Wake Up and Smell The Coffee
Some doom-sayers worry about the intermarriage rate; others the shrinking birthrate in the Jewish community; or the lack of reasonably priced communal affiliation.
Guess for these people the glass is always half empty.
For those of us on the other side, those of us who see the beginnings of a new golden age of Jewish communal innovation, those of us out in the trenches (so to speak) with the new, young innovators, the students in the various professional programs, and the just all around ‘younger’ interested and non-affiliated, not only is the glass not half empty, it’s close to overflowing!
The most recent example, this past week’s Jewlicious Festival 4.0. Writing on the Jewlicious blog, “ck” tells us:
“Looking back on this past weekend, I can’t help but be a little awed. I know that sounds a bit dramatic, especially since we are talking about what can be viewed as a glorified Shabaton, but the latest Jewlicious Festival was seriously nothing less than a transformative experience…
But this year, when I stopped running around and just tried to absorb what was going on, the images that really stood out were those of the various Jewish communal leaders from all over the place who were in attendance and seemed a bit… what, stunned?
Stunned?? Yeah. Stunned. Jewlicious united people from across the Jewish spectrum…”
Now, also this past week, thousands of miles away in Jerusalem, I was at JAFI’s Board of Governors Meeting. I realize looks are deceiving, but there sure was a lot of grey hair among the UJC set. More to the point, where was the younger crowd? They certainly did not have a seat at the Board table. Or for that matter in the Observer’s / Guest area either.
Our professionals need to get out of their office suites and see what’s happening.
Jewlicious is but one among many examples. I spoke with several B.O.G. attendees who complained, yes complained, about the ‘younger generation’. Though when asked what they are doing for them, about the ONLY answer I heard is “our Federation subsidizes their Birthright trip”. Now this is well and good. And I, for one, know the money is well spent; I also strongly believe we are beginning to see the pay-off for this investment and it will only grow.
But the ‘old rules’ no longer apply. Whether it’s a traditional Synagogue membership or the entrenched leadership style in far to many places that shuts out this younger demographic, large parts of our community are ignoring this new group. It’s already a problem and will continue to fester.
Is your coffee getting cold? There is still time to reheat, but time’s running out. This generation is already creating their own agenda.
Pretty soon, you will want a seat at their table.
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Sounding awfully familiar…look back at my post on 3/26/07. i was there when the local fed went looking for youth. oddly enough, only two of ‘em showed up for Jewlicious. They were gawkers.
i’m 40something with 8 years on my fed board. i used to do a countdown “hey…in two more years i’ll be the only one under 40 on this board….” nothing except the organizational structure has changed.
jewlicious is a great event, thanks to the vision of our supporters. now to take it national. anybody want to write a check???
“Jewlicious is but one among many examples.”
Well yes, there are several examples of organizations and events that empower Jewish youth and are grass roots oriented. However, there aren’t what I would call “many” and none do so quite like we do. This year the Jewlicious Festival received funding from a nice bunch of National organizations like the Schusterman Foundation and birthright israel. Yet to whatever extent Jewlicious has been successful, such success can be attributed to the fact that we are not part of any organization, we are not beholden to or employed by anyone, and that all programing decisions are made by and in conjunction with a young adult committee made up mostly of full time college students. Those of us who are more senior really work to implement their decisions. I mean that. I’ve questioned and disagreed with some of their decisions but when push comes to shove, they really have the final say and I am pleased to admit that they have been spot on every single time.
I honestly don’t know of any other endeavor that empowers our future leaders to such an extent, both in theory and in practice.
That having been said, another organization that does a bang up job in this field is ROI120. They unite 120 young leaders in all fields from around the world and bring them to Jerusalem in the summer for 4 days of networking and skill building in an environment that allows them to freely discuss their priorities, think creatively, cooperate and innovate. This is yet another Schusterman funded project and well, I hate to admit it, but Lynn really gets it. For those of you interested in finding out more, I urge you to visit the ROI120 Website. Applications for next summer’s summit in Jerusalem are now online for those of you who would like to participate.