The Continuity of Discontinuity

That's the title of Steve M. Cohen and Ari Y. Kaplan's study on "How Young Jews Are Connecting, Creating, and Organizing Their Own Jewish Lives," which I just read about in Kaplan's JTA op-ed. Maybe now the institutional Jewish Community machers will Get It:

Rather than concluding that these new endeavors are weak or competing versions of existing institutions, we will do better to understand them as expressing an alternative vision of what Jewish communities can look like and how they can serve the needs of their members.

One hundred years ago, young immigrants and allrightniks built the American Jewish infrastructure that we have today -- from both AJCs to the landsmanshaften to nightclubs and shuls with pools. Now we are seeing smaller, more localized but no less provocative efforts to rejuvenate, engage, practice and live Jewish lives organized on their own terms by people younger than 40.

In cities across the country they are creating their own minyanim instead of joining synagogues; they are writing and publishing their own journals instead of just subscribing to existing ones; they are playing their own music, putting out records and producing their own concerts. They are hosting salons and movie screenings. They are involved in the creation of Jewish life that is thoughtful, popular and exists largely on the margins of mainstream Jewish organizational life.

These new endeavors do not look like their predecessors because they are responding to the perception that the offerings of synagogues, federations and JCCs are simply too narrow and do not adequately address the diverse needs of American Jews.

This translates also into practice, as the organizations typically resist anything hierarchical, denominational, exclusionary or judgmental. This resistance is partially a critique of mainstream Jewish organizations and partially an expression of deeply held beliefs in pluralism, as well as an understanding of the fluidity of identity in general.

These are some of the lessons that Steven M. Cohen and I address in "The Continuity of Discontinuity," our newly published study on this phenomenon. In the study we explore the ways in which these new organizations represent a response to institutional Jewish life by offering a variety of responses to it.

The organizations we highlight -- and there are many more across the country -- are the result of creative, thoughtful, dissatisfied people who had no desire to join committees, take over sisterhoods or participate in the young leadership branch of local or national communal organizations. But they understood that the landscape of Jewish life could sustain a greater diversity of organizations and experiences.

Today there is much communal anxiety over the behaviors, attitudes and activities of American Jews between 18 and 35. Members of that age cohort are not following their elders into the halls of existing institutions, which could threaten these institutions.

But what we are seeing is not the loss of Jewish practice in North America. We are seeing young people who want to build something new that follows a different vision of what an institution can be and that will cater in a different way to the needs of American Jews for meaningful Jewish engagement.

You can download the study here -- I've done so but haven't read it yet.
Also downloaded but just glanced at the Institute for Jewish Policy Research's new report "Jews in Britain: A Snapshot from the 2001 Census", for those of you who like yer stats... it's been briefly blogged over here at JOI (and no doubt elsewhere, but, y'know, these are the only ones of which the news has come to Hahvahd/There may be many others but they haven't been discaaahvahd).

On My Soapbox Again...

Question asked on WeirdJews (a LiveJournal group) hit on my Pet Peeve #143:
otherwise egalitarian Jews not using both parents' names in their Hebrew names for No Particular Reason. So here's what I wrote:

Why not both parents' names?

If I were calling you up as gabbai, I'd love to call you up as Chaya bat Yehudit v'Nachum -- or, for those times when you're in need of a mi-shebeirach, to wish you a speedy recovery as same.

In an egalitarian context, there is -- to my mind -- no compelling reason to be only your father's daughter in ritual contexts & only your mother's daughter when in need of healing/divine mercy. I understand that there are those who find it meaningful to perpetuate this distinction between using ben/bat father's name in pretty much all "official" Hebrew name contexts and ben/bat mother's name in prayers for healing... but to me, the latter is just a small sop offered in a context that otherwise was seldom giving women their due.

