The primary mission of the Jewish Outreach Institute (www.JOI.org) is to "reach out and welcome in" the intermarried, and to promote inclusiveness in the Jewish community for intermarried families and disconnected Jews. Originally founded in 1988 as a think tank and research facility devoted to the study of intermarriage, JOI's services have since grown to include advocacy, training of outreach professionals, and the sponsorship of innovative outreach programs throughout North America as part of its Jewish Connection Partnership program (www.JewishConnectionPartnership.org). This column is an opportunity for JOI to share its findings and views with the InterfaithFamily.com readership.
If Steve Austin's six million dollar rebuilding made the 1970s TV icon "better... stronger... faster" than he was before, can we expect the same from The Six Million Dollar Study?
Well, we already know it won't be "faster." The United Jewish Communities is finally releasing data gathered in its 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Study (NJPS), almost a full year late thanks to behind-the-scenes squabbling over methodology.
As for "better" or "stronger," this latest study of American Jewry--the most expensive, and supposedly the most comprehensive--faces a real challenge living up to its shock-and-awe predecessor, the 1990 NJPS. That study found a breathtaking 52% intermarriage rate that the organized Jewish community can barely comprehend and is still debating.
This time around the numbers probably won't create the same stir. The spin, however, will be just as heavy.
The Real Question
Despite the happy face some might put on it, the new NJPS data shows an American Jewish community that is shrinking in overall numbers--or at best standing still while the total U.S. population surges--and a Jewish institutional world (synagogues, community centers, federations) that engage less than half the total Jewish population.
For those of us who expect our grandkids to see the year 2100, we worry that there'll be no Jewish community left for them at all!
That may sound alarmist, considering we currently live in the richest, most successful Diaspora community in history. Yet this fear of vanishing is the very reason the Jewish communal world is so focused on "the numbers" in the first place. We sense we're at the top looking down on a long painful decline.
Which isn't to say that Jewish professionals poring over the new data won't find some pleasant surprises about their own institution's constituency. But to the "Jew on the street" the more important question is, how will this landmark study actually help the Jewish People in toto grow and thrive?
Well, if the 1990 NJPS was any precedent, the answer is: it won't. Not unless we learn some lessons from the past and work for real change.
Avoiding The Same Old Trap
After the 1990 study showed just how few Jews are actually participating in Judaism, the community began a wave of programs in the name of "continuity," "identity," "renaissance" and "renewal." The problem was that those words have wildly differing meanings depending on who's running the program. Does "continuity" mean focusing your resources on the already-participating Jews, to make sure they don't leave, or does it mean going after the ones who left, to try to bring them back in?
The ensuing debate--known loosely as "Inreach vs. Outreach" and still raging to this day at Jewish conferences and lectures nationally--has turned into a real tragicomedy for the community because looking at "inreach" and "outreach" as mutually exclusive strategies is a false dichotomy. Too much time and effort has been squandered on it already.
Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel understands this. When asked a few months back at a public forum in New York whether "inreach" or "outreach" is the best tactic for Jewish continuity, he said, "Both. We can do both. We have enough means, enough energy, and enough people to do both."
So if the release of the 2000 study presents a once-in-a-decade opportunity, we need our professional and lay leaders to do something that they did not do after the 1990 study: make a bold policy decision.
Tell us that the new policy is, "Leave No Jew Behind!"
Tell us, "Debate over. We're doing outreach and inreach."
Tell us, "We're going to do whatever it takes to reach the uninvolved folks, who represent the majority of all Jews. We're going to show them why we love Judaism. And we're going to prove to them that it could add meaning to their lives."
If the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Study produces a new resolve in our leaders to reach all Jews, not just the "Jews we know," then it will be worth all the time, effort, and expense.
But first that leadership needs to understand what it means to do "inreach and outreach."
Toward A New Model
"Inreach" as a methodology is actually very much like "outreach," drawing individuals deeper into Jewish life through meaningful content, a warm welcome, and a personal connection; the primary difference being where the journey begins. Reaching out to a synagogue family to send their children to day school is "inreach"; reaching out to an unaffiliated family to let them know there's even a synagogue in their neighborhood in which they might feel comfortable is "outreach."
Unfortunately, "inreach" is also used as a policy slogan that's come to mean a "closing of ranks," a kind of triage for all the non-participatory Jews who don't "deserve" communal resources.
Proponents of "inreach only" see the Jewish community like a jelly donut, with the jelly being the "core" Jews and the doughy part being the periphery. They fully expect the periphery to melt away, but if they can only get enough support for their inreach programs the "core" will hold steady in size, until we're left with just jelly. The 2000 study should show that, no, the whole donut is actually shrinking, not just the doughy part. (And hopefully, we won't need confirmation from a 2010 and 2020 study before "inreach only" is proven ineffective.)
The notion of who is a "core Jew" anyway is just as slippery a slope as the whole "who is a Jew" debate. Certainly some current "core Jews" used to be unaffiliated, just as some currently unaffiliated Jews used to be in the core.
A more accurate model for the community would be to take that jelly donut and put it in a blender! At any given time, Jews can be on the inside or the outside and then back again, depending on their needs or where they are in their lives.
If we were to use a new "inreach and outreach" model--or (to extend the metaphor beyond reason) to deep-fry the whole dang donut--we'd work along the entire spectrum of Jewish life to meet people where they're at rather than waiting for them to come to us.
That means turning our institutions inside out. Let Judaism happen everywhere, not just behind the four walls of our synagogues or JCCs. American society is too porous, "too" accepting (if that's possible), for us to try to sequester people.
And that's where the NJPS can be most helpful, in finding out where folks are "at" in order for us to extend our community to them. But if our hand is not also extended to their non-Jewish friends and family members, they won't take hold. That's a simple truth. Which doesn't mean breaking halacha (Jewish law), but rather changing our outlook from introspective to extroverted. To begin to really "welcome the stranger" as we are exhorted to do so many times in the Torah.
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