time of political and social discord, new models of Jewish organizing are introduced, designed to be responsive to changing conditions and alternative needs.

Taking into account these principles, we want to explore how the Jewish communal and religious sectors are accommodating such transitions.

Creating the “Third Place”: One of the goals for contemporary religion is to be seen as providing a distinctive “brand” where its meaning and message give particular definition to why the synagogue or a sacred community holds special purpose and prominence, especially in the midst of external disruption and chaos.

Promoting the Idea of Belonging:  Connection becomes a particularly essential in an environment of uncertainty.  Being “Named, Known, and Needed” holds special value.

 Here, we can explore different models for constructing and promoting relational Judaism. In periods of instability, the value-added of being connected takes on additional significance.

Introducing the Moveable Feast: Religious communities have always understood that in difficult times observances and practices are altered to accommodate to the conditions and realities of a changing marketplace. How communities and more directly synagogues organize and operate provide us with insights into how effectively these institutions are responsive to external cultural and social upheaval.

Framing Nostalgia as a Resource: The power and place of memory and past experience can offer a propelling case for being “in community”, especially in crisis periods, where threats to one’s sense of purpose and wholeness are in play. The past is understood to represent a sense of security, at times shedding insights concerning the current situation, while also providing an anchor.

Multiple Pathways for Jewish Expression:

Four different models of connection are introduced: Communal or Collective; Affiliated or Member; Individual or Personal; and Relational or Shared

“Civil religion” involves Jewish public activism and is expressed through an array of advocacy, social service and Israel-oriented organizations.

“Affiliated Judaism” accounts for those Jews who identify and align with religious denominational belief and practice.

Privatized Judaism offers another network of engagement, where individualized connection with social media platforms and various forms of on-line participation and learning has replaced or supplemented in-person affiliation and membership.

Informal friendship networks define another framework of communalism and personalized connection. Relationships define and shape one’s Jewish identity, replacing the more formal affiliation or membership structure of belonging. 

Innovation and Engagement:

In this 21st Century fluid environment, four different Jewish organizing models are being examined.

Outside-In:  In this construct, we are seeing experimental efforts to launch a religious “alternative” by generating different delivery models. Here, we can identify four examples:

  • Third Space: https://www.thirdspacest.org/

These innovative responses have each been shaped by an innovative leader-teacher, by a defined focus on Jewish learning, and a particular emphasis on community and relationship. Each model places special focus on the element of discovery and the curiosity of engaging with Judaism!

Inside-Out: Employing the mantra that you can redo or reinvent an established institutional model, such efforts require visionary leaders, supportive and engaged funders, and a consumer audience open and committed to such offerings. Here, we are introducing two examples:

In each case setting, leaders envisioned an opportunity and creatively moved to fill the perceived vacuum, producing new and creative outcomes. Both of these organizing models are linked to two core and essential elements, securing the necessary financial resources, and identifying the creative visionaries to generate and deliver these program services.

Top-Down: Large umbrella/corporate structures can introduce innovative services and program models to their constituencies and in turn to the broader Jewish community. Chabad provides possibly the best example of this organizing framework.

Here, a core management model is employed in local settings and on college campuses. The religious “organizing model” becomes distinctively identified with the product itself.

Bottom-Up:  Over the past several decades, we have seen the emergence of new educational and learning initiatives, Israel, and Zionist information projects, including:

While in the case of “Inside Out” and “Top Down” models we saw traditional or legacy institutions reimagine themselves, here we can identify boutique or newly established organizing models that focus on unmet needs or provide alternative delivery mechanisms. As with the earlier examples, four essential characteristics define these initiatives:

  1. Meeting a core need of the community
  • Creatively managing its portfolio
  • Aligning a distinctive Jewish concern with the best organizing practices, and
  • Identifying and engaging visionary leaders, supportive funders, a receptive audience, or market, and embracing communications and marketing principles.

Reflections:

 The Jewish “religious economy” extends well beyond the walls of the synagogue and today incorporates a broad listing of personal and institutional choices. Today, Judaism represents the collective expression of these multiple forms of identity, engagement, and choice. Multiple institutional models are defining and reshaping 21st Century Jewish expression and identity.

In periods of such discord and disconnect, we will continue to monitor these multiple Jewish expressions of connectivity and study these various forms of innovation and organizing.

About the Author
Steven Windmueller, Ph.D. is an Emeritus Professor of Jewish Communal Service at the Jack H. Skirball Campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. Prior to coming to HUC, Dr.Windmueller served for ten years as the JCRC Director of the LA Jewish Federation. Between 1973-1985, he was the director of the Greater Albany Jewish Federation (now the Federation of Northeastern New York). He began his career on the staff of the American Jewish Committtee. The author of four books and numerous articles, Steven Windmueller focuses his research and writings on Jewish political behavior, communal trends, and contemporary anti-Semitism.