THE FUTURE OF THE

«TASK FORCE REPORT

THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE TASK FORCE ON THE FUTURE OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN AMERICA

MEMBERS

LOUIS STERN, Chairman - Former President of the RABBI MARTIN S. ROZENBERG - The Com• Jewish Welfare Board and the Council of Jewish munity Synagogue, Sands Point, New York Federations and Welfare Funds MARSHALL SKLARE - Professor of American DAVID SI DORSKY, Consultant - Professor of Jewish Studies, Brandeis University Philosophy, Columbia University JOHN SLAWSON - Executive Vice President *RABBI JACOB B. AGUS - Congregation Beth El, Emeritus, American Jewish Committee Baltimore JAMES SLEEPER - Cambridge, Massachusetts ROBERT ALTER - Professor of Comparative Litera• SANFORD SOLENDER - Executive Vice President, ture, University of California at Berkeley Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York SHRAGA ARIAN - Superintendent, Board of Jewish City Education, Chicago HARRY STARR - President, Lucius N. Littauer WILLIAM AVRUNIN - Executive Vice President, Foundation Jewish Welfare Federation of Detroit ISAAC TOUBIN - Executive Vice President, Ameri• MAX W. BAY, M.D. - Co-Chairman of the Western can Association for Jewish Education Regional Council of the American Jewish SIDNEY Z. VINCENT - Executive Director, Jewish Committee Community Federation of Cleveland PHILIP BERNSTEIN - Executive Vice President, MAYNARD I. WISHNER - Chairman, Jewish Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds Communal Affairs Commission of the American LUCY S. DAWIDOWICZ-Associate Professor of Jewish Committee Social History, Yeshiva University JOSEF HAYIM YERUSHALMI - Professor of RABBI IRA EISENSTEIN - President of the Recon• Jewish History, Harvard University struction's! Rabbinical College GEORGE M. ZELTZER - Detroit DANIEL J. ELAZAR - Director of the Center for LOUIS I. ZORENSKY - President of the Jewish the Study of Federalism, Temple University Federation of St. Louis LEONARD J. FEIN - Professor of Politics and Social Policy, The Florence Heller Graduate School, Brandeis University American Jewish Committee Staff

MIRIAM FREUND-New York City BERTRAM H. GOLD - Executive Vice President SIDNEY GOLDSTEIN - Director of Population SELMA HIRSH - Assistant Director Studies and Training Center, and Professor of Sociology, Brown University MILTON HIMMELFARB - Director, Department of Information and Research ALFRED JOSPE - National Director, B'nai B'rith Hillel Foundations, Washington, D.C. SAMUEL KATZ - Director, Community Services Department MRS. FRANK KAUFMAN - Baltimore GLADYS ROSEN - Program Specialist, Jewish RABBI WOLFE KELMAN — Executive Vice Presi• Communal Affairs Department dent, Rabbinical Assembly of America YEHUDA ROSENMAN - Director, Jewish Com• MORRIS L. LEVINSON - New York City munal Affairs Department DAVID LIEBER - President, the University of STEVEN WINDMUELLER - Program Specialist, Judaism, Los Angeles Jewish Communal Affairs Department SEYMOUR MARTIN LIPSET - Professor of Govern• ment and Social Relations, Harvard University MORRIS FINE - Task Force Coordinator

CHARLES S. LIPSON. M.D. - Boston PHYLLIS SHERMAN - Assistant Task Force MORTIMER OSTOW, M.D. - Sandrow Visiting Coordinator Professor of Pastoral Psychiatry, Jewish 0 Theological Seminary

RABBI EMANUEL RACKMAN - Fifth Avenue Synagogue, New York City

RABBI MAX J. ROUTTENBERG — Temple B'nai * A supplementary statement by Rabbi Agus appears at the Sholom, Rockville Centre, New York end of this Report. 30/ ^3

IN AMERICA

A TASK FORCE REPORT

THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE Institute of Human Relations 165 East 56 Street, New York, N.Y. 10022 THE CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURE . 51 Institutions of Higher Education 52 Publications 54 Other Media 56 Libraries 57 Museums 57 Theatre Arts - 58 THE SYNAGOGUE 59 Diagnosis 60 Problem Areas 61 Communal-Synagogue Action 62 ISRAEL AND THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY 65 Joint Program Areas 67 Israeli Models for American Jews . 69 American Models for Israeli Culture 70 Israel as a Personnel Resource 70 Institutional Participation 71 Cultural Exchange 71 Tours 72 Emigration to Israel 72 DECISION-MAKING 74 Volunteer Leadership 75 Professional Staff Roles 76 Responsible Decision-Making 78 The Community and the Congregation 81 American Communal Decision-Making and Israel .... 82 Local, Cosmopolitan, and National Leadership 83 THE ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES 85

6 PREFACE

Late in 1969 the American Jewish Committee undertook an assessment of the probable trends and developments in the 1970s that would have a particular impact on the Jewish situation both at home and abroad. Believing that the Seventies would present the Jewish community with new and complex problems which could be dealt with successfully only through a process of long-range planning, the Commit• tee's Board of Governors created a Task Force Policy Committee for the purpose of planning such a program. The Task Force Policy Committee created three inde• pendent task forces, each to operate in an area of vital concern to American and world Jewry falling within the scope of the American Jewish Committee. These were: intergroup relations in America, the future of the American Jewish community, and international affairs. Each of the task forces was composed of 30-35 well-known academicians and experts in their fields as well as laymen of wide knowledge and experience, both within the American Jewish Commit• tee's official family and outside. Each task force retained a special consultant to direct its work, select the areas for study, draft the reports, etc. In addition others were enlisted as required for special background papers and consultations which furnished the basis for the task force conferences. This Report, dealing with the future of the Jewish community in America, seeks to identify and examine the major factors—institutions, tendencies, programs—that deter-

