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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