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T

he year was 2000, and Michael 
Steinhardt had just dropped a 
bombshell that nearly brought an 
otherwise dignified conference to blows. 
“I tend, in my dourest moments, 
to consider both the Reform and 
Conservative Jews as historic accidents 
in the 21st century and suspect, before 
the end of this century, 
they will have disap-
peared,
” he said. 
Steinhardt, 
along with Edgar 
Bronfman and Charles 
Schusterman, was in 
Chicago at a meeting 
of STAR: Synagogue 

Transformation and Renewal, which 
was ostensibly designed to find ways to 
get young people back into synagogue 
pews.
This and similar statements by 
Bronfman had understandably irked 
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, then-president 
of the Union for Reform Judaism. 
Undermining non-Orthodox syna-
gogues was not the way to encourage 
experimentation. 
“I’
m not going to get into a pissing 
match with Rabbi Yoffie over wheth-
er the Reform movement is a good 
movement or not because that’
s not 
the point,
” the secular Bronfman told 
me. “The point is, we have a crisis 

and I don’
t care how we go 
about getting young people 
involved in their Jewishness.
”
Of course, it turned 
out that the Bronfman-
Steinhardt answer was 
Birthright Israel. 
At the time of this dispute, 
I was the managing editor 
of the Jewish Telegraphic 
Agency. While covering the 
birth of Birthright, I often 
heard echoes of this deep 
depression and desperation 
among Jewish leaders to 
attract the young. 
Today, when Jewish lead-
ers talk about problems 
facing young Jews, it is often 
not their lack of affiliation 
that’
s in focus, but what they 
see as increased anti-Sem-
itism in the form of anti-Zionism on 
college campuses. There may be fewer 
young Jews in the pews now, but as 
Jewish Theological Seminary professor 
Jack Wertheimer told me, that’
s because 
millennials are waiting longer to have 
children. Many have yet to practice what 
Wertheimer calls “Judaism for peak 
moments” like bar and bat mitzvah or 
family-friendly holidays such as Purim.
Yet for some reason, young campus 
Jews on the front lines of this fight 
against anti-Semitism may never be 
counted among the affiliated if they 
never join a synagogue. It seems to be a 
lost opportunity if we did not find a way 

to welcome them into the fold. Anti-
Semitism has given them a heightened 
sense of Jewish identity, but the insti-
tutions aren’
t in place or are unwilling 
to offer them a positive path into the 
Jewish fold.
Though initiatives like STAR and 
Birthright begin to address the issue, 
there are too few places that welcome 
Jews who feel a renewed sense of 
Jewishness in response to anti-Semitism 
but don’
t necessarily feel comfortable 
attending shul.
Going through my 20-year-old notes, 
I am struck at how often Jewish lay and 
religious leaders voiced a fear that an 
end to anti-Semitism would further 
erode the tenuous connection young 
people had to Judaism. Ironically, the 
rise in Jewish activism in response to 
anti-Semitism could be an opportunity 
to find a place for them.
In 2019, while our institutions are 
hashing out the same arguments, 
American Jews are faced with an alto-
gether different existential crisis: the rise 
of American anti-Semitism. Now is the 
perfect time to truly reckon with what it 
means to be a Jew and who gets counted 
as a member of the tribe because people 
who never thought about their Judaism 
before are now constantly reminded of it 
by anti-Semites.
It is a sad contrast, the difference 
between the Jewish mood of 20 years 
ago and today. There is a renewed sense 
of solidarity and purpose among Jews of 
all denominations in light of the threat 

Howard Lovy
JTA.org

Anti-Semitism is 
Strengthening the 
Jewish Identity 
of Young People. 
Why Haven’t Our 
Organizations 
Embraced Them?

commentary

HADAS PARUSH/FLASH90

Young Jewish adults from all over the world participate in the Birthright Israel 

program in Jerusalem, Jan. 14, 2015.

continued on page 8