But, as said above, there's not necessarily any reason for anyone to be "weirded out" by your having previously given your name as Chaya bat Judit, because you could be giving it that way because:

1) your mother is Jewish, your father is not, and it's in a context where you find it appropriate to include the former and not the latter, as would be the traditional practice (unlike sirleebutler choosing to use both*)
--this is what I do in my usual Conservative shuls/minyanim, and the way my name appears on the ketubah, because my father is not Jewish -- Rivkah Leah bat Yehudit Sarah

2) you are a farbrente feminist and hoping to add a few specks of sand on one side of the balance, weighed against hundreds of years of men coming up for aliyot with dad's-names-only + plenty of men and women even in egal contexts continuing to only give dad pride of place in these Official Name non-mishebeirach contexts (not my reason for doing it, as said above -- but I wouldn't mind anyway if people thought it was my reason, b/c I'd be sympathetic to it on some level!)

3) it's not their business, but because of whatever set of circumstances you do not wish to use your father's name (absent; abusive; birth father not in your life ... I know of someone who uses his father & stepmother's names, rather than father + late mother's name: she died when he was tiny and his stepmother is, in his life & community, his mom).

*English names are fine. In some contexts where it seems not inappropriate to include the name of my father, who raised me as a Jew, I add "v'Danny" (that's his given name--not Daniel--so I have no intention of improving on what his parents gave him or trying to disguise the non-standard aspects by Judaising/Hebraicizing it for him). Another Rivkah Leah I know is "bat Charles v'Edith."

Jews for centuries--indeed, millenia!--have used names that come from the cultures & languages that surround them: female Jews particularly had these kinds of names. Think of all the women from the Old Country whose names are Yiddish and not Hebrew-derived: Shayna, Golda, Toybe, Glikl, Perl, Rayzl, Feyge, Yente/Yentl [actually cognate with "gentle"--in the sense of noble/highborn: one from the Romance-language rather than Germanic component of Yiddish])... and, among the Sefardim, names like Reyna/Reina...as well as men's names like Sender (from Alexander) and Hirsh/Hershl, Berl, etc....

Now, I'm not saying that there's no reason to have or create Jewish/Hebrew name for yourself if you don't have one and want one other than YourName ben/bat Dad'sName v'/[or] Mom'sName. But it infuriates me that some Hebrew-chauvinist rabbis & educators have told Jews with Perfectly Good Non-Hebrew Jewish (usually Yiddish) names that they should have a "real," i.e. Hebrew, name & give them one. Fer cry-yay, if yer great-grandma was named Golde, most of the time it wasn't the case that her "real"/Hebrew name was Zahava (which is really a Modern Hebrew creation rather than a traditional name, as far as I can tell--just from translating the Yiddish name). If you want to be Zahava, fine--but don't let anyone tell you these other names aren't Jewish.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: any name a Jew has is a Jewish name.

Think about some of the Hellenistic rabbinic/commentator names: Kalonymos ben Kalonymos? That's not Hebrew or Aramaic, that's Greek!

[/rant]

Shavua tov!

As a coda to the previous post, here's the comment I just posted on that article:

Lovely piece!

I'm glad that observing Shabbat made you feel, "for the first time, like the Perfect Jew." If the traditional view is that Shabbat is a taste of the World to Come, then perhaps it's not surprising that observing Shabbat in a way we can find meaningful can give us a glimpse of our best Jewish selves -- the Perfect Jews we might wish and strive to be... though one of the things I like best about our Jewish tradition is that it understands imperfection so deeply! (Sin, kheyt, is literally "missing the mark" -- and we try to get closer to getting things right, while acknowledging our limitations. Every Yom Kippur we confess and repent our sins, knowing that we will still be confessing and repenting next year, and the year after -- but we also have the prospect that each turn of the cycle gives us the chance to begin again, to try again -- even if this means that we will, à la Beckett, "Fail again. Fail better.")

So, in this Saturday night/motzei Shabbes state, I'm hoping you'll give us an update, Jon: how was your Shabbat this week? Which of Rabbi Green's 10 commandments of Shabbat did you take on this time, and how'd it go? (And Erin and/or Steve: how's by you?)