v mine the character of Jewish culture and identity in the United States, for the purpose of developing recommenda• tions for action that might help shape the agenda for the American Jewish community in the next decade. It was prepared by David Sidorsky, Consultant to the Task Force, based upon the deliberations of the Task Force at its conferences in New York City on September 26-28, 1970; March 27-29, 1971; and February 5-7, 1972; together with one-day consultations on particular subjects and specially prepared position papers. As Dr. Sidorsky indicates in his Foreword to this Report, he has tried to prepare a consensus document which would formulate the sense of the Task Force on the major questions. The members of the Task Force have reviewed the manuscript and are in general agreement with it, although they may not necessarily agree with all of the Report's observations or recommendations. We are especially grateful to Dr. Sidorsky for the brilliant direction he gave to this entire undertaking, and to the Task Force members and other experts whose papers furnished the basis for Dr. Sidorsky's policy recommendations. We are deeply appreciative, also, of the efforts of Morris Fine and his staff for their competent guidance of this as well as the other Task Forces from their inception. The papers presented at the conferences are scheduled for publication early in 1973, under a grant from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation. Copies of this Report are available to interested persons or groups from the American Jewish Committee's national office in New York City.

MORTON K. BLAUSTEIN Chairman Task Force Policy Committee » August 1972 vi AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

This Report is an effort to summarize and to integrate the papers, panel discussions, and conference sessions of the Task Force. It is primarily a consensus document which expresses the convergent views and the agreed sense of the meetings. I have also sought to show the range of opinion within the diverse membership of the Task Force. I have not attempted to trace to their source and to properly attribute the statements and recommendations in this Report. In many cases, these derive from the prepared papers; in others, they stem from the group discussion or even from communications by individual members of the Task Force. Accordingly, the intellectual debts accumulated in such a collective venture are varied and shared, and I shall not here render the account of gratitude. I would be remiss, however, if I did not express my appreciation to those members of the American Jewish Committee staff who assisted in the preparation and editing of this Report: Morris Fine and Phyllis Sherman, and to Maier Deshell of Commentary magazine.

DAVID SIDORSKY

INTRODUCTION

The decade of the 1970s provides challenging opportuni• ties and major risks for the American Jewish community. These are most readily seen as they relate to the physical or communal security of Jews whether in the United States, in Israel, or elsewhere. It is also true, however, that the Jewish community, both in its institutional experience and in the commitments of individuals, is facing opportunities and risks fundamental for its ethical arid spiritual character, its morale, and for the quality of its communal culture. The Task Force on the Future of the Jewish Community in America has sought to analyze some of these opportunities and risks with a view to formulating an agenda for the Jewish community. In understanding that task, it was clear that no single organization or group of organizations can determine the agenda of the Jewish community. There are several reasons why this is so. One inevitable fact of life is that unpredictable events will help to determine the agenda. Consider how the War in the Middle East in 1967, the residual loyalties and heroism of Soviet Jewry, the hostility to integrationist values of some militant segments of the Black community have brought about responses of unpredicted intensity. Even in areas of Jewish communal direction, it is impor• tant to note that the Jewish community is extremely pluralis• tic and voluntaristic, so localized and so diffuse that its decisions reflect the attitudes of individual Jews, of different synagogues or membership associations, of various local com• munal groups as well as of national agency staff or leadership.

1 No simple schema of coordination or centralized direction could or should be imposed upon these patterns of commu• nal diversity. Further, in addition to patterns of communal voluntarism and structural differentiation of Jewish communal life, there is some degree of ideological and religious disagreement on substantive programs and policies. Many Jewish organizations are, it is true, limited-purpose organizations which respond to expressed individual or communal needs without any self- conscious overall ideological world-view. Most Jews have a strong sense of their identity as Jews and even a desire to preserve and enhance the character of that identification without any theoretically consistent set of programs or pur• poses. Yet the range of implicit or explicit ideological posi• tions is very broad. Within the Jewish community there is one view which sees the American Jewish community's ideal goal as separatist survival of small groups of religiously obser• vant Jews. There is another view which sees the American Jewish communal goal as participation in a common progres• sive front for furtherance of social ideals. Some American Jewish groups project a Jewish future of majority erosion and minority emigration to Israel. Other American Jewish groups project a Jewish renaissance in America with the emergence of a new Jewish ideal type who will represent a synthesis of American and Jewish values. While appreciative of this rich and vital juxtaposition of diverse programs and purposes by well-organized and less- organized American Jewish groups, it is also clear that many Jewish groups have shared concerns. The reality and the perception of these common concerns are the basis for the formulation of a communal agenda. Most Jews share a concern with the continuity of Jewish identity in the next and succeeding generations even when they disagree about the primacy of ethnic, religious, or ideo• logical factors in that identity. Most share a concern with the moral quality of American Jewish life even if they disagree on the moral status of particular ideals. Most share a concern

2 with the preservation of major Jewish religious, cultural, or linguistic traditions even if they disagree on the primacy of some aspects of the tradition. Most share a concern with the continued transmission and revitalization of Jewish individual and collective experience as an expression of human values, even if they disagree on methods of transmission or of revitalization of that experience. Accordingly, many Jews of differing viewpoints and of diverse institutional loyalties have felt a need for the exami• nation of the directions and priorities within American Jewish life. The Task Force undertook that examination fully aware that it could not investigate in detail the entire spec• trum of the American Jewish future. It did not aim at a massive call to reinforcement or regeneration of the morale and dedication of the individual Jew. It felt it could articu• late some sense of what the current Jewish communal agenda is and where it seems to be moving. It could then seek to help the various organized communities of the American Jewish institutional structure to decide where they wanted to be going or ought to go in fulfillment of these needs and possibilities. In some cases, the agenda provides a list of issues which require further research. In other cases, it articulates a strong convergence of directions for action. In still others it points toward desiderata or lacunae in the life of the commu• nity. Wherever possible, the Task Force has sought to specify recommendations for action which can either become com• munal projects or serve as points of departure for communal action. The goal of the Task Force is to provide a perspective from which the manifold activities that now take place can be examined for their coherence, their current relevance, their responsiveness to future needs, and their adequacy relative to perennial Jewish demands.

