Essays and viewpoints

By the light of a rising moon, we watched as thousands of birds appeared across the sky. Before we saw them, we heard the cacophony of bird voices, loud and insistent — here we come, make way for us, let us through. And then the awesome sight of the soaring, magnificent wings joined the sound through the hazy sky. The flocks of bird families arrived, making use of the winds to find their way, to rest their weary feet in the tiny land mass for which they were searching over continents and oceans.

That the destination for these noble flyers from Siberia and Europe and Scandinavia on their way south to Africa is a waystation at Argamon Hula in Israel is a welldocumented annual phenomenon. But to witness this event in all its noisy, graceful reality was breathtaking. And, as darkness came and the moonlight became more prominent, the shadows of the arriving bird families and flocks continued to dazzle the night sky.

I cried first at the sound, when I realized that the spectacle we anticipated was beginning. And my emotion deepened at the sight of the birds. I’m not a “birder,” just an ordinary fan of the birdsongs we hear in our day-to-day lives, just a sucker for our colorful feathered friends. “Why do you like birds so much?” my granddaughter asked me with not a little sass. “They are like flying flowers,” I said, “God’s miraculous creation in so many colors and forms.” How can you not love a goofy pelican, a delicate flamingo?

Still, my emotion at the Hula caught me by surprise. Now I think it was the sight of so much life asserting itself in a most wondrous way. We came north for the event following a few weeks of losses, of death in our small human world. We lost two dear friends, and our community suffered yet another great loss. My mind was full of questions about death, of where their souls dwell, of how we will cope as we age and our losses continue to come closer. If not answers, the birds gave me overpowering joy, and the persistence of their flying mission gave me hope. And perhaps the sheer numbers of birds coming from the heavens gave me a conscious image of what lies beyond, of what happens when our souls join the ultimate Oneness.

Scientists seem to know a great deal about how animals and birds migrate. I don’t understand much of it, and I prefer seeing the mystery unfolding in real time. I realized that the birds gave me yet another reason to be grateful for this country. The Hula swamps were famously the source of malaria and death for the early pioneers who came with hope of taming the land and building it. But the draining of the swamps, while it solved one

problem, created another. One generation’s heroes created a catastrophe for the ecosystem. Over the years, the remarkable process of “re-swamping” was begun, and the earth was nourished with seeds and other necessities for the flora and fauna. The arrival of the birds, half a billion of them, is a testament to that process. It’s still in process. But with no concern for geopolitics or pandemics, these birds really want to be here! Like so many aspects of life in this country, there is much that needs fixing and much that is so inspiringly right.

PHOTO BY FLASH90

Judy Mars Kupchan is an olah to Israel from Chicago. She is a retired CEO of the Florence Melton School of Adult Jewish Learning and a Jewish educator for more than 40 years in the U.S. This essay first appeared in Times of Israel.

Jews are a communal people, with a collective set of rituals and traditions. Ours has been a culture of assembly, as symbolized by the centrality of the synagogue and the shared focus around celebrated holidays and festivals of Passover, Yom Kippur and Chanukah. We gather, we pray with a minyan, we eat, we learn, we celebrate simchahs and we mourn, all in a communal way.

As COVID-19 took hold in the U.S. in March 2020, our home life became more grooved and separated us more than ever — children in the home, single, partnered with no children, young adulthood, older adulthood. In many ways, we were no longer geographically bound; we had lost the casual nature of our social interactions and most of our regular Jewish activities outside the home ceased.

Pushed toward isolation, our response has been to reach for connection. Within weeks of this pandemic shutdown, Jews with access and ability to use the internet found themselves gathering in virtual spaces. With bountiful entry to all things virtual — lectures, classes, gatherings, prayer, children’s programming, etc. — we were able to sample and explore the creative array of online opportunities.

This imaginative response builds on a three-decades-long renaissance in Jewish life. While COVID-19 did not launch this creative Jewish moment, it most certainly accelerated both its pace and substance.

