Megatrends Book Tour

Introducing the Kenissa Network: A 21st Century Pathway into Jewish Life

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Twice in the past year I have published articles in eJP to introduce the work of the New Paradigm Spiritual Communities Initiative. Last week we had our second annual National Consultation, welcoming another 50 “creatives” into this unique network and we used the opportunity to re-brand the project as Kenissa: Communities of Meaning Network (http://www.kenissa.org/). It is important to explain the name change and to share how the Kenissa Network is evolving.

This article appeared in eJewishPhilanthropy on March 17, 2017.

The idea for Kenissa was generated by the thesis of my book, Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future. Succinctly put, I argued and brought evidence to bear that at the same time that legacy Jewish organizations are on the decline and, it seems, American Jewish life is deteriorating, there is a countervailing process on the Jewish landscape of emergent communities and organizations that represent the seeds of an American Jewish renaissance.

In 2015 we secured seed funding from the William Davidson Foundation (and since joined by other funders) to create a national initiative that is designed to find, convene and build capacity with the “creatives” who are driving the phenomenon I described in Jewish Megatrends. These creatives are building new organizations and communities across a range of sectors that don’t always interact with each other including: social justice; spiritual practice; independent minyanim; Jewish learning groups; eco-sustainability; and arts and culture.

Many of these organizations work under the radar screen of the organized Jewish community but they are actually more successful at attracting the Next Gen Jews than are legacy organizations. The founders of these organizations struggle to find the resources to properly finance their operations and many feel marginalized by the mainstream Jewish community because they tend to be culturally, religiously and politically edgy. But it would be a huge mistake to dismiss the phenomenon as a fad. These groups are very much a product of the internet DIY culture and the emerging social economic patterns of the 21st century. Over time, they will be ascendant even as legacy organizations are destined to age out and lose market share.

All of which helps to explain why we changed the name of the project. If you spend any time with millennials you learn that they hate to be put into boxes and labelled. To my mind, the diverse phenomenon that I described in Jewish Megatrends represented the emergence of a new paradigm for spiritual communities in America. But we learned from our Year 1 cohort that about a third of our participants did not see themselves as “spiritual communities” nor did they like the label. A label that did receive far more enthusiastic response was “communities of meaning” which we defined as “networks of individuals that are inspired by an idea or a practice that enriches their lives and/or significantly improve conditions in the world for others.”

Kenissa is a name that emerged from a small working group of participants. Even though a lot of (so-called) marketing gurus recommend against using Hebrew words to name an organization or project, the desire to anchor the work in lashon kodesh, “the holy language of our people”, was strong among the leaders we are pulling together. In addition, the word kenissa means “entrance-way”. It is the perfect word to describe the network of Jewish communities of meaning that we are building because, for so many, these organizations and communities open the door to many Jews who are not attracted by more mainstream Jewish organizations. Quite often, engaging with these Jewish communities of meaning represents the first exposure they are having to Jewish life as adults.

What’s next? We are growing the Kenissa Network quite intentionally and deliberately. First, for those who have already been invited into the Network, we are now launching a national network of communities of practice that will help leaders support each other in everything from fundraising to scaling as well as more cutting edge topics like “creating covenantal organizational cultures”. Network members will also have the opportunity to bring teams from their organizations to our National Cross-Training Gathering in December.

Second, we are helping to provide thought leadership to the Jewish community by sponsoring a weekly blog that addresses how these emerging communities of meaning are attracting people to their projects. For leaders of synagogues and Jewish organizations that are struggling to hold on to existing constituencies or are failing to attract new constituencies, the Kenissa Network blog provides important insights into the thematic portals that are motivating Next Gen Jews. (http://www.kenissa.org/)

Third, we are about launch a national mapping project to more effectively identify and understand the phenomenon of emerging Jewish communities of meaning in America today. We currently have identified several hundred leaders of such communities and we used that list to invite select individuals into the Kenissa Network during our first two years. But we suspect that there are hundreds of more such projects around the country and we hope that our mapping project will produce a robust database that will be of value to communal leaders and funders who are committed to the future vitality of the American Jewish community.

