Dishonest Kiruv! The Building of Responsible Jewish Outreach Movements

I have been serving as a Jewish outreach professional for the last 2 years as the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel. I am so fortunate to be able to spend my days talking and learning with students about their life journeys. At its best, Jewish outreach provides a student alienated from Judaism with a warm, inclusive, sophisticated, honest entry point into finding his or her voice and place within the Jewish tradition and community. At its worst, outreach is deceptive, closed, and arrogant. It can be hard to tell the difference, because both types of outreach are done with a smile and bowl of cholent.

” title=”http://www.ou.org/index.php/jewish_action/article/64253/” target=”_blank”>Orthodox groups engaged in kiruv include the National Jewish Outreach Program, with events at 3,700 locations throughout North America (and nearly 40 nations); Chabad, with its more than 3,000 emissaries (shluchim) in 70 countries; and groups such as Aish HaTorah, JAM, Maimonides, and Ohr Somayach. Of course there are thousands of other professionals (across the ideological spectrum) at Kollels, Hillels, shuls, and schools also doing significant outreach work. There are so many responsible and ethical Orthodox outreach professionals in the field that we cannot let those who are more narrow and deceptive ruin the perception of the rest. Outreach professionals are often courageous leaving their comfort zone to engage others in the tradition in inconvenient ways. However, many have been very critical of some kiruv tactics, especially among the Hareidi, for refusing to acknowledge any opinion but their own and for not answering difficult questions. One critical blog quoted Rabbi Emanuel Rackman’s critique of this closed, fundamentalist mindset that can be found:

A Jew dare not live with absolute certainty, not only because certainty is the hallmark of the fanatic…, but also because doubt is good for the human soul, its humility, and consequently its greater potential intimately to discover its creator. (” title=”www.utzedek.org” target=”_blank”>Uri L’Tzedek, the Founder & CEO of ” title=”http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Ethics-Social-Justice-Yanklowitz/dp/1935104144/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320275675&sr=1-1″ target=”_blank”>Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available on Amazon. In April 2012, Newsweek named Rav Shmuly