Still amidst the pandemic, Judaism remains a communal experience. As the height of the pandemic in the U.S. receded, affording more opportunities to once again be together in person, many Jews remain increasingly drawn to virtual connection. This abundant opportunity to hold a fundamentally

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strong Jewish identity and virtually gather with other Jews serves as a conduit for a high degree of independent learning and engagement. We believe that the emergence of these online platforms has personalized in many ways one’s Jewish encounter. The climate is now primed for a decentralized membership structure making way for a communal yet individualized model.

In this essay, we examine a number of individualized Jewish platforms. Indeed, there are today hundreds of such extraordinary and innovative websites available to an inquiring audience of seekers. Among these myriad activities, we focus on: • Sites that encourage onetime virtual learnings/gatherings. • Sites that provide information (i.e. Jewish texts, shivah ritual information) that then lead to communal experiences. • Sites that provide some or all of the above and have developed membership models or other paths to ongoing consistent interaction.

Judaism Unbound, a digitally driven, radically open center for education, has been actively grappling with larger paradigm shifts and experimenting with an array of communal offerings.

At the Well provides, among other learning and gathering opportunities, tools for women to create Well Circles, independently run groups of 6-12 women, based on the rituals of Rosh Chodesh.

Remote Shiva helps mourners who are not able to have a traditional in-person shivah, to recreate this experience as easily as possible online.

offers access to all avenues of Yiddish materials, permitting the individual to explore the richness of Eastern European culture.

Jewish Studio Project combines creative practices from the field of art therapy with Jewish learning techniques and spiritual community building.

Custom & Craft is a platform for DIY Jewish life and ritual. One can create and publish one’s holiday service or lifecycle event to craft an experience that reflects one’s Jewish values and spiritual practice.

Spirituality offers programs and resources to cultivate mindfulness, deepen connection and enliven Jewish life.

Hadar empowers Jews to create and sustain vibrant, practicing, egalitarian communities of Torah, Avodah and Hesed.

Maor Intelligent Solutions, a technology firm, provides online resource materials for Jewish study and exchange. Two particular examples of this format are Knowledge Source and Tikun Teacher.

My Jewish Learning provides resources for life-cycle events and Jewish study for all

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ages. The site also provides a daily guide to Zoom events, livestreams and other online resources.

Truvie enhances and complements Jewish education for children across the globe by enabling one to create an online Jewish learning experience.

Jewish Music Stream is one of a number of platforms offering a broad choice of Jewish musical selections, artists and performances.

Foundation for Jewish Camping serves as a repository and resource for the Jewish camping field by providing interested parents and kids with an array of information about camping, the options and types of Jewish camps.

Hazon’s website affords individuals access to Jewish resources, texts and ways to become involved in addressing environmental issues.

Beyond these particular platforms, consumers have the opportunity to virtually tour Jewish museums, attend Jewish film festivals and participate in cooking classes, among hundreds of other learning opportunities.

COVID-19 accelerated a long-existing trend toward individualized engagement. Every demographic study on American Jews over the past 30 years confirms the growing diversity of our community, contributing to changes associated with personalized consumer selections.

Already in 1987, Stephen Hart, in his article on “Privatization in American Religion and Society” advanced this concept on privatization in connection with American religion. Hart writes, “That is, within a privatized religious context, people can still have a vital inner spiritual life, can still attend church faithfully, and can even contribute money generously and participate in the organizational life of the church. Societal levels of religious belief and practice can be high.

So, what we are talking about is not that privatization undermines religion, but that it empties religion of meanings which connect us to each other or to our collective life in non-instrumental ways and deprives American society of the resources such meanings provide.”

A 2017 study on spirituality vs. religious affiliation conducted by the Pew Research Center offers some interesting insights. It affirms that more informal, personalized forms of spiritual practice increasingly reflect the choices people are making. The rise of “radical individualism” within American culture and practice contributes to these diverse and personalized expressions of Judaism, especially during this pandemic. The study highlights, “Most new offerings are built on the strong foundation of great innovations like artificial intelligence and smartphones. So, this time around, an innovative force with several times the impact of the printing press is rapidly ushering in an all-new age of the individual.”

Similarly, Thomas Talhelm, associate professor of behavioral science, University of Chicago, observed: “The enormous geographic footprint of the U.S. lends itself to the ideals of an individualistic society.”