For anyone involved in creating new modalities of Jewish expression in North America, it would be beneficial to make yourself known via the national database we are developing. You may do so here. (http://www.kenissa.org/national-mapping-project/)

Does Jewish Renewal Have a Future?

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I recently had the opportunity to spend some time at the annual gathering of Ohala, the rabbinical association of the Jewish Renewal movement, and at a shabbaton led by students studying at Aleph, the rabbinical training program of the movement.

Although I knew quite a few people at the conference, I came as an outsider. I was invited to deliver the keynote to the Ohala national convention based on the work that I do with rabbis and congregations around re-imagining these institutions. A fairly comprehensive summary of my keynote appeared in a blogpost by the Velveteen Rabbi. Here I want to share a few impressions that I took away from my visit.

Note: This article appeared in eJewishPhilanthropy on February 2, 2014 and was subsequently syndicated by JTA.

Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi continues to be a powerful presence in the Jewish Renewal movement. The conference takes place near his home in Boulder, CO so as to make it easier for him to be present. People approach Reb Zalman with great respect and reverence. When he speaks, he fully commands the attention of the room. He has earned this status. Reb Zalman is one of the most important voices of Judaism in our time. Though he has had conventional jobs as a Hillel rabbi, University professor, author and lecturer, he is anything but conventional. In fact he is the ultimate boundary crosser. After escaping Nazi Europe in 1941, he was a Lubavitcher working on college campuses. But he soon made his reputation as a spiritual teacher who made company with the likes of Shlomo Carlebach, Ram Dass and the Dali Lama. I know of no other teacher who can move so seamlessly between Chasidic texts, Eastern religious traditions, Native American heritage and secular American culture. His groundbreaking work in what he terms, ”davvenology” permeates all the work done in the movement.

For anyone who finds worship in American synagogues boring, a small dose of Jewish Renewal prayer is worth a try. It isn’t for everyone but the use of chanting, meditation, movement, unconventional readings and personal sharing does provide much of what so many Jews are chasing in non-Jewish spiritual settings. Not surprisingly the rabbis who have been ordained by Reb Zalman and now the more formal rabbinical training program they have called Aleph, are classic spiritual seekers themselves. As the program for ordination and other spiritual leadership programs have become more rigorous it is clear that those training with Aleph are selecting this path with great intentionality.

It is ironic that much of what Reb Zalman and Jewish Renewal were developing 30 years ago and more is now making its way into mainstream American synagogues. Congregations of all denominations can now be found experimenting with meditation, yoga, drumming, chanting and movement, if not in their main services than in alternate venues that are sanctioned by the rabbi. This “borrowing” has led to some degree of resentment among the longtime leaders of the movement although I did not hear any such complaint from Reb Zalman himself.

The sentiment expressed is that mainstream Jewish denominations take advantage of the R and D work of Jewish Renewal without any attribution while, at the same time, Jewish Renewal struggles to gain acceptance and financial support. Frankly, Mordecai Kaplan and the Reconstructionist Movement can tell exactly the same story as fifty years ago non-Orthodox movements cherry picked Kaplan’s most attractive ideas and made them their own even as the movement that Kaplan helped to launch struggled for recognition and support.

One hears within the confines of the Jewish Renewal movement some anxiety about their future. While there were some young faces at the national gathering, most of the audience was made up of people in their 50’s, 60, and 70’s. While second career rabbis are becoming more common across the denominational spectrum, the Renewal rabbinate clearly skews older than most. The number of congregations in the Renewal network is growing but very few seem to be able to support full time rabbis no less a full complement of other professionals.  Renewal rabbis are also competing in a shrinking synagogue market place. Yet if there is growth in that sector it is likely going to come from independent, non-denominational groups of Jews who are drawn to the leadership and style of a given rabbi. This is a trend that Renewal rabbis may be able to capitalize on.