3 THE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

The Task Force sought first to locate the present position of the American Jewish community in an historical perspec• tive. In the course of its deliberations•, four perspectives, relevant to a delineation of the Jewish agenda, were taken under consideration. In the most sweeping focus, the period we are now enter• ing was compared, in terms of the critical changes in Jewish life that mark both ages, to the first century of the Common Era. In that century, the Jewish polity in Israel was destroyed and rabbinical law became the dominant factor for Judaism in the Diaspora. In our lifetime, the Jewish polity has been restored and the authority of rabbinical law has been eroded. These processes are not measured in the time span of a decade. Yet this generation will play an important role in working out a new set of relationships between Israel and Diaspora Judaism. The erosion of rabbinical law has been taking place for over a century, and its replacement by denominational groups and secular agencies and movements has been an ongoing reconstruction. Yet a structure of re• spected authority and of communal decision-making to reconstitute some aspects of rabbinical authority is still on the agenda of both Israeli and American Judaism. A second perspective, in narrower focus, interpreted Amer• ican Judaism as the signal and single instance of the success• ful culmination of the process of Emancipation. In the Jewish view, Emancipation was defined as the struggle for total liberation from the ghetto, providing the individual Jew

4 with full civil rights and with the opportunity to share in the heritage of enlightened Western culture. The product of Emancipation was to be a Jew who participated fully and equally in Western society in the public domain, and fully and loyally in the Jewish faith in the private domain. This emancipated Jew would, presumably, be affected by both Western cultural patterns and Jewish religious values. The process of Emancipation received a dramatic jolt in Eastern Europe with the Soviet Revolution and came to a catastroph• ic end with the Nazi conquest of Europe. American society, on the other hand, has witnessed the unique case of a reasonably successful fulfillment of the Emancipation ideal. The successful completion of a structure of an emanci• pated community, with the partial exception of the self- segregated Orthodox segment, has presented American Jewry with the unique and unprecedented program of a post- Emancipation Judaism. On this view, in the past, the ener• gies of the American Jewish community have been absorbed mostly in constructing the "defensive" framework for Jewish life under conditions of political and cultural freedom. This included the vigilant guarding of the wall of separation between Church and State so as to insulate the public domain, where Jews participated as citizens, from the private domain of institutional religion. Also included was the struggle for full civil rights, as well as the development of those denominational patterns of Judaism—neo-Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform—which for most Jews effectively replaced the separatist Orthodox patterns. The continued reinforcement of the framework for Jewish rights or for Jewish religious practice is no longer a part of the dynamic agenda for Jewish life in America. Certainly, such reinforcement will still remain necessary in response to deprivation or to situations of insecurity; but to the degree to which Jewish rights, security, and welfare are achieved, programs which look to the quality of Jewish life become increasingly relevant and important. The Emancipation framework, the widespread view of American society as

5 triply divided into Protestants, Catholics, and Jews, and the growing importance of the suburban milieu have favored the continued practice of Jewishness as a publicly sanctioned set of conventional behavioral responses by a minority religious group in America. Without a new sense of communal direction or a new sense of Jewish commitment, these will now accelerate the potential drift away from Jewish practices and institutions. Seen in this light, the Jewish community faces an unprecedented crisis of morale, which can only be met by intensive cultivation of the values to the individual and the group which are available through commitment to the sources of the Jewish tradition. The perspective which sees American Judaism as living in a post-Emancipation situation was also asserted in the view— the third perspective presented—that American Judaism now has completed its response to the fundamental revolu• tions with which modernity has challenged the viability of Jewish tradition. The American Jewish community has adjusted to the acceptance of a scientific and technological culture. The world-view of modern science, which was to have eroded traditional religion, has left open significant options for the practice and theory of Jewish religion in a post-scientific society. The recent past, in fact, has seen the paradoxical triumph of technology accompanied by a search for new forms of religious belief and by a quest for religious community, often exploiting or even perverting traditional idioms of religious practice. A further significant inheritance of Emancipation for the Jewish community was the thrust toward "universal" values as defined by rationalistic or liberal ideals. The cataclysm to the liberal and universalist vision brought about by successive waves of irrationalism within Western culture, like Nazism and Communism, has, of course, transformed Jewish optim• ism about participation in those universalistic philosophies which would ultimately abolish all ethnic or particularistic bonds. The new ideological agenda for many Jews requires the reconstitution of the secular liberal faith in forms which

6 are realistically cognizant of the bitter historical experience of the recent past and legitimately sensitive to Jewish ethnic or communal interests. The program of Emancipation involved the pattern of denominational adjustment, including the structure of neo- Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform modes. In many cases now the aspects which divide these groups seem increasingly irrelevant to the felt needs of their constituents. Accordingly, the significance of new institutional patterns of Jewish religious observance emerges on the agenda. The historical perspective which views these denominational movements as phases in the adjustment of Judaism to modernity can fruitfully suggest patterns of action in which denominational- ism is irrelevant. In particular, this has implications for Jewish educational planning. The major locus of Jewish identity during Emancipation was the extended Jewish family, patriarchally or matriarch- ally dominated. The current primary locus of Jewish identity is the nuclear Jewish family. The problem of communal reinforcement of identity patterns in the new family situa• tion is thus seen to be of significant importance for the Jewish future. Indeed, change in family patterns is an ongoing process in the United States today. The perspective of its significance serves to call attention to the priority of family education within the Jewish communal agenda. An even narrower historical focus—the fourth perspective —was developed from a specific and central American Jewish situation, the completion of the Jewish immigration process and the almost total Jewish adjustment to the American life-style. The Jewish immigrant generation had developed a "social contract" with America. In that contract, the American Jew was prepared to abandon some of his ethnic features and sought to develop institutional patterns compat• ible with the American ethos. The "new ethnicity" of the 1970s has reshaped the formulation of that contract. It would seem that American pluralistic culture and the American Jewish community are now prepared to reexamine

