points of view Commentary Guest Column from page 25 Floodgates Of Assimilation Omaha/JTA Participants of the African American Jewish Community Mission to Detroit pose at the Heidelberg project, one of their stops during a bus tour of Detroit. Back row: Allan Gale, Bloomfield Hills; QuanTez Pressley, Detroit; Ben Falik, Huntington Woods; Emily Kaplan, Washington; Roslyn Duman, Denver; Sarah Crane, Farmington Hills; Diane Fisher, San Jose; Joana Thurston, Jacksonville; Elana Fox, Washington; Rev. Thomas Fisher, San Jose; Cherrish Pryor, Indianapolis; Ariel Pearl-Jacobvitz, Oakland, Calif.; Irwin Venick, Nashville; David Sklar, Indianapolis. Front row: Marty Cooper, Scott Libman, Jim Vincent, all Providence, R.I.; Barbara Shannon-Banister, Aurora, Colo.; Nickolas Alexander, Jacksonville; Sharon Luckerman, Detroit; Rachael Malerman, West Bloomfield; Howard Gentry, Nashville. Nonetheless, we are committed to creating space where our communities — beginning with our own social cir- cles — more frequently and emphati- cally engage each other. The success of our common endeav- or depends entirely on others joining this dialogue. We want to hear from anyone and everyone — young or old, male and female — who wants to speak candidly, listen respectfully and Greenberg's View 26 August 4 • 2011 pursue common goals through service. If you'd like to be part of the con- versation — and the action — you can reach us at ben@werepair.org and pressleyq@detroitmi.gov. Ben Falik is manager of Detroit Service Initiatives for Repair the World. QuanTez Pressley is community outreach director and speechwriter for Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh. t least a portion of my home- town of Omaha may well be ‘atk under water in the coming days. Pumps are in place at various locations, including at a nuclear power plant not far from town. The Missouri River, which borders our Nebraska city, has risen to potentially dan- gerous levels. Some Omaha residents have taken to sandbagging to help rein- force critical locations along the river. This potential disaster mirrors the serious chal- lenge facing the non- Orthodox Jewish world. Non-Orthodox Judaism is confront- ed by rising levels of secularism that almost always lead to assimilation – a trend that within a generation or two could render Reform and Conservative Judaism largely irrelevant in North America (and abroad as well). Non- Orthodox Jews' general discontent with and resulting departure from Jewish life, left alone, stands to bring Reform and Conservative Judaism to a state of obsolescence. This prediction is neither original nor new. From studies about very high interfaith marriage rates to growing assimilation percentages, we should know by now that the non-Orthodox way of life is failing by just about every metric we have at our disposal. (I am not Orthodox, by the way.) This distancing from Jewish religious (i.e., God-based) teachings and ritual experiences inevitably leads to a dis- tancing from Jewish purpose. So Jews increasingly try to find their Judaic meaning in social/political causes (immigration reform, Supreme Court appointments, environmentalism, women's rights, etc.). Putting aside the merit of the positions taken, let's be honest: These tikkun olam [repair of the world] pursuits might feel good and even do some good, but they do little to build Jewish communities. If Jews continue to prioritize these social/political efforts over proven religious practices, we must have the courage to acknowledge that we have substituted all these secular causes for Judaism. We might insist that tikkun olam and social justice are central to our Jewish way of life, but they are increasingly taking the place of seri- ous Jewish education and Jewish practice. Those are the water pumps and sandbags employed by the Orthodox movement against the rising tides of assimilation. I watch with sadness as the semi- naries of our non-Orthodox move- ments lay off employees and close programs. National non-Orthodox day school attendance represents only a small percentage of Jewish children in the United States. And it's not because the economy started spiraling downward – the trends lead- ing to this point were in place long before. Orthodox Jews, for what- ever disagreements many non-Orthodox Jews have with them, have grown in number, and not only by sheltering themselves in haredi Orthodox communities. In contrast to the haredi Orthodox, the Modern Orthodox largely swim in the same secular waters as other Jews: They own televisions, use the Internet, attend secular universities and work and vacation in the secular world. But they also hold to a religious discipline that they believe is life improving. They observe Shabbat and the Jewish holidays, and they study Jewish texts in far greater numbers than non-Orthodox Jews. They are more likely to have children, and their children are far more likely to marry Jews and make Jewish homes. Judaism teaches us how to be bet- ter friends, businesspeople, husbands, wives and philanthropists. It tells us how to help the weak and when to fight evil. In short, Judaism done right makes us better human beings. It is the discipline of leading a traditional Jewish life that also reminds us how best to engage in repairing the world. Must every Jew become Orthodox to live a committed and meaningful Jewish life? Clearly not. There are, of course, great numbers of highly com- mitted non-Orthodox Jews. But as a community, at least for now, we'll be severely weakened if we don't acknowledge that we must repair our- selves far more urgently than we must repair the world. Joel Alperson is a past national campaign chair for United Jewish Communities. His views do not necessarily represent those of the Jewish Federations of North America, for- merly known as United Jewish Communities.