Erica Brown is the scholar-in-residence for the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. Dr. Brown is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation, an Avi Chai Fellow, winner of the Ted Farber Professional Excellence Award, and the recipient of the 2009 Covenant Award for her work in education. Her latest book is Confronting Scandal.
Yonatan Yussman writes thoughtfully about Jewish education in “Teaching Jewish Commitment in an Era of Unlimited Choices” and inducts us into the world of contemporary research on Jewish identity. Changing notions of identity require educators to adjust their teaching expectations and content accordingly. In particular, the emerging Jewish identity among the Millennial population or Generation Y (generally identified as those born after 1981) is not constructed primarily through the confines of Jewish law or Jewish institutions. According to a recent study conducted by Hillel International, Millennial Jews are balancing the particularism of their Judaism with deep humanitarian impulses, something that Mr. Yussman identifies in his article:
Even while they celebrate multiple aspects of their identities, students value their Jewishness. Many of them, though, do not know how to express their commitment, or do not choose to express their Jewish connection in normative ways. They seem to see religion in its traditional sense as separating them, and so they observe few rituals and participate in prayer services infrequently. Yet, they are proud of being Jewish; many want Jewish children and many have Jewish friends, even while they downplay the importance of marrying other Jews and claim that having Jewish friends is not important to them. Their Jewishness reflects a tension, concurrent universalism and particularism, pride without isolation. What pulls them to Jewishness, finally, is not guilt, fear or inherent obligation but Jewish meaning and the opportunity to celebrate that meaning with their Jewish and non-Jewish friends. (Cousens, 2007, p. 7)
In the now well-known study conducted by Steven Cohen and Ari Kelman, we learn that Jews are not “doing Judaism” the way that previous generations understood and acted upon their Jewish commitments but are questioning some of the established norms they inherited:
Younger adults…resist and reject the normative conformism or normative advocacy that they see as widely characterizing the Jewish institutional world and culture. They speak of Jewish institutions as having an “agenda,” referring to their interest in advocating specific beliefs and behaviors, in particular those centered on matters of “Jewish continuity” or group survival. Agendas, by their nature, are not subtle, and younger adults are savvy consumers, able to spot an agenda at a distance, especially that in which they are the prime targets and are being told to marry (each other)and the contemporary version of “be fruitful and multiply” for the good of the Jewish People. Consequently, they prefer not to be subject to those, who in effect, represent their parents. (Cohen and Kelman, 2007, p. 20)
In this atmosphere of openness and inclusion, Jewish identity seems more malleable than ever and can leave educators confused and in need of direction. Yussman identifies some of the key issues but is more descriptive than prescriptive. He tells us that we need to change what we’re doing but not how to do so. Sometimes there is great value in identifying trends and the conversation that follows can be of a more practical nature. The problem is that much has already been written of a descriptive nature. What we need now are concrete suggestions on how to move Jewish education forward in the consumer, choice-oriented society that Yussman describes.
The question that remained for me after reading Yussman’s paper is what he recommends we actually do in the classroom. When he writes, “We need to listen to what the research tells us will work,” what research does he mean? The research he includes is not telling us what to do but what not to do. Yussman writes, “Leaders and teachers in Jewish schools need to be educating these students and running their schools accordingly, or risk losing the next generation of Jewish communal leaders.” The italics are mine and heighten the question that remains for me when I got to the last page. Something is missing. What should we be doing?
Defining Jewish Commitment
One of the features of the sovereign Jewish self that is at the heart of the Steven Cohen and Arnold Eisen classic, The Jew Within, is the highly personalized form of Jewish identity that the vast majority of American Jews have adopted. As Jews move away from the organized Jewish community, they are not necessarily moving away from Judaism. Yussman also quotes the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey; part of the problem with this survey and many other demographic studies of Jewish communities across North America is that affiliation alone is not a good measure of Jewish identity. For example, in a 2003/2004 demographic study in the Greater Washington area, the Jewish affiliation rate was regarded as under 50% but over 80% of the same population marked Passover with some Seder/Passover rituals. In other words, people are finding meaning in Jewish rituals and study but are doing so outside of the confines of established Jewish organizations. Affiliation in many such studies is determined by membership lists for synagogues, JCCs and Federation donors; this is no longer a good assessment technique because notions of membership are changing. American Jewish institutional affiliation is waning, and we would be shortsighted to base an educational strategy on old membership thinking.