7 the validity and viability of enriched ethnic institutional patterns for American Judaism. These four historical perspectives are compatible, although each raised various aspects for the Jewish agenda of the 1970s. In particular, two specific recommendations of the Task Force seem directly related to these perspectives. 1) The Variety of Intellectual Exploration of the Contemporary Jewish Situation The Jewish community is not sufficiently aware of the ferment that is currently taking place in many intellectual circles regarding the vitality of Judaism. Furthermore, such dramatically unpredictable patterns as the reassessment of universalism and liberalism and the phenomenon of religious quest have been taking place to a degree outside the usual congregational or institutional framework. The involvement of much wider ranges of persons and broader sources of experience is possible. There is a significant drive toward Jewish self-consciousness in a greater segment of the intellec• tual, literary, and artistic communities. A much more troubled but less defensive generation of rabbis and an enormously larger constituency of Jewish scholars are among the participants in the particular dialogue. What is, therefore, required is the articulation of the search for new perspectives of the Jewish experience in ways that can assist the emergence of new direction within the American Jewish community. Accordingly, a specific recom• mendation of the Task Force is that appropriate Jewish communal or educational agencies stimulate a new frame• work for ongoing discussion and inquiry, whose central theme would be the assessment of the position of Judaism within the contemporary cultural and religious environment.

2) The Place of Experimentation with Patterns of Institutional Involvements * The recognition of the changing historical situation of the American Jewish community gives a sense of appropriateness

8 to the search for new institutional patterns. Of course, these relate to subsequently examined items on the agenda that deal with Jewish identity or with the synagogue. Further, experimentation presupposes some sense of continuity and some responsiveness to communal needs, not simply a felt awareness of the need Tor innovations as a response to new Jewish situations. Yet in some ways, it would seem that a review of historical perspectives of American Jewish life does suggest support for programs that seek to address themselves to the new Jewish situation in new institutional frameworks. The possibilities require efforts to reach beyond the framework of the emancipation adjustment in support of new institutional frames for Jewish experience. Accordingly, the Task Force recommends special support for innovative practices—liturgi• cal, programmatic, or educational experiments—within Jewish religio-cultural life.

9 THE DEMOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE

The Jewish community in the United States is acutely aware of its relative size within the world Jewish community. This awareness contributes to its sense of responsibility toward other Jewish communities, especially in Israel and the Soviet Union. And this sense of responsibility, in turn, is a major factor in its own morale and self-image. Even if Soviet emigration to Israel increases, the American Jewish commu• nity would still be by far the largest Jewish community in the world. If Soviet emigration to Israel were to increase dramatically, or if Soviet Jews gained rights of communal expression, then the burden of American Jewish responsibil• ity through the 1970s would probably be magnified. One consequence of such growing responsibility would be the inevitable development of an American Jewish leadership on the basis of performance in respect to the problem of Jews overseas. Clearly, there is no necessary antithesis, for often concern with Israel or the Jewish situation overseas may mark or stimulate commitment to local Jewish needs and programs. It is important that leadership also be related to understanding and achievement in American Jewish communal life. Although its population of 6,000,000 makes the American Jewish community count for nearly one-half of the world Jewish population, it is just undej 3 per cent of the population of the United States. The slight decline in this percentage over the past two decades is the result of the end of large-scale Jewish immigration and of the low Jewish birth

10 rate. It can be argued that the significance of this statistic for the Jewish self-image has been marginal for a number of reasons. These include the status of Judaism as one of the three major recognized faiths of the country, the prominence of Jews in certain segments of the American cultural milieu, and the concentration•^ the Jewish population in the North• east section of the land. Within recent years, there seems to have developed a growing sense of insecurity stemming from a heightened awareness of the proportional numerical insig• nificance of the Jewish minority. In community relations, of course, this insecurity derives from such phenomena as the revival of quota systems in some areas of employment and the coerced exodus of Jews from residence, ownership, or entrepreneurship in urban neighborhoods. In the sphere of Jewish identity, this insecurity finds its origins in glimpses of the spectre of the vanishing American Jew and in a concern lest communal concentration fall below the agglomeration apparently required for meaningful cultural life. The broad trend of demographic patterns set by immigra• tion rates and birth rates is not substantially within the power of the community to control. The sense of insecurity about the Jewish communal future that derives from demo• graphic projections, however, can be directed toward strengthening communal security, communal responsibility, and communal planning toward Jewish identity. Demographic data provide a profile of the American Jewish community. From the data, we learn that American Jews now form a predominantly third-generation American community. It is a community whose members are largely and increasingly college-educated. It is also a community that is changing from one of extended family units into one of nuclear units. The demographic profile indicates significant challenges to the continuity of the American Jewish commu• nity. In the deliberations of the Task Force, six areas of concern emerged for the communal agenda that relate significantly to demographic planning: 1) population move• ment from the inner cities to the suburbs; 2) regional

