Mechon Hadar Guest

Jack Lew and the Power of Shabbat Obama's Chief of Staff Will Find Ways To Serve and Observe
Jack Lew is the new White House chief of staff. How will he as an Orthodox Jew deal with issues like shabbat?

We are all here together, searching for the new model, the new method, the new way to engage the next generation and inspire the current one. And all we know for certain is that the old models, the old ways of doing business, simply don’t hold.

Today I want to push us forward by challenging an old assumption: Jewish continuity is the end goal, and everything is in service of that goal.

Twenty years ago the 1990 National Jewish Population Study found an unprecedented rate of intermarriage. It launched 1,000 ships of Jewish identity efforts in the service of ensuring Jewish continuity. In our current language everything is in service of Jewish identity. Birthright strengthens Jewish identity. Day schools strengthen Jewish identity. Summer camps strengthen Jewish identity.

Our theory is: Strengthen Jewish identity, and Judaism will continue.  But here’s the problem: In our zeal to ensure the Jewish future, we forgot to articulate why it matters for Judaism to continue.

More than any of the content at this year’s General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, what fascinated me was the effect of social media – particularly Twitter – on the conference itself, and more broadly, on the Jewish community. Although this was my seventh GA as a reporter, I’m a relative newbie to Twitter, having opened my account in June. Before the Nov. 6-8 meeting in Denver, Colo., I’d never tweeted from an event I was covering. I discovered that not only was it not considered rude to use my Blackberry while presenters were speaking, it was encouraged. One moderator instructed us, “Please feel free to tweet throughout the session. It will enliven our discussion. It will spread the word.”

I want to challenge one of the mainstay assumptions of organized Jewish life: Jewish continuity is the end goal, and everything is in service of that goal.

It’s been 20 years since the release of the 1990 National Jewish Population Study, which found an unprecedented rate of intermarriage. It launched 1,000 ships of Jewish identity efforts in the service of ensuring Jewish continuity. Indeed, in our current language, everything is in service of Jewish identity. Birthright strengthens Jewish identity. Day schools strengthen Jewish identity. Summer camps strengthen Jewish identity.

Our theory: Strengthen Jewish identity and Judaism will continue.

The Jewish community must abandon the paradigm of Jewish continuity as an end in itself, Rabbi Elie Kaunfer told an audience of almost 3,000 delegates at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) last Sunday afternoon in Denver. The 80th annual GA, a three-day event, had representatives from 115 federations and six networked communities, said Judy Silverman, a co-chair of the gathering.