In Renewal circles there is a lot of excitement about the explosive growth of Romemu, a new congregation founded by Rabbi David Ingber on the Upper West Side of Manhattan which has grown to 500 households in less than two years. The charismatic Ingber was ordained by Reb Zalman and he is candid about the debt he owes to Jewish Renewal in shaping his approach to Jewish life. Yet he himself is unsure whether the Jewish Renewal label will be an asset or a liability in growing his congregation.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Jewish Renewal in the coming years is the extent to which they try to build the infrastructure of a denomination. For decades they reveled in their outsider status, suggesting that their post-denominational approach to Jewish life was more consistent with the ethos of a post-modern Jewish community. Yet today there are several post-denominational seminaries including Hebrew College in Boston and the Academy of Jewish Religion in New York and Los Angeles(independent of each other though bearing the same name). In addition, both United Synagogue (Conservative) and the URJ (Reform) broke all the old rules of denominational Judaism at their recent, respective national conventions as they invited in a broad array of rabbis and teachers who were not card carrying members of their movements. When even the biggest denominations of American Judaism go post-denominational, it makes it harder for Jewish Renewal to make a case to foundations and potential funders.

All this is not to say that Jewish Renewal has no future. At a recent retreat that I led for rabbinical students from eleven seminaries across the denominational spectrum (I do this regularly under the auspices of the Rabbis Without Borders program of Clal), a student from the Orthodox seminary, Chovevei Torah, commented that the teffilah he experienced at the retreat opened him up to levels of kavannah (deep, intentional spirituality) that he rarely experiences in Orthodox settings. Clearly this was the influence of the Aleph students who pushed the boundaries of what can happen in prayer space. I will also say that the four days I spent in the Jewish Renewal community were filled with a level of heartfulness, compassion and spiritual depth that is hard to come by in most Jewish settings today.

I’ve spent the past two years traveling the country first writing and then discussing Jewish Megatrends and the future direction of the American Jewish community. From what I can see, the Jewish community can use a healthy dose of what Jewish Renewal has to offer. I never bet against heart.

———

Rabbi Sid Schwarz is the director Clergy Leadership Incubator (CLI), a program of Clal that helps to train rabbis to be visionary spiritual leaders. He is also the author of Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Community (Jewish Lights). Additional articles and information about bringing Rabbi Sid to your community can be found at www.rabbisid.org 

Gary Rosenblatt on Jewish Megatrends

Articles, Megatrends Book Tour

 

Jewish Megatrends:  Rabbi offers a new way to think of ourselves: “tribal,” and “covenantal”

Gary Rosenblatt

New York Jewish Week, 5/22/2013

Rabbi Sidney Schwarz recalls the exact words of a comment from a liberal rabbinical student that disturbed him profoundly.

“We were at a retreat, and he said to me, ‘I didn’t go to rabbinical school to carry the tribal water of the Jewish people.’ And I thought, ‘that is the job of a rabbi.’”

Rabbi Schwarz, founder and leader of a Reconstructionist congregation in suburban Maryland, says the encounter was not atypical of a select group of progressive Jews who are deeply committed to Jewish life — but not to the agenda of an organized Jewish community perceived as “obsessed by continuity.”

Calling for a new way to reach these and many other young Jews, most of whom eschew the term “Zionist,” Rabbi Schwarz has come up with an unusual approach in his new book, “Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future” (Jewish Lights Publishing). It opens with his thesis on how to engage the majority of young Jews who show little interest in traditional forms of affiliation — synagogues, organizations, Federation — and then asks 13 leading Jewish innovators to each write a chapter in response to his views, based on their own observations about what works and what doesn’t.

He closes the book with a rebuttal of sorts, “fine tuning” his initial thoughts and charting an upbeat path for an American Jewish community he views as “in transition” rather than “in decline.”