11 mobility; 3) intermarriage and conversion; 4) regional central• ization or decentralization; 5) the neglected constituencies; 6) demographic "bulge." Planning for Population Movements There is a standard stereotype, based on a partial truth, regarding the postwar transformation of the American Jewish community. In that stereotype, Jews left the urban ghetto, whose bustling streets rang with informal Jewish folkways and afforded the full gamut of unorganized associationist Jewish reinforcement, for the alien and affluent suburbs. There the transplanted Jew felt the need for formal affilia• tion with a Jewish center or congregation. Statistical confir• mation is available of this transformation from Jewish "street" culture to membership in "congregational" culture. To the extent to which this portrait is a reasonably undistorted reflection of a complex process, it suggests an agenda regarding the strengthening of the resources of the suburban center. There are a number of related significant issues to consider. The move out of the inner city often involved a move from one "village" Jewish environment to another, from East Flatbush or the Grand Concourse, say, to Forest Hills or Laurelton, to cite New York illustrations. This movement does not fit the stereotyped movement from "ghetto" to "suburb." "Natural" tendencies for Jewish associations con• tinue in the suburban society, if allowances are made for the change of scale introduced by the increased dependence on the automobile. There were also striking similarities in the attitude to synagogues or centers in the urban center and in the suburbs. The pattern of population movements to the more remote exurban center, especially if this movement is restricted to the younger population, imposes challenges upon Jewish communal planning that are different from those which have already taken place. It may be that a degree of neighborhood contiguity and a proportion of neighbor• hood homogeneity are presuppositions for vital Jewish

12 communities. If this is so, then it raises severe challenges for a community committed to greater racial or ethnic integration at all levels of living. The ideals of liberalism and democracy, of course, give significant place to a search for community or fraternity and to the meaning of freedom of voluntary association as well as to full dimensions of equality. The drift toward contiguity in residence will not be quickly reversed. These considerations are relevant for Jewish attitudes toward housing and population policies. In the context of the Task Force discussion, the emerging question is: how should the Jewish community utilize demographic data to direct its planning? A particularly sensitive area will be planning which would allow new or maturing suburbs to meet Jewish communal needs. The Task Force consensus was to recognize the legitimacy of Jewish neighborhoods as one possible locus of Jewish community endeavor. It recommends that all community institutions plan their building programs with greater research and sensitivity to Jewish demographic trends. Only then will programs reinforce and augment the range of communal resources available in areas of Jewish population. A related issue is the "discovery" of the bypassed, diminished Jewish communities in the inner cities. Demo• graphic projections can help to determine communal strate• gies for these communities, although factors independent of demography, e.g., the sense of communal responsibility for the bypassed, are also crucial. When and how is investment in supportive resources justified? Particularly in marginal com• munities, where the population is dwindling, there is a need to provide cultural amenities and to devise supportive strategies. The Jewish leadership will therefore have to consider such questions as: should the Jewish community subsidize the Jewish "street" with restaurant or book-store facilities, or should it instead sponsor a housing project in an effort to stabilize a community which already has an enormous school or synagogue plant? Clearly these questions involve sensitive issues in intergroup relations, but they also

13 vitally affect Jewish morale, self-image, and probably Jewish continuity. Evening programs, or adult education or after• noon children's activities cannot be held in the inner city because of security problems. Education or cultural program• ming therefore involves their communal sponsor in considera• tions of the urban framework and the demographic basis of the program. Major universities like Chicago, Columbia, or Vanderbilt have sought to invest in apartments, stores, or schools in their surrounding communities in order to provide for a framework for their own continuance. Comparable programs in environmental supportive services may well be a desideratum for Jewish survival in the metropolitan center. The Task Force recommendation does not propose specific solutions for these complex problems which vary from locality to locality. The Task Force recommends the development of guide• lines for the assertion of general communal concern in every local institutional decision regarding the abandonment of Jewish institutions in changing neighborhoods. The appropri• ate fact-finding and policy mechanisms for decision-making on these questions should be developed by the coordinating Jewish communal agencies. Another related issue is planning for new communities in the various "new towns," like Co-op City, New York or Co• lumbia, Maryland. These new developments in their more planned environments mark a significant departure from older suburban or urban neighborhoods. The pattern of relocated Jewish communal services raises the question of the pattern of cultural and religious services. The communal role in planning or consultation for such services will probably expand in the 1970s. Specifically, the Task Force took note of the Jewish role in the planning and building of New Cities, and suggested a communal responsibility in providing them with Jewish facilities. The completion of a full generation of Jewish suburban- dwellers in the twenty-five years since World War II, will confront the Jewish community with changing demographic

14 patterns. The Jewish community does avail itself of demo• graphic and other research in its plant investment. However, the record of abandoned neighborhoods, sometimes because of predictable developments, suggests that the community has not always made its decisions with an awareness of demographic trends.#The Task Force was therefore concerned with the emergence of communal procedures which would engender the most intelligent planning possible.

Planning for Regional Mobility The Task Force study on demography identified the growing Jewish migration from the Northeast to the Western and Southern regions of the country as the single demo• graphic trend most related to Jewish survival. This iden• tification reflects the historical experience that Jewish migration to areas of underdeveloped Jewish communities has lead predictably to higher rates of intermarriage and to severe difficulty in developing the degree of agglomeration necessary for Jewish community life. Yet the study also pointed out that

such mobility may still serve the positive function in a given situation, small Jewish communities may benefit considerably from the influx of other Jews who are attracted by nearby universities or modern technological industries. Such in-migration may be crucial in creating the critical mass prerequisite to initiation maintenance of the institutional facilities essential for continuing Jewish identification. Migration may thus constitute the blood transfusion which greatly enhances the chances of the community's survival.

The recognition of the dual possibilities of regional migration suggests the real and potential values of communal planning and strategies. It is also noteworthy that the search for community as a substitute for extended family ties now involves, in particular, the setting up of small congregations.

