Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future

Visionary solutions for a community ripe for transformational change—from fourteen leading innovators of Jewish life.

"Jewish Megatrends offers a vision for a community that can simultaneously strengthen the institutions that serve those who seek greater Jewish identification and attract younger Jews, many of whom are currently outside the orbit of Jewish communal life. Schwarz and his collaborators provide an exciting path, building on proven examples, that we ignore at our peril."
—from the Foreword

The American Jewish community is riddled with doubts about the viability of the institutions that well served the Jewish community of the twentieth century. Synagogues, Federations and Jewish membership organizations have yet to figure out how to meet the changing interests and needs of the next generation.

In this challenging yet hopeful call for transformational change, visionary leader Rabbi Sidney Schwarz looks at the social norms that are shaping the habits and lifestyles of younger American Jews and why the next generation is so resistant to participate in the institutions of Jewish communal life as they currently exist. He sets out four guiding principles that can drive a renaissance in Jewish life and gives evidence of how, on the margins of the Jewish community, those principles are already generating enthusiasm and engagement from the very millennials that the organized Jewish community has yet to engage.

Contributors—leading innovators from different sectors of the Jewish community—each use Rabbi Schwarz's framework as a springboard to set forth their particular vision for the future of their sector of Jewish life and beyond.

CONTRIBUTORS:
Elise Bernhardt • Rabbi Sharon Brous • Sandy Cardin • Dr. Barry Chazan • Dr. David Ellenson • Wayne Firestone • Rabbi Jill Jacobs • Anne Lanski • Rabbi Joy Levitt • Rabbi Asher Lopatin • Rabbi Or N. Rose • Nigel Savage • Barry Shrage • Dr. Jonathan Woocher

Rabbi Sidney Schwarz is a social entrepreneur, an author and a political activist. He founded and led PANIM: The Institute for Jewish Leadership and Values for twenty-one years. He is also the founding rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Maryland, where he continues to teach and lead services. Currently, he serves as a senior fellow at Clal—The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership where he is involved in a program that trains rabbis to be visionary spiritual leaders. He is the author of Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future; Finding a Spiritual Home: How a New Generation of Jews Can Transform the American Synagogue and Judaism and Justice: The Jewish Passion to Repair the World.

Rabbi Sidney Schwarz is available to speak on the following topics:

• Jewish Megatrends: Charting the Course of the American Jewish Future
• Tribal vs. Covenantal Identity: Jews and the American Public Square
• Finding a Spiritual Home: Redefining the Religious Enterprise
• Reaching the Jewish Community of the 21st Century: Educating for Jewish Citizenship
• Between Conscience and Solidarity
• Can Social Justice Save the Jewish Soul?

Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat has served in senior leadership posts in four U.S. administrations while also playing a leadership role in the Jewish community, most recently as the co-chairman of the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. He is the author of Imperfect Justice and The Future of the Jews.

Elise Bernhardt, has been president and CEO of the Foundation for Jewish Culture (formerly the National Foundation for Jewish Culture) since 2006. Before that, Bernhardt was the artistic advisor of New York City Center's Fall for Dance Festival and executive director of The Kitchen, the performance space in Manhattan, from 1998 to 2004. She founded the organization Dancing in the Streets, which produces performances in public spaces, and directed it from 1983 to 1998. She received the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French Ministry of Culture, the BAX 10 Award, and the Doris C. Freedman Award for enriching the public environment.

Rabbi Sharon Brous is the founding rabbi of IKAR (www.ikar-la.org), a spiritual community dedicated to reanimating Jewish life through soulful religious practice that is rooted in a deep commitment to social justice. She has been noted as one of the leading rabbis in the country in Newsweek/Daily Beast and has been listed among the Forward's fifty most influential American Jews numerous times. She serves on the faculty of the Wexner Heritage Program, the Shalom Hartman Institute, and Reboot and sits on the board of Rabbis for Human Rights.

Sanford R. ("Sandy") Cardin is president of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Philanthropic Network (CLSPN), a global effort to ignite the passion and unleash the power in young people to create change for themselves, in the Jewish community, and across the broader world. Cardin is a frequent presenter and panelist in global forums on topics related to catalytic grant making, innovative program building, Jewish identity, young adult engagement, Israel, and more.