The result is a compelling overview of the stand-out successes and major challenges in confronting a generation many believe is moving away from its parents’ and grandparents’ ways of identifying Jewishly, and in charting a course for engaging it in ways it can relate to, authentically.

Rabbi Schwarz has the credentials for this effort. Besides his rabbinic duties, he is known nationally as a social and political activist, and founder of Panim, a group he led for two decades that trained teens for leadership through Jewish education, values and social responsibility. He is also the author of two previous books, one exploring the key to successful synagogue models (“Finding A Spiritual Home”) and the other (“Judaism and Justice”) on the power of social justice in engaging young people.

Those themes form the core of “Jewish Megatrends,” in which Rabbi Schwarz identifies a growing polarization between what he describes as two types of Jews. One, like himself, he dubs “tribal Jews”; they identify strongly with Israel and worry about external and internal threats to Jewish continuity. The other he terms “covenantal Jews”; they are primarily made up of younger people who are less parochial, less concerned about group solidarity, and more interested in universal themes like justice and human dignity.

Rabbi Schwarz argues that the organized Jewish community, led by tribal Jews, is in effect driving away covenantal Jews by “drawing hard and fast lines on who does and who does not belong to the Jewish community.” He says “rabbis and the organized Jewish community are notoriously bad at understanding and validating” those whose Jewish identity is “soft and highly ambivalent,” but who can be engaged through programs that connect them to universal and liberal values stemming from their Jewish heritage.

The key, he says, is to reach these “covenantal Jews” from the outside-in rather than the inside-out approach. In other words, don’t begin by preaching Jewish texts, which they see as irrelevant. Rather, “start with what matters” to sophisticated, thoughtful Jews, like their commitment to improve the world, and show them how these goals can be advanced through Jewish wisdom and spirituality. That means tracing social justice to ancient Jewish values, and offering a caring community and “sacred purpose” to their lives.

Don’t try to give them Judaism-lite, Rabbi Schwarz insists, but “raise the bar” in terms of content and commitment. If you’re serious with them, they’ll take you more seriously. And don’t be afraid to proclaim Jewish life as countercultural, emphasizing personal relationships in an era so dependent on technology that people prefer texting to meeting face to face.

The main section of the book is made up of chapters on innovations in Jewish culture (by Elise Bernhardt), synagogues (Rabbi Sharon Brous), family foundations (Sandy Cardin), Israel (Barry Chazan and Anne Lanski), denominationalism (Rabbi David Ellenson), “getting” the next generation (Wayne Firestone), Jewish social justice (Rabbi Jill Jacobs), community centers (Rabbi Joy Levitt), the Orthodox difference (Rabbi Asher Lopatin), interreligious collaboration (Rabbi Or N. Rose), tribes, food and community (Nigel Savage), the federation system (Barry Shrage), and Jewish education (Jonathan Woocher).

Most agree, to varying degrees, with Rabbi Schwarz’s basic premise and approach, giving examples of how they try to provide authentic experiences to a younger generation for whom Israel and the Holocaust hold increasingly less appeal. For example, both Wayne Firestone, outgoing president and CEO of Hillel, and Jonathan Woocher, a leader in innovative Jewish education, make the point that Jewish students aren’t trying to “fit in,” as their parents did, but are seeking ways to live more meaningful lives through Judaism. Rabbi Ellenson, the president of HebrewUnionCollege, notes that young Jews are not interested in denominational labels. And Rabbi Brous, who leads a popular synagogue in Los Angeles, emphasizes that the more demands she makes on her congregation members in terms of attendance and commitment, the better they respond.

Only Barry Shrage, the chief executive of the Jewish Federation in Boston, seriously challenges Rabbi Schwarz, arguing that the author’s “tribal” and “covenantal” depiction is an inaccurate stereotype, and that in truth the younger generation is more nuanced in terms of Jewish identity. For example, he says some may care deeply about the Palestinians’ plight but far more worry about Israel’s security.

