A Game Plan for the American Jewish Future

Several weeks ago, on these pages, I laid out the “unthinkable” challenges facing our society. In that piece, I described the mindset of American Jewry: “This contemporary state of anxiety is framed around an assault that Jews are experiencing in connection with their love affair with America, reminding one how deeply invested Jews have been in this society.”

In this piece I am seeking to build the internal Jewish response, to be followed by a second article addressing the broader and future role for the Jewish community within the American public square.

Just as American culture and politics are undergoing significant change, so too is American Judaism. If Jews are to play an effective role within the broader society, they must first deal with the extraordinary issues and divisions internal to our community.

Today, we are experiencing a new normal, driven by a structural “revolution” upending the existing communal order. The impact of changing generational expectations, the presence of economic pressures, the emergence of social media platforms and the realities of declining loyalties and trust are producing new policy and structural outcomes for 21st-century American Judaism.

Reflections on the Past

At the outset, it is essential to understand the 19th-century organizing ideas that framed the Jewish communal system. These principles gave shape and context to our current condition and served as the basis of our core beliefs.

Capitalism: This economic model defined 19th- and 20th-century American life and more directly, the American Jewish experience. The Jewish religious and social service networks adopted this competitive, corporate business framework.

Denominationalism: A series of religious “awakenings” contributed to the reshaping of American church/synagogue life. In the aftermath of the Civil War, “denominationalism” would be the formula around which Americans would create their religious identities.

Progressivism: In the late-19th century, progressive ideas about social service would inform how the nonprofit sector would be organized. These same ideas led to the formation of the Jewish communal order, involving the establishment of federations and their allied agencies. These overarching social ideas emphasized a “melting pot” formula for developing communities and organized them around a particular set of ideals and social welfare initiatives.

Universalism and Brotherhood: These ideological ideals, constructed in the early decades of the 20th century, fostered a perspective of how Jews, among others, might embrace the broader society. This focus de-emphasized particularism, sectarianism and separatism in favor of a global outlook on humanity, and in the process rejected elements of nationalism and communalism.

Manifest Destiny and American Exceptionalism: While seen as competing with the idea of universalism, this distinctive focus on America would also profoundly influence Americans’ belief about this society and our unique role in the world. Jews would interpret these concepts as representative of the “Golden Medina” (the perfect society).

Urbanization and Second Industrial Revolution: The growth of America’s cities and the evolution of this nation’s economy would take on special significance in the second half of the 19th century. A portion of that story is aligned with the arrival of the American railroad as linking the nation together and providing the means for creating the essential connections not only for business and trade but also for religious and cultural links to be fostered and maintained. As an urban peoples and culture, Jews would benefit and contribute to the development of America’s great cities.

Managing Forward

The great ideas of the 19th century that helped frame and shape our communal ideas and institutions have given way in this new century to an alternative set of forces, including the rise of technology, the focus on the sovereign self, and the presence of consumerism. If we saw during this earlier iteration the creation of financial and industrial growth and religious expansion, in this current time frame we are operating in a shifting environment of rapid social and structural change, cultural disruption and economic uncertainty. 

We need to understand how we as a community are changing, and in what ways the pandemic and other factors have transformed us. The economic realities, the emerging demographic characteristics, and the changing generational patterns represent ingredients to this unfolding picture of how we will operate in the decades moving forward.

Unpacking the Contemporary Jewish Community

As with the larger society, the Jewish condition is rapidly and radically changing. There will be increasing pressure on our community to reposition itself, to reclaim its political and social influence. No doubt, this will be more difficult considering the internal divisions that today define the American Jewish polity. Power can only accrue as a communal system demonstrates a heightened level of solidarity, focusing on a collective agenda, while effectively managing internal threats and challenges.

In this century, we are encountering a new organizing scheme that sees community through an inverse lens. We are reminded that the traditional communal system operated as a federalist structure, employing a top-down model of distributive power and a built-in competitive framework. Today, we are experiencing a bottom-up and an outside-in realignment of communal power and practice.

Historically, this system operated in institutional silos. This competitive framework served us well, but in this moment, collaborative partnerships will need to shape our operational practice. We no longer have the financial capacity, demographic base, or institutional resources to operate in structural isolation. There is a significant set of transformational changes taking place leading to this communal reformulation.

The Upending of Community: Realignment and Reimagination

The Great Paradigm Shift: Today, many of our traditional organizations are saddled with a 19th-century legacy structure, while managing a 20th-century agenda, as we engage a 21st-century community.