Charles Lippy also posits in his book, Being Religious, American Style, that the movement to individualized religious and cultural practices is American in character and has been developing for some time, especially among women. The idea of “private devotion and home-based ritual” represents another derivative of this growing phenomenon of personalized religion.

Judaism has not been immune to these trends. As Steven Windmueller notes, “The new American Jew will cast a fundamentally different image: highly individualized, with distinctive loyalties and discrete sets of interests. Individuality will be the defining characteristic of this new species.”

Elsewhere, Windmueller has argued, “We are no longer one community but rather can be described as multiple pods or communities. Where once there was a shared consensus about the Jewish story, today each individual is constructing their own Jewish storyline. The collective mythology has given way to a variety of communal narratives.”

Choice and diversity are dominant themes in 21st-century American Jewry. Choice is reflected in the broader cultural behaviors of this generation of Americans. How one defines or describes one’s Jewishness reflects the imprint of these various social forces and the existing consumer mindset.

Although holding as a steady, albeit struggling, collective, we have also seen a growing diversity of our community. This diversity of Jewish identity has played out via engagement with particular slices of identity and interest. People are drawn to film, arts, youth groups, education, the Holocaust and antisemitism, IsraelPalestinian issues, the Hillel movement, culinary, environment, history, music,

among other areas.

A recent report, “Jewish Chicago: Who We Are: A 2020 Population Study,” reinforces this movement toward privatized Judaism.

It states, “Jewish life extends beyond organizational boundaries to activities that take place in the home, with friends and online. Examples of individual activities include discussing Jewish topics with family or friends; reading Jewish publications; eating Jewish foods; and participating in Jewish-focused culture and entertainment such as movies, TV, books or music.

Almost all Jewish adults (91%) discussed a Jewish topic in the past year with family or friends, and just under one third (31%) discussed a Jewish topic frequently. Almost as many Jewish adults (88%) ate Jewish food in the past year. More than 82% of Jewish adults engaged in Jewish-focused culture. Just under three quarters of Jewish adults (73%) read at least one Jewish publication.

Individuals in the personal engagement group tend not to be members of Jewish organizations or attend Jewish organization-sponsored programs but did engage in Jewish personal activities. Eighty-two percent of those in the ‘personal engagement’ group discussed a Jewish topic with friends or family, 74% ate a Jewish food, 59% engaged in Jewish culture, and 41% read at least one Jewish publication.”

The current structural shifts taking place within Jewish life are driven by two primary factors: New generations of American Jews and the availability of new funding streams. The direction of philanthropic funds has always made clear the priorities of the individual. Millennials, too, are joining these alternative models of Jewish social expression, and new philanthropic investments are being directed toward supporting this appetite of choice. Due in part to their comfort and accessibility with technology, younger Jews are able to practice this type of privatized Judaism with ease. With the absence of in-person gatherings during COVID-19, these behaviors and practices have only accelerated. A new Jewish ecology of websites, organizations and movements has emerged, as a result, in response to the changing generational landscape.

Much is about distinctive generational behaviors and practices, suggesting a fundamental shift now in the Jewish community.

The boom in online engagement during COVID-19 was not the impetus for this privatized Judaism moment; however, it added significant momentum. Without our physical communal connections, we were forced to rely and reflect on our individual, personal relationship with Jewish life and our respective Jewish identities. The question is where does that leave us as we head into a post-pandemic world?

We affirm that Judaism is about peoplehood.

As Jews, our rituals, observances and identities are impacted by an abundance of factors, life stages, geography, social circles, individual interests and opportunities for engagement. The COVID-19 pandemic, similar to other large cultural and historical events, has shifted the way these elements affect and influence our individual and collective Jewish lives. In this moment where the sovereign-self continues to influence and shape many of the choices we are making around cultural and religious preferences, we are identifying a number of individuals and families who are opting to create personalized, autonomous selections. The layer of virtual vs. in-person experience brings even more complexity to how our communal expectations and individual aspirations remain in tension.

As our existential situation altered, the average engaged Jew now faces a familiar choice — apathy or intention. For those of us who choose intention, it means being honest with ourselves. What are we doing out of obligation? What brings us personal meaning? What brings us joy? And where and how do we find connection?