Most significantly, he believes Birthright Israel has had a profound positive impact on young Jews, and he argues against dismissing tribal Judaism. “Not only is a ‘tribal-free’ Judaism inconceivable,” he writes, “it is also not necessary to attract the next generation of Jews.” That can and must be done, according to Shrage, largely in the ways Schwarz calls for.

The hopeful note throughout is that the contributors to “Jewish Megatrends” are seeking and finding creative ways to make Judaism compelling to people who are not just seeking to balance their American and Jewish identities, as did their parents and grandparents, but are looking to Judaism to provide deeper value in their lives. The question is whether these innovators are reaching enough Jews to make a difference, and if the rest of us are paying attention.

 

Q & A with the Religious News Service

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Rabbi’s Message for American Jews: Change or Die

Interview with Lauren Markoe posted on the Religious News Service (RNS)

Rabbi Sidney Schwarz, ordained in the liberal Reconstructionist tradition, sees a divide between generations of American Jews that could spell disaster for the community.

One generation he calls “legacy” or “tribal” Jews — those who built the national organizations and synagogues that have served for decades as the backbone of American Jewry. But reams of statistics show legacy Jews have enjoyed limited success attracting younger Jews.

The other is what he calls “covenantal” or “innovation sector” Jews, a younger generation that has founded a myriad of niche Jewish organizations — environmental, social justice and political — that can, in Schwarz’s vision, build on their parents’ work toward a more brilliant American Jewish future.

In a new book, “Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future,” Schwarz says the upstart generation cares deeply about Judaism — but draws on its spiritual legacy more than a sense of tribal solidarity.

Schwarz, who lives outside Washington, D.C., and has worked in both sectors of American Judaism, talked about the conversation American Jews need to have among themselves to preserve their collective future. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: What’s wrong with the way that Jewish America organizes itself?

A: The problem is that the institutions that have guided the community for the better part of 100 years are too much in touch with their base. They’re committed to serving the people they consider loyalists, and they assume the next generation will fall into line. I wrote this book to send up a flare that that’s not going to happen.

Q: What can this new “innovation sector” of American Jewish life offer younger Jews, who are far less likely than their parents to join synagogues, Jewish federations and groups like B’nai B’rith?

A: The Jewish community was becoming less progressive in the 1980s, and Jews whose political affiliations skewed left were feeling disaffected. In response, you had an array of organizations crop up, ranging from Jewish Funds for Justice, to Mazon doing hunger relief, to the American Jewish World Service doing development work, to the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. They’ve proven for more than a decade that they can identify a market that the legacy sector can’t seem to capture.

Q: So should the oldsters just hand the car keys to your young innovators?

A: I believe the future lies in the two sectors collaborating. Each sector is at risk in different ways. The legacy sector’s membership and its budgets are declining. They can’t capture the next generation of Jews. The innovation sector is organizationally immature. Organizations pop up on the innovation screen, and everyone is so excited, journalists write about them — and then five years later they’re gone.

If some of the resources and the know-how of the legacy sector were shared with the innovation sector, you’d have a way to win.

Q: There’s tension between the two groups on Israel. Is that a sticking point in getting them to cooperate? I’m thinking of J Street, an organization that attracts Israel supporters who find the American Israel Public Affairs Committee too hawkish.

A: Israel is definitely a flash point. The Jewish community in America has very low tolerance for dissent around Israel. And if you are an organization that wants to challenge the policy of the State of Israel on any front, you are going to incur the wrath of large powerful forces.

In some cases, these new organizations love that conflict. When J Street came about, there was a strong effort to marginalize them, to portray them as not loyal to Israel. J Street parlayed that into astronomic growth over their first three years.

Q: Where do the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox fit into your landscape of American Judaism? What about Chabad, the Brooklyn-based Hasidic organization, which is running programs that attract Jews of varying levels of observance the world over?

