Jewish Middle from page 26
to Jewish life — must be nurtured
and expanded. It may be gratifying
that almost all Jews feel proud to
be Jewish, as Pew reported, but it
does little for the vitality of Jewish
communal endeavors if they fail to
participate actively in some form of
collective Jewish life.
How are we to counter these
alarming trends? Research conduct-
ed in recent decades demonstrates
that effective Jewish engagement
endeavors share three critical fea-
tures: they expand Jewish social net-
works, linking Jews to one another;
they incorporate Jewish content, so
as to demonstrate why rich Jewish
engagement is so meaningful; and
they bring together peers at the same
life stage to address common chal-
lenges.
To address the weak Jewish con-
nections among younger Jews, our
ideal communal agenda calls for
investing massively in immersive
forms of Jewish education for youth.
Critical are day schools, summer
camps (both day camps and over-
night) with Jewish content, teen trips
to Israel, youth movement activities,
Hillels and other campus endeavors,
Birthright trips and Masa (longer-
term trips to Israel), as well as a vari-
ety of programs to involve Jews in
their 20s and 30s in ongoing rather
than merely episodic Jewish living.
The overall goal is to ensure that
young people participate in multiple
Jewish venues so that synergies can
develop among them. For this to
happen, parents must be enlisted as
partners in socializing their children
into Jewish life.
Notwithstanding the years of
demographic losses, several move-
ments each continue to reach hun-
dreds of thousands of non-Orthodox
Jews. In numerically descending
order, we are thinking of Jewish
community centers, the Reform
movement, the Conservative move-
ment and, yes, federations. Any
reckoning with the shrinking Jewish
middle must resolve to rebuild
these legacy movements on a mas-
sive scale, even as it nurtures new
modes of innovation and repairs
relationships with the ever-growing
Orthodox world.
The task facing the American
Jewish community is immense,
requiring boldness, not Band-Aids.
In the past, American Jewry has
aided, if not rescued, endangered
Jewish communities around the
globe. Now the challenge is to mar-
shal the imagination, courage, will
and resources to rebuild the endan-
gered Jewish middle at home. ❑
Steven M. Cohen is research professor
at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish
Institute of Religion in New York City,
and Jack Wertheimer is professor of
American Jewish history at the Jewish
Theological Seminary, also in New
York City. View their jointly written
reanalysis of the Pew study at
mosaicmagazine.com/essaW2014/11/
the-pew-survey-reanalyzed.
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