My Shabbat observance doesn't make me feel like the perfect Jew, but it does give me a chance to be a more perfcct Jew--and human being--than I think I would otherwise be. It can be hard to feel like putting in the extra effort -- to make a nice Shabbes dinner at home, or to make plans with friends or family -- but it's worth it. This week my husband's out of town, and I wasn't sure what if anything I'd do for Friday night--but I picked up the phone, called a friend, and ended up contributing challah & ice cream as the bookends of dinner with her & with another friend, who made salad & a main dish. Sure, I'd be just as shomer(et) shabbat if I made kiddush & hamotzi & had dinner here by myself (okay, also with the 2 cats, who do get tuna on Shabbat as a special treat -- but that's not the same as human Shabbat community, nice as they are...) -- but it wouldn't have been nearly as Shabbesdik.

So whether you're as "shomer-f***ing-shabbos" as The Big Lebowski's Walter, or just starting to figure out how to "remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy" in a way that speaks to you, I hope you'll find ways to make Shabbat Shabbesdik -- to make it feel like Shabbat inside and out... and then to carry a little bit of that peace and sweetness back into your week, into our regular lives, into our experiences as imperfect Jews in an imperfect world.

Shavua tov -- a good week -- to all!

Shabbat Shalom!

...and I'd also like to recommend this li'l piece from Jewcy about Shabbat observance:
"Hardly Working: And on the seventh day, our Jewish guinea pig rested" -- part of Jon Papernick's quest to be the Perfect Jew, and so far the only one that's made him feel like it!

Shabbat shalom, everyone!!!
(in, er, about another 4 hours...ah, summertime!)

To Begin Again?

[just thought I'd share here what I posted as a comment over at Jewcy.com]

1) I love Shavuot! It's true that I never did anything for it in my Conservative shul growing up -- until I was in 10th grade and we had Confirmation (a term I dislike intensely: if we insist on having it, can't we give it a good Hebrew name instead of sounding like Catholics?) on Shavuot, which is probably the most press it usually gets in the Reform & Conservative synagogue life-cycle -- but all of my celebrations of it in the past 10 years have been in non-Orthodox environments. And they've been pretty great!

The Shefa Shavuot Reflections put together last year might be of interest -- my contribution also has a nice recipe for galaktopita zarka, baked cream custard (from the Cookbook of the Jews of Greece).

I've also counted the omer each of those past 10 years, but only done anything cool for Lag B'Omer twice:

1) A Masorti (Conservative) Lag B'Omer retreat in the Lake District of England with folks from our Oxford Masorti group & those from Leeds Masorti. That's the only time I've learned any Lag B'Omer songs, though they were pretty weak ("Esh, esh" and "Hayom Lag B'Omer"): teaching me the round "Black socks" has given a more lasting addition to my repertoire...*

2) when we dropped by to visit my frummy Cleveland cousins & their 5 kids on our way home from Michigan -- we had the good fortune to be joining them on the 33rd day of the omer, so we got to enjoy a fabulous cookout in a local park with folks from one of the kids' schools. (Mmmmm, delicious kosher hamburgers!).

Maybe I'll be more motivated to do Lag B'Omer stuff when I have kids who want to toast marshmallows, etc...

2) Hey, Anonymous: I just finished reading Rabbi Naomi Levy's book To Begin Again -- I wonder if you would find it, and what it has to say about God and Judaism, to be helpful or interesting in your current state of confusion.

But being confused--or at least not satified with easy institutional answers--isn't such a bad thing...

*P.S. Also inspiring a parody about phylacteries:

Black box, with straps are tefillin,

Lubavitchers ask you to put on a set,

Someday, I'm going to get me some--

So far, like Rosenzweig, I say not yet,

not yet, not yet...