A: Chabad has kind of written the playbook on innovation, and legacy organizations can learn much from Chabad. The two things they do right are one, they don’t judge you, and two, they set a high bar. The ethos of legacy organizations has been that the only way to interest non-Orthodox Jews in being Jewish is to deliver “Jewish lite” or watered-down Judaism. That totally doesn’t work.

What next-generation Jews want is something that’s authentic. The Orthodox, they get serious Judaism. The challenge will be: Can we create a non-Orthodox brand of Judaism that’s equally serious?

Jewish Megatrends-On the Road, Part 2

Megatrends Book Tour

 

In the past two weeks we held a beautiful book launch at my home shul, Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, MD and then I did events in New York and Boston.

The New York event was held at the JCC of Manhattan, directed by my good friend, Rabbi Joy Levitt who is also a contributor to the book. We had an embarrassment of riches with five contributors all coming to the same program. In addition to Joy, we had Nigel Savage of Hazon, Jon Woocher of the Jewish Education Service of North America, Jill Jacobs of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights and David Ellenson of Hebrew Union College. The evening was moderated incredibly skillfully by Jane Eisner, the editor of the Forward.

One interesting moment was a comment by Nigel about the need for the Jewish community to engage in evangelism. Nigel believes that Judaism has something precious to offer the world and he believes that we should be more pro-active in telling non-Jews that they would be welcome to join us. I publicly challenged Nigel on this. I state quite clearly in the book that Judaism can provide an antidote to the spiritual malaise of American life.

Yet evangelism strikes me as a bad strategy. I believe that if we create compelling spiritual communities, people will come, both Jews and non-Jews. Heaven knows we don’t have to work hard to bring non-Jews into our spaces. They come quite naturally, hand in hand with our sons and daughters, or as guests of the Bar or Bat Mitzvah or as spiritual seekers who are checking out the Jews. I’ve had numerous encounters with these gentiles after services. Even when I discount the false flattery (and there is plenty of that) there are many who find our music uplifting, our Torah discussion stimulating and the way the community embraces each and every visitor, quite special. I know that it plants seeds in people’s minds about whether they might want to join our community through conversion or help to create something similar in their church.

I am less interested in capturing souls than I am in offering a spiritual alternative to the superficiality of the American public square.

 *                   *                    *

The morning after the New York event I got an email from a 20-something who was in attendance at the event. He grew up in an interfaith household, attended Unitarian church and experienced both Christian and Jewish holidays in his home. After getting turned on to Jewish life as a result of a Birthright trip to Israel he got involved in several Jewish social justice organizations, became an active participant in a Reform congregation in the DC area and volunteered for HIAS. On all counts, it was quite a Jewish communal success story, though not as common as I would like to see.

But then the letter changed tone. He went on to say that he moved to New York almost two years ago and has yet to find a welcoming environment. It has not been for lack of trying. He also finds a disturbing gap between Jews of his generation and older Jews. Reacting to the comments I made about the need for more dialogue and cross-fertilization between Jewish legacy institutions (e.g. Federations, synagogues, JCC’s, etc.) and the younger, Jewish innovation sector, the letter bemoaned the fact that he saw few people his age at the very forum where I was speaking about Jewish Megatrends. Nor does he find many older people when he spends time at some of the Jewish social justice programs that he attends.

 *                                  *                                  *

The letter was an interesting reality check on the state of the American Jewish community, made even more poignant because the next day I was in Boston, participating in two separate forums with Barry Shrage, the long-time director of the Boston Federation and a contributor to Jewish Megatrends.  I invited Barry to contribute to the book because he has built one of the most innovative Federations in America. In his chapter he reflects on the similarity between the four core principals that I suggested are necessary for Jewish institutions to have a shot at engaging Next Gen Jews and the core principals that guide the work of the Boston Federation.

Still, despite that common ground, Barry and I do not see things exactly the same way. He does not agree with my assessment that Next Gen Jews are largely turned off by Jewish legacy organizations. He also does not share my view that Next Gen Jews are seriously distancing themselves from identification with the state of Israel. After our exchange that was done in front of his own staff at the CJP offices in Boston, I asked Barry publicly if he thought there was a serious divide between Jews who were involved with and played leadership roles in the Jewish establishment and the vast majority of Next Gen Jews. He said “No”.