But let’s be honest. We don’t really need to ask “who are these new Jews?” as Yussman does because we know who they are. This research has been trickling from the Academy to the community for the past 20 years. Taking us to the WillowCreekCommunityChurch is helpful but really points more to what synagogues need to do, particularly larger congregations. If Yussman’s point is that we “need to engage our youth in a postmodern world: technology and consumerism” then we should look carefully at these two very different arenas. Technology is already being used in day schools everywhere from the way homework is assigned to Smartboards in the classroom. Of course, there’s always room for improvement but much has been written in this area already.
Regarding consumerism, what should we do in education to confront this issue? The challenge of living in a consumer culture is not something that we should necessarily accommodate just because it is the larger societal norm. We Jews have always been counter-cultural and that has been a source of innovation and advancement for us intellectually and spiritually. If we are to create commitment in an era of consumerism it will not be by creating more choices but by creating better decision-makers who can narrow their choices. Barry Schwartz makes a compelling case in his book The Paradox of Choice that too much choice can tyrannize, and that our task is to eliminate too wide a range of choices so that we help people arrive at firmer commitments.
What is the Real Question?
The question I kept asking when reading this article is: why did Yussman write this? What I understood was driving Yusman’s agenda at core is changing educator expectations in defining success. “We have to be ready for our students to reject traditional Judaism.” We have to appreciate the “sacred no” – a beautiful expression – and make sure that students are not stifled by an educational approach that is too dogmatic, too doctrinaire, too certain or too rigid. Yussman tells us specifically that “…teachers of Judaism need to stop using language that is antagonistic (often unknowingly) and instead consciously and conscientiously use language that advocates individual choice and externally-imposed obligations.” I am not sure how you help people refrain from speaking when they unknowingly say unless what Yussman wants is to let us know what that antagonistic language is in very particular terms. I would have liked to hear more on this score because perhaps Yussman’s contribution is in sensitizing teachers to use the kind of language that opens rather than closes discussions of faith and belief, as we know happens too often in the Jewish classroom. But is there something else we can do to help jump start such conversations?
A Recommendation
Some years ago, I wanted to “test drive” some work I was doing on Jewish identity for adults with a high school population. I culled statements about Jewish identity from a wide range of sources from Tony Judt to Winston Churchill, the book of Genesis to the book of Numbers, Leo Tolstoy to Ben Gurion. I read these with a group of students largely to open their eyes to a way of looking at Jewish identity that was not wrapped in halakhah alone. I then asked them to tell me what identity framework best describes their approach to Judaism: behavioral (what you do), emotional (what you feel), and cognitive (what you think). By in large, the responses were largely in the behavioral domain. While this result was not surprising, what was striking was how little Judaism occupied of their emotional and intellectual faculties, or if it did, it was often in negative terms. When I asked them “What framework would you like to describe your Jewish life moving forward?” many of them said they would like a stronger emotional attachment to their Judaism. Most had been to day school for 12 years. Why wasn’t the positive emotional attachment already there?
Then I had them do the following exercise in writing:
- Give me one word that sums up your Judaism:
- Now give me three:
- Put those three words into a sentence that answers the following question: Why Be Jewish?
I was essentially asking them to give me their personal elevator speech for Judaism. The answers were fascinating and led me to understand that we do not create enough venues in school for kids to tell educators and parents – in a safe, non-judgmental environment – what they really think about their own Jewish identity. One student approached me and said, “Why am I a senior in high school and have never had this conversation with any one of my Judaic studies teachers?”
Letter writing to the teacher to describe what Judaism means on a personal level is another excellent way for students to help us understand their inner landscape.
I say this by way of a recommendation to Yonatan Yussman. What we need is not more choices or more technology or more opportunities for the grand soy latte expression of Judaism. I believe that we need to create opportunities throughout the span of Jewish schooling so that children can tell us where they are – not as a statement of being but on the road to becoming. Once we have checked-in to where they are, we can help them explore that territory with greater intensity, greater meaning and greater joy. If we allow them alone to determine the journey, they may never see anything beyond their point of vision. We would then be failing as educators. But while we can’t end with them, we must begin with them. Yussman is right to help us expand our definitions of success. But perhaps we need, at the same time, to deepen our notions of commitment and help our students deepen them at the same time.
References
Cousens, B. (2007). Hillel’s Journey: Distinctively Jewish, Universally Human. (Washington, D.C.: Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life
Cohen, S. and Kelman, A. (2007). The Continuity of Discontinuity. 21/64. Retrieved from www.acbp.net/About/PDF/Continuity%20of%20Discontinuity.pdf