(This is no longer exactly true...though I'd still be interested in getting a pair written by the soferet who's the maker of Tefillin Barbie...)

My 15 minutes of fame last Shabbat/final days of Pesach: "Hey, I saw you in the Washington Jewish Week!" The print version even had my smiling face on the final jump page (a photo Mike had taken!), but the online article about adult children of intermarriage can be found there, without the photos. Also, alas, without the list of resources that were in the print edition that I thought were interesting & valuable. Ah well!

For those of you who don't want to hunt it up, here it is! (With some MiriyaB editorial comments...)

4/4/2007 8:59:00 PM

Making 'halves' whole Adult children of intermarrieds carve out their own niche by Sue Fishkoff and Richard Greenberg Aaron Hirsch considers himself "half-Jewish." He grew up in a secular household in Chevy Chase, the son of a Catholic mother and a German Jewish father. Hirsch, 39, is engaged to marry a woman he describes as "part Muslim" in a nonreligious ceremony. Rebecca Boggs' mother is Jewish. Her father was raised as a Protestant by his Cuban Catholic mother and his Protestant Scotch Irish father. [Neatly eliding the question of what religious tag to put on my father today: not Jewish, but not a practicing Christian; someone who believes there is one God...doubtless it's easier to stick to relating family religious streams than to affix theological labels [deist? universalist?]) Boggs, 33, grew up in Arlington, was raised as a Jew [and bat mitzvahed at Arlington-Fairfax Jewish Congregation, now called Etz Chayim], married a convert to Judaism, and they now live as committed Conservative Jews in Washington, D.C., members of Adas Israel Congregation. [I was always a Conservative Jew, and intellectually "committed" to it--much more observant & involved now, but my basic community and ideology have changed very little -- which is why I don't see myself as any kind of ba'alat tshuvah abandoning my old bad ways...] Robin Margolis had a devout Christian upbringing. Her father was an Episcopalian naval officer from an aristocratic Midwestern banking family. Her mother? She, too, was proudly Christian and had the lineage to prove it. Or so it seemed. Margolis was in her 30s when she found out her late mother was Jewish. It was 1984 and she was cleaning out her mother's closet when she found a bag of old documents. The woman she knew as Phyllis Miles was born Phyllis Margolis, and had spent decades running away from her religious and ethnic background. "It was pretty staggering," says Margolis, now 56, who wholeheartedly embraced her Jewishness once she made that startling discovery about her mother. In fact, the Takoma Park resident is now studying for admission to a rabbinic program. The tales told by Margolis, Hirsch and Boggs exemplify the complexity and diversity of a growing, but sometimes overlooked, subgroup the adult children of intermarried parents whom Margolis calls a collective "mystery wrapped in an enigma." [Nice nod to Churchill on Russia as "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma"--a quote I'd known, but not its conclusion: "--but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest." So I would ask: what is the key for us as adult children of intermarriage? Jewish interest? A sense that we are free and welcome to engage in Jewish communal life without disowning other parts of our families or ourselves?] In many instances, their lives are emotionally complex, the result of growing up with parents from vastly different backgrounds. Even those raised unequivocally as Jews have an entire side of their family that is not Jewish. Although communal outreach to intermarried couples is burgeoning, some of their adult offspring have struggled to find their place in the Jewish community. Hence, in September 2005, Margolis founded The Half-Jewish Network (www.half-jewish.net), an online support group for anyone with a Jewish parent, whether they identify as Jewish, Christian or something else. "I don't push anything," she says. "All I can do is offer them warmth and welcome." According to the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey, 360,000 Americans aged 18 to 29 have intermarried parents. Drawing from that rapidly expanding pool, Margolis' organization now has about 150 members, and that number is growing at a rate of about three per week. She figures she'll have 1,000 to 2,000 members in two years. Although communal outreach tends to focus on intermarried couples rather than their adult children, "there is a light at the end of the tunnel" for the second generation, Margolis says. "Many Jewish organizations are showing an extreme interest in unwrapping the mystery, which makes me very happy." Unfortunately, few of them are in the Washington area, according to Margolis. Margolis says she was often greeted with, at