This then leads us to our next challenge — how has our sense of belonging in the Jewish community altered? What does it mean at this time to be “with” other Jews? How do we blend these online, individualized opportunities for engagement with a sense of in-person connection? Could our paradigm for Jewish connection and thus identity be changing?

How do we encourage the greater good in a polarized society at a time where there exists a heightened focus on every-personfor-themselves mantra? We believe that this will require all of us to understand the better angels and worse demons of human nature.

Erin Tarica, LCSW, MAJCS is the former director of the Jewish Care Program of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, and Steven Windmueller, Ph.D. is an emeritus professor of Jewish communal studies at the Jack H. Skirball Campus of Hebrew Union CollegeJewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles. This essay first appeared on ejewishphilanthropy.com on Dec. 9.

Imagine sending your Jewish son or daughter off to college with high hopes for intellectual development, self-discovery and growth in a healthy environment because you believe in the school and that its promotion of diversity and inclusion will ensure a safe space for young people. Only then do you learn that Jewish students are being made to feel so insecure that they need to hide their Jewish identity.

Statistics on campus antisemitism cannot be ignored.

According to a fall survey by the American Jewish Committee (the State of Antisemitism in America 2021), close to seven out of every 10 Jewish students on campus feel unsafe, and 50 percent hide their Jewish identity.

The ADL-Hillel Campus Antisemitism Study: 2021 supports these findings: 43 percent of Jewish students report having personally experienced or witnessed antisemitic activities on campus. For those experiencing in-person offensive comments or slurs, 79 percent say it happened more than once. These percentages are likely low, as 75 percent of those experiencing antisemitism say they did not report it.

If you think this is outlier data, the overall situation for Jews in this country, regardless of age, is shockingly bad and getting worse. The New York City Police Department has just reported a 50 percent spike in antisemitic hate crimes so far in 2021.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has decided to address on-campus antisemitism in his state. He reached out directly to 111 presidents of colleges and universities, and publicly suggested a series of specific recommendations to them on what to do, thus creating visible public pressure on the colleges and universities to actually follow through with concrete actions.

DeWine’s suggestions are far-reaching and encompass every key constituency to effect positive change on this problem. They include: • Identifying and contacting the Jewish community in each college location to work with the institution on specific plans to ensure a safe environment, online and off. • Directly reaching the highest-ranking officer at each institution to secure their personal commitment to address the scourge of Jew-hatred as a priority and to speak out publicly against it, while urging only free, open, civil and respectful debate from all on-campus communities. • Contacting campus chiefs of police and public safety directors to work with the Jewish communities and coordinate with local and state law enforcement to develop and refine specific plans to increase safety, protect the Jewish community, and work to ensure that services and other celebrations of Jewish life are safe and uninterrupted.

These recommended steps can and should be a model for every other governor to follow in every state across the union. The safety and well-being of our Jewish students in colleges across America require nothing less than forceful action against surging Jew-hatred. Some may ask, “Why are Jewish students being singled out for special protections or given a higher priority than others? Won’t this ostensible ‘preference’ present political challenges for governors?”

It is true that too many on campus today are subjected to derision, intimidation, hate speech or even violence due to their race, religion, political beliefs or other personal preferences.

Colleges have started to take steps to address some of these through increased and more focused policing as well as through diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. Too often on campus, hostility and intimidation of Jewish students are related to their support of Israel. This is excused as a free speech issue, a political matter. Yet Tony Katz jns.org no one would excuse hostility toward any group of students because of actions or policies of nations they come from or support. Jew-hatred is not limited to universities. The FBI’s 2020 statistics show that of all hate crimes in America, targeting Jews comprised 57.5 percent, far more than people of any other religious group. DeWine’s actions represent an important step in the equal treatment of Jews on campus and are consistent with how other minorities are protected. His actions provide a model framework for all governors. Jewish civil rights, especially for our Jewish youth, deserve the support of all those who really care about equality, inclusion and a safe learning environment on campus.

Tony Katz is the founder of the Confronting Anti-Semitism Network (CAN) in South Florida, Atlanta, New York City/Long Island, Boston and Indianapolis.