Now despite an impressive list of accomplishments at the Boston Federation, I don’t believe the Jewish community is well served by such a sanguine assessment. At virtually every stop of my still young book tour, I hear stories from young people that suggest that a serious divide between them and the organizations that are the stewards of Jewish communal life. Not only do we need to do more to fund and support the new approaches to Jewish life that are emerging from Next Gen Jews, I think that the legacy organizations need to pro-actively try to bring Jews from the next generation into their planning and leadership circles. Only that way can we hope to build and shape new models of Jewish life that are responsive to the changing nature of the American Jewish community.

Jewish Megatrends: On the Road-part 1

Megatrends Book Tour

I’ve just completed the first segment of a national book tour which will take me to ten cities over the next few months. Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future (Jewish Lights) was published March 1st and I just returned from my second trip to the West Coast where I spoke at about a dozen separate events. Some authors despise book tours, accepting it grudgingly because they know it helps to create buzz about the ideas (which, to my mind, is the point of writing a book) and drive sales. In contrast, I love the opportunity to engage with different audiences, especially when the questions and interchanges that take place challenge some of my assumptions and expose me to new ways of thinking.

Here are a few highlights from the first leg of my tour:
• I did two sessions at the CCAR national convention, the annual gathering of Reform rabbis which took place this year in Long Beach, CA. In my first session, I had the pleasure of being on the panel with Rabbi Naomi Levy, a Conservative rabbi, author and founder of an alternative spiritual community in Los Angeles called Nashuva. The session was designed to discuss new ways of thinking about the synagogue business. I presented the four core principles of the new synagogue paradigm that I introduced in my 2000 book, Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of Jews can Transform the American Synagogue (Jewish Lights). I’ve called it the “synagogue-community” as distinct from the “synagogue-center” which is still the prevalent paradigm of the American synagogue and one that is seriously at-risk given the spiritual needs of the next generation of American Jews.

Since the publication of my book I have worked with dozens of synagogues and many more rabbis and rabbinical students to help them understand and implement the synagogue-community paradigm. It has necessitated a very planful, well constructed methodology. What was so refreshing was that, as Naomi told the story of how she started Nashuva, she confessed to little if any interest in the organizational principles that I outlined. Rather her approach was quite instinctive and intuitive and it has worked, attracting hundreds of spiritual seekers to her music-filled Shabbat gatherings in Los Angeles. Some would chalk this up to another illustration of the differences between Mars (male style) and Venus (female style). Perhaps. But I also think it points to the need to support different approaches to innovation and creativity in our community.

• In the 1990’s the synagogue world was abuzz with the astounding growth and palpable energy that was generated by B’nai Jeshurun on the upper West Side of New York. Indeed BJ was one of the four synagogues that I profiled in Finding a Spiritual Home. In the last few years, there has been equal, if not more buzz about IKAR, an alternative spiritual community in Los Angeles founded by Rabbi Sharon Brous and a small tribe of talented friends. I was thrilled when Sharon agreed to write the chapter on synagogues in Jewish Megatrends and it is just one of the parts of the book that is a “must read” for Jews who care about the future.

It would be hard to imagine a more receptive audience to the message of Jewish Megatrends than the IKAR members who filled the room after the Shabbat kiddush to hear my presentation. After all, the book has dozens of examples of young Jews re-inventing Jewish life in every conceivable way and the book makes the case why the organized Jewish community must help move these examples of Jewish creativity from the margins to the center of Jewish communal life. I should add that IKAR’s services more than live up to its reputation. Having visited and profiled many Jewish spiritual communities around the country, it should be a source of great hope and optimism that places like IKAR are being created around the country. In fact, I am involved in creating a new program at Clal (called the Rabbinic Leadership Incubator) to accelerate and support just such a process. (More about that in another blog.)