best, "chilly politeness" when she went synagogue shopping in the 1980s and early 1990s. "I felt like I was banging my head against the wall," she adds, explaining that she carved out her own institutional path by founding a Jewish Renewal women's chavurah in 1992 that served the entire Washington area. She disbanded it in 2006 in order to devote more time to helping children of the intermarried. Jewish outreach to intermarried families, no matter the denomination, is predicated on the hope that the children will be raised as Jews. Experts stress the importance of giving such children a good Jewish education, as research shows that this makes them much likelier to become committed Jewish adults. But it's no guarantee. Children ultimately choose their own path, despite their parents' carefully laid plans. Siblings from one family, raised the same way by intermarried parents, sometimes make different religious choices. [Or sometimes pretty same-y ones. I'd be astounded if my brothers and I ever diverged in paths as much as the other siblings described below.] Margolis' three younger brothers are all "sincere, committed Christians" following the Protestant faith in which they were raised. One is even a minister. None chose their sister's Jewish path. As for Boggs, her two brothers both had bar mitzvah ceremonies [Dad e-mailed me: "I note that it refers to your brothers' bar mitzvahs but not to your bat"], and one of them is engaged to marry a non-Jew. [Mom e-mailed me: "[your brother] told me that he and [his fiancee] plan to raise their kids Jewish"] Hirsch has a younger brother who identifies more as a Christian than a Jew. As for Hirsch himself, Judaism has virtually no religious impact on him. But his Jewish cultural background bubbles up and insinuates itself into his life from time to time for example, when he encounters anti-Semitism. "Maybe there's a lot more going on inside me than I thought," he says after recounting two such incidents. For many children of intermarried parents, choosing a religion can smack of favoring one parent over the other, with attendant feelings of guilt, anger and abandonment. That's particularly true, and hurtful, when parents divorce. Marty Wasserman converted to Judaism after her divorce two decades ago in Santa Fe, N.M., and began raising her two children, Max and Meredith Murray, as Jews. Max, now a 26-year-old officer in the Coast Guard stationed in Baltimore, dropped out of Hebrew school after a year, saying he didn't bond with the other kids. He ended up spending most of his teenage years with his Catholic father. He attended a Catholic high school, chose Catholic University and today considers himself Catholic. Meredith Murray, now 24, stayed with her mother, had a bat mitzvah ceremony in Israel and flourished in Hebrew school, where she made her closest friends. Like her brother, she went to Catholic high school, but unlike him, she always felt Jewish. She stood back when the other students took communion or intoned Christian prayers, even when it embarrassed her to be singled out. A District resident, she, like her mother, identifies today as Jewish and goes to synagogue sporadically. Her boyfriend, Dan, is not Jewish. She took him to a Passover seder last year at the home of a Conservative friend, who went on and on about the Jews as the chosen people. Murray was embarrassed. "I remember apologizing to Dan when we left, saying not all Jews are that closed," she says. "I was so disgusted. I'm not sure they knew Dan isn't Jewish. It was this whole attitude of arrogance, that we are the chosen people. It was the first time I felt ashamed. It's not what I associate with Judaism. I don't believe a certain people are chosen, or superior." She expects to marry her boyfriend, and they discuss how they'll raise their children. "Dan feels strongly about not forcing kids to go to one church or another," she says, "but he wants to expose them to all different religions. I think he's thinking academically." He's very open, she adds, saying that "I'm sure if I said I want them to go to Hebrew school and temple, he wouldn't object. I really like the social aspect of religion, letting kids be part of something, giving them a structure. I also believe you can become a spiritual person outside the walls of a church or temple." In contrast to some adult children of intermarrieds, Boggs says she has rarely felt stigmatized although she has received double-takes when her name and "Jewish" are mentioned in the same sentence. "I tell them," she says, "that any name a Jew has is a Jewish name." [Dad wrote that he especially enjoyed this line.] Intermarriage, she adds, "doesn't necessarily lead to assimilation. There is a place for the children of the intermarried. There is a place for you, even if not all of your relatives are Jewish." Sue Fishkoff writes for JTA News and Features; Richard Greenberg is WJW associate editor.