15 The Task Force urges every national and regional Jewish agency to be sensitive to the new geographical areas which may require these services. The Task Force, however, here as elsewhere, did not see its function as providing specifically detailed solutions for problems but identifying the relative weight of the problem, in this case, the increasing significance of regional mobility for Jewish community life. Two specific suggestions were raised in Task Force discussions. One is the institutional mechanism which will welcome or facilitate the entry of the newcomer or transient into the Jewish community. The other is the determination of programs of regional or network services. The Task Force recommends that every Jewish community, including New York City, develop programs which welcome newcomers to an appropriate range of Jewish communal activities.

Intermarriage and Conversion The most psychologically sensitive issue as it affects Jewish continuity is intermarriage. It is a truism that a rise in intermarriage is the cost of Jewish participation in a free society. This truism, of course, does not negate the signifi• cance of the diverse programs relating both to primary or secondary institutions which aim at reinforcing Jewish identity and commitment. From the demographic point of view, the Task Force pointed out that the present data on intermarriage do not converge toward particular conclusions. The strongest corre• lation with an increased rate of intermarriage was residence in regions of small Jewish populations. Though there may be a self-selective process at work in this residential choice, the mechanisms for Jewish communal response to intermarriage then deal with integrating the individual Jew who is moving away from the Northeast into the communal patterns of the new centers of Jewish population. The demographic data also confirm the thesis that inter• marriage can result in conversion to Judaism or in options that involve Jewish identity for the children. There has been

16 significant controversy, particularly in the past decade, over Jewish attitudes toward conversion, especially among Conser• vative or Reform rabbis, who exercised a decisive role in the conversion or marriage ritual. The Task Force recommends participation of rabbinical and communal leadership and extensive psychological and demographic research toward the formulation of a coherent and viable set of Jewish strategies for the 1970s. Regional Centralization or Decentralization The network of national Jewish agencies has, as a matter of rational organizational planning, developed local, regional, and national centers. Further, there is an overlapping communications network among Jewish professional and voluntary leadership which is aware of regional and local patterns. On the other hand, for those areas of communal activity which have been considered "local"—for example, religious practices, education, libraries—the country's pattern reflects historical accident. It is an accident of history that Cincinnati became the center for the Reform Rabbinate. It is in response to population and energy growth but no coherent plan that both Reform and Conservative rabbinical schools have branches in California. It is not only local synagogues whose movements seem dictated by population stresses with little planning. The only major Jewish museum in New York City relocated, as did the national center of Yiddish Studies, due to urban renewal and the offer of attractive housing for their services, and not because of any significant considera• tion of their reinforcing role to previous locations or their significance as regional centers. Since we know from experi• ence of some of the mistakes that might occur as a result of overall planning in this area, it may be that partial and piece-meal responses out of opportunities and needs offer better guidelines than centralized planning. The options are not exclusive, however, and the significance of communal consultation and direction for the long haul cannot be minimized or ignored.

17 Jewish communal planning of major plant investments must take into account two contradictory requirements: the need for "smallness," and the need for "agglomeration." It is a truism that Judaism is not a natural inheritance but involves individual practices and deeds. These take place in a communal setting. They can be authentic and effective only if their scale relates to individual experience, that is to say, allows meaningful personal discourse. No one can determine with certainty how big is too big, but whatever the efficiency merits of economies of scale may be, the need for small congregations, small schools and small centers must be recognized. On the other hand, especially in the 1970s, when the American Jewish future may be subject to greater insecurity as a result of increasing urban dislocation, it is important that the communal reinforcement to be derived from fairly large and visible centers of energy and activity be available. This is not only of symbolic significance. Excellence in a library, university, theater, or museum is only possible if there is a sufficiently large "critical" mass of persons both as producers and consumers. Three compatible strategies can help achieve this agglom• eration. One is a self-conscious effort by the Jewish commu• nity to undertake regional centers. The "Lincoln Center" or "sports complex" model for the Jewish regional cultural center may seem regressive, especially at a time when such complexes are under attack by advocates of decentralization. On the other hand, given the requisite sensitivity, such centers might represent a reassertion of religious and cultural dynamism. Demographic analysis of the possibility of three or four such regional centers merits research. A less venturesome, possibly less cumbersome, approach is the improvement of the currently functioning services net• work of the Jewish community. In this way, the existing programs and services in central cities- or those which sometimes flourish in peripheral communities can be spread to both periphery and center.

18 A third direction is a conscious effort aimed at developing regional centers through the pooling of the separate plans of the different agencies. However, experience has shown that mergers in Jewish life that are intended to strengthen both partners, very often result in a withdrawal of interest by one party to the merger. This is related to the deep attachments individuals develop to their particular institution. A far more efficient combined program often does not develop or retain the particular loyalties of each party. Still, especially for developing organizations, the possibilities of pooled tie-ins or even concurrent developments of physical plants should be explored. The example afforded by the most successful kind of regional center planning must be shared. The techniques of outreach which regional centers have adopted toward smaller communities merit the compliment of refined imitation. The possibilities for regional planning will obviously be enhanced by a trend to tap communal funds in support of "movement" or "localistic" institutions. If the major Jewish libraries, for example, receive communal support, their location of new services or plants will receive greater communal input. Recognition of this will presumably be forthcoming if continuing trends heighten the shift of Jewish population away from the Northeastern section of the country. Future population movement challenges the community to intelligent planning on centralization, regionalization and decentralization of its present and potential array of sup- portative services and agencies.

The Neglected Constituencies The emerging communal strategies for what have been identified as "the neglected constituencies" must avail themselves of demographic research. There are at present no hard data on the numbers of Jewish poor or inner-city Jewish population, nor on the numbers of geographically remote or unaffiliated population. Such demographic monitoring can indicate whether the services offered match population.

