Experience

Publications

• Returning Jewish Education to the Jewish Home

  Presented at the Tikvah Fund Workshop on the Condition of American Judaism

  The historical National Jewish Population Surveys and the more recent Pew survey of U.S. Jews demonstrate that the rate of disaffection from Judaism has been steadily increasing over the past 40 years. There are many theories as to the causes of this out-migration. However, the data also show that those who develop a strong Jewish identity as a child are more likely to retain their Jewish identity and community involvement in later life. As well, there is strong evidence to suggest that parents who take an active, intentional role in their child’s Jewish education are more likely to one day have Jewish grandchildren than are parents who “outsource” the task to professional Jewish educators. Thus, raising the level of parental Jewish literacy and the degree of parental involvement in their children’s education – in the home as well as in the community – should quantifiably combat the large numbers of American Jewish youth who effectively leave Judaism when they leave their childhood homes and communities. We need to re-focus the efforts of the professional Jewish educator class towards the adults in our midst: equipping and empowering Jewish parents to meet their own goals for their children by teaching them how to instill Jewish values in their children. By investing scarce community resources into the actual building of the Jewish family as a Jewish family – and thereby building Jewish community – the task is both diffused across a wider base as well as strengthened by more cohesive and comprehensible family and community bonds.

• Returning Jewish Education to the Jewish Home

  Presented at the Tikvah Fund Workshop on the Condition of American Judaism

  The historical National Jewish Population Surveys and the more recent Pew survey of U.S. Jews demonstrate that the rate of disaffection from Judaism has been steadily increasing over the past 40 years. There are many theories as to the causes of this out-migration. However, the data also show that those who develop a strong Jewish identity as a child are more likely to retain their Jewish identity and community involvement in later life. As well, there is strong evidence to suggest that parents who take an active, intentional role in their child’s Jewish education are more likely to one day have Jewish grandchildren than are parents who “outsource” the task to professional Jewish educators. Thus, raising the level of parental Jewish literacy and the degree of parental involvement in their children’s education – in the home as well as in the community – should quantifiably combat the large numbers of American Jewish youth who effectively leave Judaism when they leave their childhood homes and communities. We need to re-focus the efforts of the professional Jewish educator class towards the adults in our midst: equipping and empowering Jewish parents to meet their own goals for their children by teaching them how to instill Jewish values in their children. By investing scarce community resources into the actual building of the Jewish family as a Jewish family – and thereby building Jewish community – the task is both diffused across a wider base as well as strengthened by more cohesive and comprehensible family and community bonds.

• The Generational Transmission of Jewish Values in Small Communities: The Utility and Magic of Thinking Small

  Ph.D. Dissertation

  As with other groups, Jewish identity salience levels are higher within those Jewish communities which have a smaller share of the overall population than those communities which enjoy a larger share; this is true even among those individuals who do not engage regularly in religious practices. Based on this foundation as well as my own mixed-methods research I argue that those who live in small Jewish communities have different patterns of identity development and maintenance, community structure, and – most importantly – generational transmission of values than those who live in the large urban centers. Behaviors such as assimilation and out-migration may also be less likely among those who reside in small Jewish communities. If this is true, it could be that in 100 years’ time the non-Orthodox Jewish world will be more accurately and strongly represented by Charleston, WV, Ashland, OR, and Colorado Springs, CO, than Boston, MA, Washington, DC, or Los Angeles, CA. In order to fully understand life in small Jewish communities and the future impact they may have on American Jewry as a whole, I am calling for a nation-wide survey focused specifically on these important yet under-studied communities.