In The News: American Jewry's Challenge

“American Jewry’s Challenge” was published by the “The Jerusalem Post” on Sunday Nov 16, 2008. By line: Manfred Gerstenfeld, page 13, section Opinion. This challenge is actually based on young American Jews. Young Jews are often unprepared for the anti-Israelism, which plagues US-Universities; this is the main point of the article. M. Gerstenfeld asked the question “what are the prospects for American Jewry?” He also mentioned that The United Jewish Communities General Assembly in Jerusalem is an opportune time to address challenges facing the larger concentration of Jews in the world.

“Education is a central element to get anything.”(1) The approximate number of American Jews is between 6-6.4 million according to, Ira Sheskin head of the Jewish democracy project at the University of Miami. Of one million Jewish children, ranging from elementary to high school age, about 20% are enrolled in Jewish day school and another 20% receive some Jewish education in after school programs. Due to the financial crisis Jewish families are not sending their children to the high tuition Jewish schools. Instead they are sending them to American public schools where they are Americanized and influenced by American culture rather than traditional Israeli culture.

When we see another article surveyed, “Young US Jews distance themselves from Israel,” that was also published by “The Jerusalem Post” on Sep 6, 2007. Young Us Jews are far from Israel because of the comfortable life in America. Israel chairman Ze’ev Bielski told the Jerusalem Post a combination of a comfortable life in America and growing materialism was to blame for the detachment from Israel. He also said that it is unbelievable that after only 60 years from the Holocaust so many Israeli people are not connected to the Jewish State (2).

To solve this challenging problem Ze’ev Bielski said “the only way to combat this growing trend was to invest more in such programs as Birthright, which offers a free 10 days tour of Israel to young Jews and Masa Jafi’s flagship program for young adults”(2). He also said “it was also the responsibility of the Israel-government to improve Diaspora relations and connect Jews around the world with people in Israel.”(2)

Another point is that most of the American Jews do not understand their “identity”. Sociologist Steven Cohen observes the word “identity” used for lack of a better term for the complexity of Jewish belief, behavior and belonging. (1)

This multitude of challenges puts great stress on Jewish leadership. Former Provost of Jewish Theological Seminary, Jack Wertheimer says there are no longer any universalized leaders among American Jewry. When they have several head leaders of their organization then they will rise above their own sphere to influence the American issues affecting Jewish life. In a dynamic world, this is the largest single challenge for Israeli Jewish people.

(1) Manfred Gersterfeld, “ American Jewry’s Challenge” The Jerusalem Post Section: Opinion; pg 13 (November 16, 2008 Sunday)
http://www.lexisnexis.com.libproxy.albany.edu/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T5200324333&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T5200324336&cisb=22_T5200324335&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=10911&docNo=4

(2) Ruth Eglash “Survey: Young US Jews distance themselves from Israel” The Jerusalem Post section: News; pg 1 (September 6, 2007, Thursday )
http://www.lexisnexis.com.libproxy.albany.edu/us/lnacademic/search/homesubmitForm.do

(3) Israel Insider staff “israelinsider” Israel’s daily news magazine “American Jews” (Nearly half of young American Jews feel uncomfortable with idea of Israel)
Section: Culture (September 6, 2007)

http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Culture/12004.htm