Jewish/Latina: Hola & Shalom, hermana, sistah!

Something I put on the Message Board Forum of the Half-Jewish Network, in a thread titled "Half Jewish-Half Latin":

[if you're interested in the full discussion/post by D. that I was responding to, go to the thread]

D. said: "The problem with being a halfie is other peoples insistance on telling you what you should be instead of allowing you to decide for yourself."

Agreed! So (hard as it is), I think that we should be proud of who we are and of our necessarily complicated explorations of our rich mixed heritages -- which then will allow us to decide for ourselves. And even to make different decisions along the way, at different times.

D. says: "I'm not sure how to embrace being Jewish or if I even have the right."

You absolutely have the right to explore and determine what your Jewish heritage means to you: others can give information and models for what they think "being Jewish" is or should be, but they have no right to impose them upon you as the only correct way.

My mother & her side of the family are Jewish (she grew up as a Brooklyn Jew like Diana's dad), my father & his are not: he was born in Cuba to a Cuban Catholic mom & American Protestant dad, but raised in Kentucky and didn't learn Spanish until high school or college. My brothers & I are Jews, raised Jewish, and also aware of our Hispanic heritage--but without much "content" to that last part (my dad's parents died when we were all quite young, we're not in touch with that much of the Cuban part of our family, etc.--though we all did learn Spanish and I used to write/phone my great-grandmother in Miami in it when she was still alive, through my college years). So in a way it sounds like mine is something of the flip side of your experience: I feel thoroughly Jewish, and I have interest in my Latina side but wasn't immersed in that culture growing up.

I just checked the website for Makor (92nd St Y) in NYC and see that the main event featured there right now is the upcoming Feria Artistica weeklong celebration of Latino Jewish culture, with a big kickoff event April 29: http://www.92y.org/shop/category.asp?category=888Feria%5FArtistica888&adsource=mb_fera
Even though we are both Jewish and Latina but not from the same sides, it could be interesting to see how those 2 cultures go together...

It sounded from one of your posts like you live in NYC? And that you're more interested in cultural than in religious Jewish stuff? I would think that there should be lots of interesting Jewish cultural stuff at places like MAKOR/the 92nd St Y: I don't live in NYC but I have friends who do, so if you'd be interested in my finding out more for what you're specifically interested in/where you live or hang out, I'd be happy to. One of my best friends in NYC is a woman who converted to Judaism (on her own, not in a relationship with someone) about 10 years ago, so she knows what it's like to "join" a community and a culture as an adult, having been brought up outside it though with some interest in it.

I've only had good experiences, generally, with my Jewishness and mixed background. My husband converted to Judaism and similarly has had mostly good experiences (more of a rocky road in Europe). It may be that the more traditional someone is, the more they do see Jewishness as a closed club where only certain people who pass muster are welcome--but there are plenty of more progressive and cultural contexts where I would certainly hope that's not the case.

I hope that some of the information at places like interfaithfamily.com (which I think had an issue of their web magazine about Jews & Latinos recently?) and JOI.org would also help you feel more welcomed and to know that we are not alone, and there is institutional support for opening, not closing, the door to people like you & me. Anyway -- though I may not be someone who's "on your Jewish side" geneologically, I'm definitely "on your (Jewish) side" as someone else of mixed descent who wants to welcome you. Maybe your mom & my dad aren't the people that Brooklyn Jews expected your dad & my mom to marry -- but they did, and now you & I are here & laying claim to all parts of our heritage.

Shalom y un abrazo,

Rebecca