19 In a community with a voluntaristic basis for affiliation, there may be significant mismatching of services and of Jewish population without justification of neglect. At worst, it might show failure of "outreach." The charge of neglected constituencies which has emerged in the last few years will generate a significant challenge throughout the 1970s. One relevant element in response to this challenge is an improved demographic profile of the Jewish community. There are strong indications that the statistically smaller rates of affiliation of the Jewish poor with Jewish organiza• tions do not stem from voluntary disinterest but are a quasi-coerced withdrawal based on insufficient resources required for participation. Jewish organizations and syna• gogues continually cue in their membership regarding the kind of leisure activity and economic contribution which is required for participation. A demographic profile of the Jewish elderly might suggest that elements of a neutral strategy which tries to service welfare needs by therapy or recreation, without servicing other needs by police-escort services or synagogue activity, is based upon an inadequate analysis of the Jewish population. The evidence of the past two decades points toward a constant reexamination of the existence and changing charac• ter of the neglected constituencies. The Task Force recommends the continuing concern by all major Jewish organizations with effective supportive services for the identifiable neglected constituencies within the American Jewish community. This will involve special pro• gramming and investment in communal support of inner city Jewish residents. The Task Force further recommends con• tinuous demographic research to monitor and identify the nature of the neglected constituencies.

Demographic Bulge % The common-sense conclusion that changes in the demo• graphic character of the community influence planning

20 applies also to the age, vocational, and generational composi• tion of the community. Some of the ferment over Jewish college youth might have been prepared for by recognition of the population explosion in this area. It may be that the trend to a lengthened period of postgraduate study, by a large number of Jewish students, often married, should generate special programs. Again, the sheer numerical increase of Jewish college teachers argues for shifts in resources toward involving this community. If there will be a significant expansion of American immigration to Israel, the awareness of numbers and areas of recruitment provide a basis for development of a communal approach. At present, demographic studies project a significant bulge with a very large growth in Jewish elderly and retired. The Task Force recommends study of the ways in which the emergence of this group may be utilized in strengthening Jewish communal life and in enriching individual life. In the case of some of the neglected constituencies, there may have been reluctance to place them centrally on the Jewish agenda because this may involve a partial confession of error and a risk to the image of liberalism which many Jewish national organizations seek. In the case of identifying demographic change, no such inhibitions arise. The difficul• ties can be met by the extraordinary effort inherent in anticipating and directing social change.

21 THE SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

The Task Force was in full agreement regarding the main sociological trends within the Jewish community in the postwar period. There was a significant diversity of opinion, however, about the degree of continuity of these trends during the late '60s. The Task Force examined both patterns of Jewish behavior and patterns of Jewish association.

The Dimensions of Behavior Five significant tendencies which have shaped the behavior of the American Jew were identified: 1) the American Jewish social adjustment; 2) pattern of religious or ethnic self- definition; 3) the compatibility of religious development with American values; 4) separation of church and state; 5) loyalty to peoplehood. The Task Force sought to evaluate the significance of each of these trends as points of departure, areas of concern, or calls to action for the American Jewish community. 1) The American Jewish Pattern of Social Adjustment The American social environment has been conducive to the maintenance of Jewish identity although it has been corrosive of many aspects of the traditional content and life-style of Judaism. Accordingly, the American Jewish pat• tern of adjustment has been marked by a continuous tension between integration with assimilative American society and assertion of Jewish behavioral modes which historically derive from a more segregated Jewish society. There is,

22 moreover, a widespread conviction among American Jews that Americanism and Judaism are compatible. Hence most American Jews sincerely express pride in their Jewishness even when Judaism occupies, as it often does, a small part of their "life-space." The completion ,of the phase of American Jewish adjust• ment suggests that the third-generation Jew is more at home in America and hence less concerned with the adaptation of inherited Jewish identity patterns to American social pat• terns. There is evidence that the social framework through the 1970s could be receptive to efforts to reassert the particularities of Jewish idiom and tradition as part of American Jewish identity. Presumably, this is what is intended by Hansen's Law, that the third generation seeks to remember what the second generation sought to forget. There are now familiar symptoms of this quest. These range from the interest in Hasidism to college students sporting yarmulkes. The new patterns seem to coexist with pervasive assimilation patterns. The resurgence of some particularistic elements is aggressive enough, it is true, to raise suspicion of temporary faddism. It is worthy of note that at the recent symposia for self-styled radical and conservative groups, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, both the young radicals and the young conservatives accused the "middle-aged liberals" of seeking to abandon the Jewish heritage in pursuit of adjustment to the American liberal ideal. In part, this phenomenon among the radicals may have derived from the effort to reinforce in the Jewish context the black militant stress on mass national self-consciousness against the bourgeois stress on individual integration. In part, it represented a rejection of America. The tensions within American Judaism in its search for appropriate patterns of integration and enhancement of Jewish identity will presumably not be resolved by reflecting on the new black separatism nor by the rejection of faith in the beneficent character of many fundamental American institutions. The significance of the resurgence of particularis-

