34 | FEBRUARY 16 • 2023 

Y

ou paid your congrega-
tion dues for decades. 
You sent your children 
to religious school — maybe 
even a Jewish day school — and 
to Jewish camps. But do you 
feel confident that your chil-
dren and grandchildren will be 
Jewish in the decades to come?
That’s the question a panel of 
experts will try to address in a 
program co-hosted by Temple 
Kol Ami and B’nai Israel 
Synagogue in West Bloomfield 
at 11 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 26.
“The American Jewish com-
munity is facing intense demo-
graphic and social pressures 
that pose challeng-
es to Jewish identi-
ty and the viability 
of synagogues and 
other community 
institutions,
” said 
Steve Merritt, 
co-chair of Kol 
Ami’s membership committee. 
“Too often, synagogue buildings 
sit empty and underutilized 
most of the time. Too many 
Jews are ‘High Holiday Jews.
’”
The program will explore 
how Jewish identity is being 
redefined by forces such as later 
marriage, interfaith unions, low 
birth rates, declining affiliation 

and a society-wide drop in reli-
gious identification. Many syn-
agogues and Jewish institutions 
are seeing membership plum-
met, straining their finances. 
The panelists are involved 
in a variety of creative ways 
to engage Jewish 
adults and families.
Alicia Chandler 
is a doctoral stu-
dent in sociology 
at Wayne State 
University whose 
research interests 
include intermarriage in the 
American Jewish community, 
an issue she frequently address-
es in public. She is a past presi-
dent of the Jewish Community 
Relations Council/AJC, a 
current board member of 
the Jewish Federation of 
Metropolitan Detroit and 
president-elect of Temple Beth 
El. A graduate of the University 
of Michigan and Harvard 
Law School, she is founder of 
Multifaith Life LLC, a consult-
ing firm focused on including 
multifaith families in the Jewish 
community. Chandler also con-
ducts Jewish demographic stud-
ies through the Cohen Center 
for Modern Jewish Studies at 
Brandeis University. 

“I am thrilled to be talking 
about the research that we do at 
the Cohen Center at Brandeis 
and how it illustrates that there 
are so many different ways for 
people to connect with their 
Judaism,
” she said. “Judaism in 
the 21st century does not have 
to be one-size-fits-all. We create 
Jewish identity in so many dif-
ferent ways.
”

BENEFITS OF RITUAL
Erika Bocknek of Franklin, a 
psychologist and associate pro-
fessor at Wayne State University, 
will speak on reinforcing Jewish 
identity in children and increas-
ing adult Jewish engagement.
“Identity is meaningfully 
reinforced through habits and 
relationships,
” she said. “In 
everyday life, this means the 

practice of rituals and invest-
ment in family and community 
relationships.
”
Bocknek, who has three 
school-age children and is 
a member of 
Temple Israel, 
says families can 
reinforce Jewish 
identity at home by 
creating a culture 
of Jewish practice 
through specific 
rituals, such as 
Shabbat blessings and reciting 
the Shema at bedtime. A strong 
sense of identity is formed by 
meaningful experiences in rela-
tionships and habits repeated 
over time.
“Children benefit from ritu-
als because they make abstract 
ideas, like identity, accessible,
” 
she said. “When these rituals are 
embedded in loving relation-
ships, children learn not only 
how to be Jewish but rather 
what it means to be Jewish.
”
Congregations have tradi-
tionally offered critical spaces 
to form these relationships, she 
said. “Jewish adults who are 
not involved with a congrega-
tion must somehow recreate 
some of the important facets of 
congregational life: a place and 
time for rituals, mentoring and 
wisdom shared by clergy and 
educators, and opportunities for 
bidirectional conversation and 
engagement.
“Jewish identity is so much 
more than the passive receipt of 
knowledge,
” she said. 
“Community matters most.
”

COMMUNITY RESPONSE
Rebecca Starr, an educator and 
community organizer, is direc-
tor of regional engagement for 
the Shalom Hartman Institute 
of North America. She will 
speak about some ways the 
organized Jewish community 
might respond to current needs 
and how institutions have to 

OUR COMMUNITY

Will our children 
and grandchildren 
be Jewish?

Ensuring 
Jewish 
Continuity

Alicia 
Chandler

BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Erika 
Bocknek

Steve 
Merritt

