Serious Fun

This week's annual United Jewish Appeal
Young Leadership Conference mixed glamour with a call to action.

JAMES D. BESSER
Special to The Jewish News

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range of self-improvement interests,
from Jewish spirituality to advice-
column pop psychology, and at the
same time a renewal of interest in
Israel, which they say had been
dwindling at recent UJA conven-
tions.
"There is a real interest in making
personal connections to Israel that I
think has surprised some people,"

t was a moment that almost
perfectly defined this week's
United Jewish Appeal National
Young Leadership Conference
in Washington:
In one section of the vast
Washington Hilton ballroom, hun-
dreds of young Jews lis-
tened intently as special
U.S. peace envoy
Dennis Ross and Israeli
Ambassador Eliahu
Ben-Elissar gave sharply
differing views of the
current Israeli-
Palestinian stalemate.
Just a few feet away,
in an equally crowded
area of the partitioned
hall, Rabbi Debra
Orenstein, leader of a
synagogue on Long
Island, exhorted listen-
ers to find "spiritual
epiphanies" in the
mundane, and Rabbi
Lawrence Kushner led
the crowd in stretching
exercises before exhort-
ing them to work
actively to bring more
spirituality and mean-
ing into their lives.
"The Kabbalists tell
us, if your back hurts,
it's no fun learning
anything," he said.
That mix — every-
thing from sessions on
raising Jewish children
to a rousing campaign-
style speech by Vice
President Al Gore —
represented the "yin
and yang of this confer-
Ron Klein, national UJA Conference co chairman.
ence: Israel and the
connection people feel
to the Jewish state on
one hand, and the personal quest for
said Rabbi Daniel Allen, executive
a more Jewish life on the other,"
director of the United Israel Appeal.
according to one Young Leadership
"This conference gives people a
veteran.
chance to focus on anything that
Longtime observers described a
may spark their interest in anything
continued shift in emphasis to a
Jewish," said Ron Klein, a confer-

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ence co-chair and one of more than
100 Detroit-area participants. "It
really gives people a sense of the
unparalleled freedom and opportuni-
ty we are fortunate to have as
American Jews." Klein, a veteran of
five previous conferences, said this
year's event, which ran from Sunday
through Tuesday, was different
because "in the past there was alway
an issue of imminent dan-
ger to focus on. This year,
we face the challenge of
motivating people and
raising their consciousness
without overwhelming
crisis."
The result is a shifting
focus "to our core values,
to what makes us different
as a people," Klein said.
UJA young leadership
gatherings are always a
yeasty mix — part singles
weekend, part spiritual
smorgasbord designed to
draw the young and the
detached back to a more
personal Judaism, and
part political action semi-
nar for tomorrow's lead-
ers.
And the glitzy
Washington event, in par-
ticular, is designed to
inculcate the habit of life-
long giving. Participants
are stroked and coddled
and told how important
they are — not an inaccu- i
assessment in a Jewish
world whose philanthrop-
ic structures are threat-
ened by assimilation and
epidemic apathy.
"This year, people are
talking about money
again," Rabbi Allen said.
"For a few years it was
taboo, but now we're
going back to UJA basics;
there are sessions on how to raise
money, how to solicit."
This year's conference represented
a continuation of the recent trend
toward more spiritual content.
"People asked for more spirituali-

