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Located in the of Southfield for over 40 years
7/23
2004
34
ecent editions
of the Jewish
News have
been filled with the
stories, lists and proud
congratulations about
graduates of Jewish
educational programs
ranging from pre-
JAMES
school to high school
AUGUST
Cominunity to yeshivot to adult
learning institutes. The
Perspective
accomplishments of
these students and
their supportive families, their teachers
and the communal organizations that
raise and allocate the millions of dollars
required to sustain these programs are
encouraging for the future health of the
Jewish community.
But, alas, knowledge is just a part of
what's needed.
The National Foundation for Jewish
Culture recently published its study on
"The Future of Jewish Culture in
America." The study was based on
interviews with 40 scholars, rabbis,
communal leaders, and artists across
the geography of Jewish life, from Yitz
Greenberg and Ismar Schorch to
Allegra Goodman and Tony Kushner.
One of the most interesting findings
related to whether we are experiencing
a Jewish cultural renaissance or decline
in America.
Almost everyone said, "Both. There
is evidence of both decline and renais-
sance at the same time."
The litany of decline was familiar:
intermarriage, late marriage, - low birth
rates, Jewish illiteracy, emotional dis-
tancing from Israel, generational dis-
tance from the immigrant. experience,
‘low affiliation rates, low synagogue
attendance, low contribution rates to
federations.
The evidence for renaissance, howev-
er, was quite diverse and surprising:
new Jewish music, Jewish literature,
Jewish film festivals, new-age Judaism,
Jewish feminism, Jewish education
both formal and informal, Jewish
James August of Bloomfield Hills is a
veteran advertising agency executive and
consultant. He chairs the National
Foundation for Jewish Culture, is a
member of the Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit board of governors
and serves on the ArtServe Michigan
executive committee. He was the found-
ing president of JET (Jewish,Ensemble
Theatre) and has been president of
Detroit Men's ORT and the Michigan
Jewish Conference.
museums, Jewish studies on campus,
Jewish presence in film and television,
Jewish political and philanthropic cul-
ture, Jewish publishing.
Supporting Revival
As Jonathan Sarna, professor of
American Jewish History at Brandeis
University in Waltham, Mass., put it,
We have both of these scenarios going
on simultaneously, and this, in fact,
reflects the great cultural battle of our
day. We are fighting about something
real. 'Continuity' is really an effort to
ensure that the revival wins out and
that the other is an epi-phenomenon."
The question comes down to the
strength of the competing trends. In
this regard, two different, but comple-,
mentary, values were asserted for "tip-
ping the balance towards renaissance.
One was to increase the level of Jewish
knowledge, primarily through educa-
tional initiatives. The other was to nur-
ture Jewish wisdom, primarily by sup-
porting creative artists and intellectuals
who bring fresh perspectives on the
consciously lived life — to help people
nurture and express their Jewish identi-
ties fueled by the increased knowledge.
The report concludes with a chal-
lenge to the leadership of the organized
Jewish community to devote more
resources to the cultivation of artists
and intellectuals. If we let them,
empower them, support them, tolerate
them and pay attention to them, our
artists and intellectuals can help insure
that the American Jewish community is
stronger, more vibrant and more cre-
ative than any in the 4,000-year history
of the Jewish people.
Unfortunately, our organized com-
munity's support of building knowl-
edge through education overwhelms its
support of developing a contemporary
American Jewish identity through artis-
tic and creative enterprise. Jewish
Federation of Metropolitan Detroit
allocations for education are in the mil-
lions of dollars. Endowment funds,
developed through Federation and its
allied United Jewish Foundation, pro-
vide significant additional dollars. Large
gifts by community leaders to educa-
tional institutions total many, many
millions more.
Yet community allocations or compa-
rable endowments to a parallel Jewish
cultural enterprise are virtually non-
existent.
This should not suggest th.t no such
Jewish cultural enterprise exists. The
JCCIewish Book Fair reaches 20,000