If the 19th century created the essential building blocks for the community, the 21st century will afford American Jewry a range of new ways to express and experience Judaism. If in the past, we saw American Judaism as denominationally based, in this century we can best describe religious behavior as personalized where multiple “Judaisms” are in play. With the availability of an array of choices, accessible through social media and other platforms, Judaism is not only taking on a new delivery mechanism but also is being presented through various portals in a variety of new ways. Collaboration and connection will serve as the operating modality, even as we experience new forms of Jewish religious and communal diversity.

The Great Power Shift: If the core needs of our community defined Jewish organizing of the 19th century, then innovation is driving 21st-century institutional behavior and practice. If federations managed the communal agenda of the last century, then today community and family foundations, as well as individual funders, are reshaping 21st-century Jewish life.

The New Political Reality: If American Jews believed that in the decades following the Shoah and the founding of the State of Israel, as a people we would experience greater security, in this century our community is confronted with the presence of new threats to global Jewish and Israeli security. Anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiment and actions may well define and reshape this century’s Jewish experience.

The Birth of Ideas: In the 19th and 20th centuries, New York was seen as the American “Jewish Capital” and center of Jewish life, where ideas and practice moved from east to west. Today innovation is unfolding everywhere on this continent, with many of the current demographic and organizational trends now moving in reverse, from west to east.

A New Economic Model: If American capitalist ideas described and framed the behaviors of the historic Jewish organizations over two earlier centuries, currently various alternative forms of economic practice, including collaborative engagement, entrepreneurial behavior, and community organizing models have come into play.

The Jewish Boutique Revolution: Beginning in the mid-1980s, a new American Jewish revolution was unleashed with the emergence of “boutique” organizations, which have become an integral part of the communal market space. This organizing model is centered on innovation, individualism and entrepreneurship, with the rise of single-issue constituencies and the presence of independent institutional builders. By contrast, “legacy” organizations of the previous two centuries were seen as formal, networked and corporate structures. In the wake of this “revolution” we are witnessing the undoing of the Jewish collective, where today a variety of institutional options are competing for brand recognition and funding.

Whereas in the past, American Judaism was constructed in order to help accommodate Jews to a new society, the Judaism of today is being reshaped by such broader social forces as diversity, inclusion and equity. Technology is revolutionizing how religious cultures are delivering their messages, services and programs. Demographic, economic and generational patterns are fundamentally transforming Jewish life. New forms of organizational practice, cultural behaviors and structural experimentation are each contributing to this communal revolution.

Power Shifts: If Jewish political influence and philanthropic giving were centralized during the second half of the last century, where ADL led the fight against antisemitism, AIPAC managed the Israel political case, the Reform Movement defined the liberal domestic agenda, AJC controlled inter-religious affairs, and Federations dominated the Israel giving field and Jewish social service marketplace, the 21st century has exploded with the presence of an array of Jewish advocacy initiatives, multiple boutique giving options, and the presence of distinctive, highly-segmented organizing models, all now competing for communal space and a share of the Jewish market economy.

We will require a new financial partnership that allows us to bring together our federations, community foundations, family funders, and major donors in collective action to aid those in need as well as to address the long-term needs and strategic directions for our institutions, synagogues and schools. We have the opportunity to launch new initiatives, possibly establish a Jewish Innovation Lab, designed to draw on our collective resources and to expand the multiplicity of ways to “be Jewish” in this century.

Collaborative Leadership: If lay leadership drove the communal agenda in the 19th and 20th centuries, Jewish professionals, outside experts and corporate contractors are managing/directing this century’s Jewish infrastructure. The imprint of technology and economic data points reflect the contemporary behavior of the Jewish marketplace. If the communal space was seen as a growth industry in the last century, it is likely to be understood as being in a state of recalibration and downsizing in this time frame. Historically, within the American Jewish economy, competition shaped communal outcomes; collaborative initiatives however will likely drive the Jewish communal future.

On Dialogue: As a community facing many internal divisions, we have a vital stake in nurturing essential conversations among Jews around Israel and intra-Jewish matters. Finding avenues of communication among peoples should represent a core priority, as we seek to make whole a divided constituency. The excitement here is that there are already venues committed to enhancing these essential conversations, including such initiatives as Resetting the Table.

As a community facing many internal divisions, we have a vital stake in nurturing essential conversations among Jews around Israel and intra-Jewish matters.

 The Tasks Before Us: Managing the great external threats to our democracy and our community must begin with a richer understanding of how as a communal system we are changing and how we can re-establish a viable and dynamic Jewish community. As with all Jewish history, if our internal mechanisms are not successful in reaching and serving our people, our capacity to wage an effective response to the events beyond us will be greatly imperiled.

Dr. Steven Windmueller is an Emeritus Professor of Jewish Communal Studies at the Jack H. Skirball Campus of HUC-JIR, Los Angeles. His writings can be found on his website, www.thewindreport.com.