Jewish Creativity and the Youth – What Time Is It?

‫ בְחָכְמָה ובִתְבונָה‬,‫ רוחַ אֱלֹקִים‬,‫וָאֲמַלֵא אֹתו‬

‫ מַחֲשָבֹת‬,‫מְלָאכָה לַחְשֹב‬-‫ ובְכָל‬,‫ובְדַעַת‬
One hundred years
ago, young immigrants I am setting up
and "allrightniks" built
Q: Is it reasonable to assume that the Jewish future in Hebrew humanism
the American Jewish America is more secure because of the rebirth of Israel? in opposition to that
infrastructure that we
have today -- from
A: If by “the security of the Jewish future,” is meant the Jewish nationalism
which regards Israel
defense organizations possibility of maintaining a thriving Judaism, the answer is as a nation like unto
to landsmanshaften to
unhesitatingly, Yes…To prove how true that is, imagine other nations and
nightclubs and "shuls
with pools." Now we what the Jewish future in this country would look like, if
recognizes no task
are seeing smaller, there were no State of Israel, nor any prospect of for Israel save that of
more localized, but no preserving and
less provocative, establishing one. There would then be no common aim for asserting itself. But
efforts to rejuvenate, which Jews everywhere, with all of their diversities of no nation in the
engage, practice, and world has this as its
live Jewish lives belief and practice, could strive as a means of giving only task, for just as
organized by people expression to the spiritual, social and moral potentialities an individual who
younger than 40 on
their own terms. of their three-thousand year old tradition. Without the wishes merely to
preserve and assert
In cities across the opportunity of demonstrating what Judaism that has a free
country they are himself leads an
creating their own field for itself can do to further social and spiritual unjustified and
minyanim instead of progress, the Jewish people is like a musical genius who meaningless
joining synagogues; existence, so a nation
they are writing and lacks an instrument on which to play…The establishment with no other aim
publishing their own of the State of Israel thus means for Jews everywhere, and deserves to pass
journals instead of just away.
subscribing to existing notably in America, an instrument by which the Jewish –Martin Buber, “Hebrew
ones; they are playing people is enabled to play a significant role in human Humanism” (1942)
their own music,
putting out records, civilization and demonstrate the validity of its holiest
and producing their ideals. By making Jewish life more worth living, it serves to
own concerts. They are
hosting salons and maintain the loyalty and devotion of Jews everywhere to
movie screenings. their heritage and insures its continuation and
They are involved in
the creation of Jewish
enhancement. --Mordechai M. Kaplan, Know How to Answer. New
life that is thoughtful, York: The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (1951) pp. 48-49
popular, and exists
largely on the marginsClearly, we writers—and the Jewish community in general—need another way of thinking about North
of mainstream Jewish
American Jewish life and identity. We look to the new-Jew writing vanguard to do for us what the great
organizational life. (Ari
Y. Kelman, Testing, testing:Jewish authors of the 1950s and 1960s did for previous generations of alienated Jews. But we find that
Jewish creativity on theour new writing fails us. With few exceptions, it continues to portray the North American Jew of
margins: Ginsberg’s era. Our composite personality is no longer that of the perpetually marginalized neurotic,
http://www.njjewishnews.c dominated by traditional parents and rejected by the outside world. So why cling to an edge on which the
om/njjn.com/052407/comm
TestingTesting.html) Jewish people no longer teeter? – Hal Niedzviecki (The Death of Edge, http://www.jewcy.com/feature/the_death_of_edge)

I don’t know exactly when, but at some point, the Jewish institutional world shifted its focus when it
comes to today’s 20- and 30-somethings. It wasn’t enough to declare the existence of a “singles crisis”
and urge us to get married; all of a sudden it was about babies. Today, Jewish cultural creativity seems to
be at an all-time high, with new magazines, fellowships and artistic initiatives appearing regularly.
Perhaps a conference of funders realized that many of us are so committed to our creativity that we can’t
support community institutions in the same proportion that the previous generation did. Add that to the
rising alarm over intermarriage rates and over Jews in their breeding years who are getting married later,
if at all, and a new priority emerged. Despite the countless hours spent in promoting new Jewish
initiatives, the only act of Jewish creation that seems to matter to “the establishment” is procreation; as if
someone decided that if our generation can’t make donations, the least we can do is make Jewish babies.
– Esther D. Kustanowitz (Make Babies, Not Contributions http://www.thejewishweek.com/middle/table41.php3?artid=5999)