The Restart: Rethinking the American Jewish Organizing Model

As I have written elsewhere, 21st Century American Judaism represents a fundamentally different experience, requiring us to reconsider how we as a community are organized.  We find ourselves with a 19th Century communal legacy model, serving a 21st Century constituency, often representing a 20th Century agenda!

At a time of such significant social and political transformation, a re-envisioned Jewish institutional response would seem essential.  The 21^st Century is and will continue to bring forward new challenges impacting this nation, our Jewish community and Israel.  Not only are we a different community as a result of assimilation and changing cultural norms but we are living in an uncertain moment within the American democratic story. How we relate to our own community and connect with the public square will require us to rethink our strategies, policies and programs. We must explore a new American Jewish delivery system.

Today, we find ourselves operating through multiple competing expressions of American Judaism amidst a series of siloed organizations, competing for resources and brand recognition.  Umbrella and denominational structures, which at one time framed the American Jewish agenda both in terms of communal priorities and religious expression, today no longer are able to articulate a common or shared vision.

We identify a younger generation often removed and disconnected from this communal framework.  Institutional Judaism is responding to a narrow bandwidth of Jews, leaving outside of its walls a broad sector of uninvolved, assimilated audiences. Correspondingly,  we are encountering critical voices of discontent, feeling alienated and disconnected from the policies, practices and principles that define “organized” American Jewish life.

In acknowledging that the current framework may no longer best serve our community, how we organize ourselves moving forward ought to be the central tenet of this enterprise.  There will be many pieces to this restart, here are but a few:

How will our community, among others, be affected by the rise of authoritarianism, populism, and Christian Nationalism. Correspondingly, how ought we to respond to post-Modernism, critical race theory, intersectionality and other progressive political ideas that today are playing out in our educational and governing institutions. As our nation undergoes profound demographic and social change, a Jewish policy center can share ideas of how our tradition and our history may offer insights for this nation as a whole and the Jewish community in particular in connection with political practice, social upheaval, and cultural change. A Think Tank can explore how other faith and ethnic constituencies are confronting and responding to these new ideological and political challenges. This policy center would be able to examine the rise in anti-Semitism and racism, providing insights and recommendations concerning its impact on Jews and others. How we understand the new anti-Semitism and what are the best strategies for managing to contain and ultimately reduce its impact must be seen as a priority. Correspondingly, such an inquiry will need to explore the necessary policies, strategies and tactics that will help redefine the community relations priorities and programs that can best serve Jewish interests within the American political constellation. The immense changes underway regarding the place and role of Jews in America are likely to alter the status and security of American Jewry. A Think Tank can be proactive in unpacking how we best respond to the changing position of Jews and other groups within this society.

Following October 7^th how do we as a major Diaspora community reframe the case for Israel and reexamine the idea of Zionism before both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences? How will the unfolding events on the ground, both in Israel and here, impact Jews and their relationship to Israel and Zionism? What can we do to assist Jews, in all different settings, in being able to respond more effectively, while helping to re-envision the Diaspora-Israel connection and possibly reframe the Zionist narrative?  In turn, how might we reposition the US-Israel relationship, in light of both growing criticism in connection with this historic partnership.

As American religion undergoes a significant transformation in this century, how do we align our religious expressions with our public policy considerations? How can the public square best serve to enhance and support religious engagement and innovation? In turn, in what ways can 21^st religion in general bring meaning and insight to our broader society? Beyond the support of traditional religious structures, how else might we enable Jews to find entry points within our community in order to provide them with connection, community, education and involvement?

Even as our Jewish community has thrived in the American experience, in this particularly challenging moment, what different structural arrangements and policy considerations should drive our communal and religious enterprise?  How might we re-envision American Judaism for this new age?  As other racial, ethnic, and religious communities also undergo significant transitions, how might such a Think Tank explore the commonalities and differences among our respective faith communities, and in the process, offer more broadly insights and recommendations on the place and role of religious institutions in American life?

The central organizing principle for such an initiative will be to explore how our communal and religious structures moving forward can advance our interests, while serving the needs of our community and beyond, through the lens of religion and ethnicity, politics and culture, technology and innovation.