The sun-filled “Son Room” at an evangelical mission center in rural Kentucky became my unlikely Shabbat refuge during a formative college summer. As the only identifiable Jew for dozens of miles, my own mission was to set up programs that would bring together mostly liberal groups of diverse college students with local evangelical ministries. Navigating this generally conservative community forced me to articulate my Jewish beliefs with newfound clarity, while my tefillah-filled mornings deepened my connection to Judaism. The roughly 100 students I later brought to the region shared this experience: meaningful encounters across profound differences forge stronger identity. 

Jewish institutions prioritize identity formation but have overlooked pluralism’s power to achieve this very goal. This disconnect persists because we have failed to measure how boundary-crossing experiences strengthen Jewish commitment. Unfortunately, as Yehuda Kurtzer argues in the article “What Happened to Jewish Pluralism?,” many Jewish institutions have embraced pluralism without full readiness for its rigor. We have created wide tents that dampen passionate expression rather than channel it. 

"Synagoga and Ecclesia in Our Time" by Joshua Koffman commemorates the 50th anniversary of "Nostra Aetate," Vatican II's landmark declaration on interfaith relations, and is located at the Bearing Witness Institute for Interreligious and Ecumenical Dialogue at Marist School in Atlanta. Screenshot/Marist School

Today, North American Jewish institutions face a choice: continue with what Kurtzer calls a “flattened” pluralism of self-censorship and institutional boundaries, or embrace a bolder vision. We must reframe pluralism not merely as a practical tool for creating “big tent” institutions, but as a catalyst for Jewish identity formation. By measuring and scaling educational models that combine interfaith engagement with intra-Jewish reflection, we can transform pluralism from a source of institutional stress into a wellspring of Jewish educational revival. This measurement must explicitly focus on Jewish identity formation, in order to shift promising work to the institutional mainstream. 

What is pluralism: Engagement across existential differences for identity formation

Pluralism, for the purpose of this essay, is engagement across existential differences that strengthens Jewish affiliation. While many institutions practice intra-Jewish pluralism among denominations, reaching beyond the Jewish community can yield the strongest dividends — like the Jewish-evangelical dialogue from my Kentucky experience. The purpose isn’t only to explore multiple ideas of truth, but to strengthen individual and communal Jewish identity through articulating beliefs against the backdrop of diversity. 

Diana Eck of The Pluralism Project at Harvard University offers a helpful definition of pluralism, stressing the importance of individual commitments. For Eck, pluralism means: “energetic engagement” with diversity; seeking to understand others; holding particular commitments; and dialogue across those commitments. The definition hinges on particularism, as differences bring substance and meaning to engagement and dialogue. 

Jewish leaders have long recognized the potential of pluralism, especially across faith lines. Forty years ago, Rabbi David Hartman wrote about his own formative experiences in A Living Covenant: The Innovative Spirit in Tradition Judaism, describing exchange with diverse neighbors in Brownsville, Brooklyn: 

“Our different faiths were reciprocally enriched through our encounters — these were experiences that I could not ignore in developing my own appreciation of what it is to stand as a covenantal Jew before God.”

If a Jewish intellectual like Hartman penned these words four decades ago, one must ask why large-scale programs do not yet exist in the Jewish community to facilitate such experiences. The primacy of data is a compelling answer. Institutions rely on empirical evidence, yet there has been little investment to demonstrate how interreligious pluralism can bolster Jewish affiliation. 

The challenge: Jewish pluralism on its heels 

The gap between pluralism’s promise and its practice runs deep. Since the 1980s, major Jewish institutions embraced pluralism as denominational structures loosened, and as they sought to engage as many Jews as possible. Yet Kurtzer identifies two traps that emerged: self-censorship (participants bring “flattened passions” for fear of offense) and institutional censorship (organizations put explicit boundaries on speech). We see this in college students who avoid sharing their true views on Israel, and in organizational guidelines that regulate acceptable Israel programming.

Kurtzer observes that “a Jewish pluralism that thinks its task is to restrain the passions is doomed to fail.” The challenge facing our community is not merely to maintain peaceful coexistence under a broad tent, but to create programs that let passions loose within safe containers – to build genuine identity and belonging. 

The solution: Pluralism as a tool to deepen Jewish commitment 

Pluralistic education forms Jewish identity at transformative boundaries. The strongest programs pair intra-Jewish dialogue with engagement across major civic fault lines. When these fault lines represent significant conflict, dialogue requires the hard work of articulating one’s own perspective while listening to that of others. 

Learning from conflict requires understanding identity. In Resolving Identity-Based Conflict, Jay Rothman reveals how disputes, ostensibly about resources or control, can actually revolve around deeper questions of who we are. When participants articulate their own narratives while understanding others’, they develop both stronger self-awareness and empathy — twin requirements for meaningful resolution. 

Auburn Theological Seminary’s Face to Face – Faith to Faith (F2F) program, co-designed by Rothman, exemplifies effective cross-boundary education. F2F balanced interfaith dialogue with equally substantial intra-faith reflection. The program brought together youth from conflict zones — Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, South Africa and the United States — creating structured encounters across profound divisions. By alternating between representing their traditions to others and processing these exchanges with co-religionists, Jewish participants developed what Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks called complementary identities of particularism and universalism. This dual approach enabled authentic identity formation precisely because students had to articulate their own narratives while encountering different worldviews. 

When F2F ran during the aughts and early 2010s, American participants were often unsure if they were parties to their own domestic conflict; many felt that they were voyeuristically looking in on strife from the other regions. Existential and distinctly American conflict would be obvious in 2025, amidst political division that follows Americans into our increasingly polarized silos. My experience in Kentucky is a potent example of what these programs might look like domestically. 

