Outreach must be relevant

MIRA SUCHAROV

Much is made these days about Jewish communal affiliation, with many Jewish groups investing considerable resources towards outreach. With all the talk surrounding getting Jews more "affiliated," I'm wondering about the relationship between organizational values and outreach. Should Jewish organizations convince the unaffiliated of the goodness of their mission? Or should they adapt their mission to the ethical, moral and even esthetic sensibilities of those who they are trying to reach? Is there even such a thing as "Jewish values" that most Jews can agree on?

Another way to ask this is whether all organizations that claim outreach as a goal are indeed trying to "create a more open and welcoming Judaism" – as the New York-based Jewish Outreach Institute bills itself?

The now-defunct U.S.-based Jewish Living magazine tapped into this sentiment when they ran a story last year asking "How gay is your shul?" (The LGBT Welcoming Synagogues Project was surveying almost all American congregations on their policies of inclusion.) Many of those who do not fit the traditional family mould are clearly more attracted to liberal congregations. Moreover, though tradition and historical family affiliation can be strong pulls, those heterosexual Jews who view a congregation's openness to gays and lesbians as a litmus test for that congregation's values might choose their synagogue according to that criterion as well.

Where it's less obvious is in other types of Jewish institutions. Should community centres stop using Styrofoam to appeal to the environmentally conscious? Should Orthodox Jewish learning institutes alter their common practice of gender-separate Talmud study to address concerns over "separate but equal" status among those who strive to break down gender barriers? How should Jewish day schools teach the Book of Leviticus to children of same-sex parents?

When I was growing up in 1980s Winnipeg, it seemed that every Jewish kid in the city congregated on Saturday afternoons at the YMHA for a frenzied, parentless afternoon of social clubs, gym, swimming, magic and puppetry classes, board games, french fries and Astropops. The Judaism was hardly explicit – practically every Sabbath rule was being broken, as it stood – but the ethnic bubble that was the Winnipeg Jewish community in those days meant that the programming didn't have to be Jewish to instil Jewish identity in that unconsciously powerful way that good kids programming can do.

These days, parents are faced with a huge array of choices for their children's extra-curricular recreation, making existing Jewish agencies compete for participants in a way they did not always have to.

I think it comes down to the question of relevance. Though many Jews might readily admit that they harbor a strong Jewish identity, their personal preferences might not always jibe with organized Jewish life. This is particularly the case as definitions of community grow and expand from what they once were for the first or second generation of Jewish immigrants to Canada.

Potential participants in activities might ask themselves: why would I invest in institutions that don't reflect my worldview? Of course, there will be others for whom many Jewish organizations are too progressive.

While personal values and ethics vary, Jewish communal institutions must find a way to tap into existing social, ecological, intellectual, esthetic and spiritual concerns. What precisely these concerns are, though, is not obvious within Jewish communities whose members' identities are necessarily shaped by various familial, local, regional and global forces. Maybe a good first-cut solution is to ask what people really care about these days, rather than assuming that what have sometimes been called "Jewish values," are really the values of all contemporary Jews. It's not an easy question, but one, if addressed, promises to help organizations reach out more meaningfully.

Mira Sucharov is an Ottawa writer and an associate professor at Carleton University.

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