• My speaking engagement in San Francisco was organized by an old and dear friend, Toby Rubin, who founded and leads Upstart, a cutting edge incubator of new ideas and new ventures for the Jewish community. The mid-day forum at which I spoke was co-sponsored by Hazon, Bend the Arc and Keshet. What a perfect consortium for a forum on Jewish Megatrends with organizational sponsors that so embody the trends that I talk about in the book. Of course, that very sponsor line-up set the stage for a rhetorical question from a woman who identified herself as active in several legacy Jewish organizations that represent the “establishment” Jewish community. Mainstream Jewish organizations like Federations, JCCs and large synagogues need to hear your message, she argued. To which I could only say: “Amen”. Indeed, those opportunities are in the works.

A more provocative question came from a man who identified himself as my age (59). I make the case in the book for the importance of facilitating more cooperation and collaboration between the innovation sector and the legacy sector of the Jewish community. This gentleman said that, for most of his adult life, he has been involved in a variety of political and social causes that have been viewed by the organized Jewish community with suspicion, if not hostility. Before there is any of the collaboration that I advocated, he argued, the Jewish community needs to take responsibility for its behavior over the past few decades and make amends. I responded by saying that it reminded me of the argument made in the early 1970’s by Black Power activists who argued that the first step to racial harmony in America would be for the U.S. government to atone for the systemic racism of this country by paying reparations to the Black community. The amount of money and the use of that money varied depending on who made the case but I recall reading one article that asked for $10 billion—a nice round number and, in that day and age, something that represented serious money . I went on to say that without challenging the truth of his claims nor the very real woundedness that he experienced (and clearly that he still carries) his suggestion would not be a very helpful starting point for the collaboration that I think is essential for the vibrancy and future of the American Jewish community.

• One of the highlights of my recent west coast swing was a forum at the Jewish Funders Network annual convention. Not only did we have a standing room only crowd for the session but we had a “dream team” to discuss Jewish Megatrends and my presentation. Sandy Cardin, the president of the Schusterman Family Foundation and the author of an extremely important chapter in Jewish Megatrends about the future of Jewish philanthropy, framed the session masterfully. Responding to my presentation was Scott Kaufman, the executive director of the Jewish Federation of Metro Detroit, and Maya Bernstein, one of the most impressive voices of the Jewish innovation sector who works with Toby Rubin at Upstart in San Francisco.

What was so important about the forum was that it gave lie to the assumption that the legacy sector of the American Jewish community is out of ideas and out of gas and that they need to step aside to let the innovation sector take over. Scott is part of a new breed of Federation executives that is re-inventing the way Federations operate and it is most encouraging. To see the overlap in the way Scott thinks about building community and the way that Maya thinks about Jewish innovation was really heartening.

I hope that in the coming months, I will be able to bring the message of Jewish Megatrends to more and more communities to spark the kinds of conversations among professionals and lay leaders that we began at the Jewish Funders Network session.

A New Day, A New Website!

Megatrends Book Tour

I thought writing a new book was a big undertaking! In some ways that was less challenging than launching a new website, which we are doing today, Feb. 28, 2013.

My new book, Jewish Megatrends, has been long scheduled for release on March 1, 2013. I knew that it was important to create a more interactive website than the one I had to  help promote the book and to catapult me fully into the 21st century. It seemed a bit ironic that I was writing a book about the future of the Jewish community and I was still not fully up to speed on the use of social media.

I was fortunate to find Ari Evergreen of Shirari Industries who built this new website for me and is now helping to train me to be a regular blogger. If you need web work done, I highly recommend her. Check out www.shirari.com.

Talk about timing! I leave for LA tomorrow morning for the start of a 7-city book tour. I’ll be in LA for five days and ten speaking engagements including two sessions at the CCAR national convention (the Reform Rabbinate). I’ll use this blog space to share some of the highlights of the tour.