The strongest programs today would pair intra-faith work with engagement across contemporary religious, political and cultural rifts. Unfortunately, interfaith and pluralistic education, both within and beyond the Jewish community, often struggles to bridge political differences in particular. In 

other words, many educators welcome theological disagreements but steer clear from partisan ones.

The implementation: Scaling identity-forming pluralism

Educators who convene students across ideological chasms know that this work sparks rare, potent personal growth. 

At present, there are local-scale initiatives in the Jewish community that engage this work. For example, Hebrew College facilitates the Dignity Project in the Boston area. This program convenes teenagers across urban-suburban, religious and political differences. Fellows learn to connect across divides, as they take on leadership projects in their communities. Programs like this are powerful, yet they have remained at the communal periphery. 

Nationally, there is Jewish institutional investment in intra-Jewish pluralism across denominations. The Hartman Institute’s “Wellspring” teen program is a strong example. Programs like this profoundly cultivate self-understanding. Where intra-communal pluralism strengthens and bridges denominations, inter-religious pluralism builds Jewish identity in the reality of a diverse society. 

Major Jewish educational institutions have yet to embrace inter-religious pluralism as a strategy for strengthening Jewish identification. This could manifest across educational contexts, for example: day schools creating immersive experiences with Muslim or evangelical youth; Hillels developing national Shabbaton exchanges between progressive Jewish and conservative Christian campuses; and structured dialogue programs between Zionist students and Muslim communities. Each initiative would intentionally balance engagement across significant societal fault lines with facilitated intra-Jewish reflection, challenging participants to articulate and deepen their Jewish identity within a supportive communal framework. 

Surely, implementation does face challenges beyond measurement alone. These include developing trained facilitators who understand both pluralistic dialogue and Jewish identity formation, creating institutional structures that can sustain long-term engagement rather than one-off encounters, and navigating the understandable concerns about maintaining Jewish particularity — while engaging across differences. Strong measurement is an essential precursor to addressing these challenges, as empirical evidence can motivate the investment to address other barriers. 

Measurement is the gateway to institutional investment 

Jewish institutions have not rigorously evaluated interreligious pluralism’s impact on Jewish identity, despite intellectuals like Hartman advocating the idea for decades.

Measurement can align overlooked program models with institutional priorities. The Jewish community’s commitment to continuity can be served through engagement across differences, which requires strategic assessment to move from the margins to the mainstream. 

The next step is evaluating programs that bridge the widest differences. This means using both quantitative tools (e.g. surveys, longitudinal measures) and qualitative ones (e.g. focus groups, participant interviews). Effective metrics would track not only short-term changes in Jewish knowledge and practice, but also long-term indicators like rates of Jewish communal involvement, leadership roles, and sustained identity articulation. Such measurement must capture both the depth of Jewish commitment and the capacity to articulate Jewish values in pluralistic contexts. Even modest investment in data collection would formalize the field and yield long-term dividends. 

While robust research exists for pluralism and interfaith education, it rarely centers on religious identity formation. Interfaith America, the nation’s preeminent interfaith organization, led by founder Dr. Eboo Patel, exemplifies this gap. Despite Patel’s acknowledgment that interreligious education strengthens individual identity, his organization’s research primarily measures campus climate, tolerance, and dialogue skills — priorities that reflect interests of existing funders, rather than identity outcomes. This misalignment underscores why Jewish-specific programs, led by Jewish institutions with clear stakes in continuity, are essential for directly assessing Jewish identification questions. 

Research must specifically examine Jewish identification outcomes, including how programs help participants discuss contentious topics like Israel while remaining engaged in dialogue. Jewish institutions remain unconvinced precisely because their central mission — sustaining Jewish identity — hasn’t been the focus of existing evaluations. 

Pluralism’s path forward: From compelling stories to comprehensive strategy 

The Jewish community must refasten pluralism to its core educational mission: identity formation. As Kurtzer warns, Jewish institutional pluralism has drifted toward practicality and “flattened passions,” ironically dampening rather than igniting Jewish identity. There is strong precedent for the investment and reorganization required. 

The creation of Prizmah: Center for Jewish Day Schools provides a strong template. Prizmah is a young organization, launched just in 2016, to “advance the financial vitality of schools, and enhance educational excellence so schools can thrive.” In a short time, the organization has achieved these goals through data services, research, conferences and more. As Prizmah has done for day schools, a new pluralism initiative could measure, organize and scale the field of interreligious pluralism education within the Jewish community.

Clear next steps would remedy years of under-investment. First, a landscape analysis would collect information about local-scale programs for inter-religious pluralism in North America, focusing on those based in (or with strong institutional ties to) the Jewish community. Next steps would include measuring these programs’ impact, identifying best practices and ultimately piloting initiatives at larger scales. Prizmah provides a data-centered playbook for bringing structure and nationally recognized best-practices to local Jewish organizations. 

The powerful identity formation I experienced in Kentucky — where Jewish students articulated their beliefs in dialogue with evangelical Christians — exemplifies exactly the kind of program that requires systematic measurement and development. Moving beyond a diagnosis about pluralism falling flat, Jewish institutions need the sophistication to harness difference as a catalyst for identity formation. The deliberate interplay of interfaith engagement with intra-Jewish reflection offers a powerful approach. With proper measurement, these programs can move from periphery to center in North American Jewish life, strengthening both pluralism and Jewish continuity. 

David Fisher is an education management professional, Jewish entrepreneur and rabbinical student.