23 tic phenomena is to suggest that the American environment is not hostile—indeed, it may in fact be strongly receptive—to efforts to resolve this tension with greater stress on a variety of expressions of Jewish identity. Certainly, this hypothesis should be put to the test. The Task Force recommends critical evaluation and support of efforts to channel into constructive institutional patterns the phenomena of ethnic resurgence where they appear, particularly among the younger generation on college campuses. The target should be the development of several experimental projects which may be a contribution to the available ranges of the Jewish community's "life-styles." 2) Religious or Ethnic Self-Definition American Jews have tended in the recent past to define Judaism in religious terms even when they are ambivalent about the Jewish faith. This is so although the synagogue often seems to serve as an ethnic shelter for Jews whose Jewish identity is shown primarily in a pattern of Jewish social assimilation. To a growing degree, the strongest expression of the content of such "religious" commitment was support for the State of Israel. The religious self-definition of American Judaism was in part an effort to accommodate to the concept of the triple melting pot. When adjustment of the Jewish folk or religious tradition to conform to American patterns meant transform• ing the shul into variants of Protestant houses of worship, the successive stops of the continuum in decorum, speech, decoration, and design were laid out. Obviously, in a period where Protestantism and Catholicism are undergoing redefi• nition, the vitality of the ethnic or religiously particularistic aspects of the Jewish tradition need not be inhibited by American models. Even if the dominant tendency of American Judaism will always seek a high degree of integratiofi with the dominant values of "traditional American society," the trend to more ethnic or particularistic forms of Jewish identification can be

24 heightened. This trend has implications for the area of com• munal interests and for religious and ethnic self-expression. Fringe elements of substantial size and permanence usually exert a significant influence in shifting the vital center of the larger society of which they are a part. Thus, in the 1970s, the pattern of American Jewish adjustment faces at least three, and possibly four, significant fringe groups which came to prominence in the late 1960s. First, there are the large separatist religious groups whose life-style seems to demonstrate the degree to which American society can in fact tolerate nonconformist patterns. Sec• ondly, there is a group oriented toward emigration to Israel which seems to legitimate an American Jewish pattern whose culmination involves leaving the United States. Thirdly, there is a fairly vocal group which asserts the priority of Jewish communal interests independent of the majority liberal ideology of the Jewish community and in opposition or indifference to the traditional coalition politics of some of the Jewish national organizations. Fourthly, there is a small but potentially significant group that proclaims both its Jewishness and its sense of alienation from majority patterns of Jewish adjustment. A voluntaristic community usually welcomes high degrees of diversity, especially when there is no pressure to arrive at consensus. The challenge of communal strategy here is not to seek consensus but to discern the positive benefits as distinct from the potential risks available to the Jewish community from the development of these groups. It should then seek out those strategies which would allow for the generation of those benefits for the community.

3) Compatibility of Religious Development with American Values Jewish religious symbols and practices have been accepted as they fit into a framework of American social patterns and reinforce other American values. Accordingly, many "sep• aratist" rituals or practices which stress the primacy of

25 religious belief or run counter to accepted American life• styles, have been abandoned. On the other hand, those rituals which seem most compatible with American values, or which are supported by the values of family integrity (like the Bar Mitzvah), have fared well. Thus the American social culture has had a selective impact in framing Jewish cultural and religious self-defini• tion. Some major trends within American Jewish religious life can indeed be traced to the search for adaptation of the religious traditions to American social patterns. Yet these patterns are themselves fluid. The emphasis which Hanukka has come to enjoy is in part the achievement of the Zionist movement and to a lesser extent the Yiddish national movement. But this relatively minor religious festival has gained further prominence from anxious parents who use the occasion as a kind of Jewish substitute for Christmas for their children. Hanukka is an interesting illustration of how the development of Jewish practices in compatibility with American values is open to push in several directions. The specific agenda for such development is the product of felt needs and desires, of the articulation of the great, vital and usable traditions of the Jewish past, and of communal innovativeness. The agenda cannot be blueprinted, but two dimensions of the process can be noted. The most significant is the psychological dimension in which the revitalization of Jewish religious tradition is part of the search for community, a point recognized in the Task Force's discussion of the synagogue. It would seem, for example, that the Havdala ceremony at the Brandeis Camp in California is meaningful in part to a number of young Jews who have no memory of the tradition because its shared experience offers the same kind of psychic restoration which other Californians seek in encounter or sensitivity groups. In the congregational sphere, the Seder or the Sukkah meal becomes a surrogate for an extended family group. The less personal but still significant symbolic dimension of the possibility of a restoration to the public calendar of

26 American Judaism of festivals like Simkhat Torah, Sukkot, and other ethnic or religious occasions as part of the life-style of the American Jew, requires examination. The Task Force recommends that the media be used much more effectively than they have been in these programs. The Jewish community, operating through communal service agencies and the synagogue movement, should set up a series of experimental and innovative programs in family and communal revitalization of Jewish traditions. These programs can be integrated into present synagogues, family service agencies, schools, or Hillel foundations. 4) Separation of Church and State

Traditionally Jews have given strong support to a conception of the American polity which regards religion as a private domain. In that view, religious affiliation must remain free from governmental coercion and without governmental support. The specific legal implication of this position is the strictest possible separation of Church and State. The assumption of a voluntaristic Jewish community whose central communal agencies are ideologically neutral has been the analogue within Jewish communal structure of this model of American polity. At the same time, Jews have welcomed those public aspects of American Jewish life, like the military chaplaincy or the Presidential invocation, which assert the equally quasi-established character of Judaism as one of the three major religions of the realm. The historic American Jewish stress upon separation of Church and State has already been augmented by an historic shift to some degree of flexibility in the application of the Church-State doctrine. Of course, at the ends of the continuum of discussion the positions are firm. One element of the community, perhaps a majority, remains convinced that the only kind of American society which is safe for the Jews and for Judaism is a society which strictly separates Church from State. Accordingly, it argues that any short- term advancement of Jewish interests which might come

27 from the funding of Jewish parochial schools, for example, would be more than offset by the weakening of the political structure which provides the safeguard for Jewish religious and communal rights. On the other hand, one segment of the Jewish community considers activity on behalf of separation of Church and State as a "liberal reflex" to the illusory evil of an established church which ignores the historic experience of Jewish security and religious freedom in countries like England which have an established church. This illusion obscures the vital benefits which the Orthodox community and Jewish education would derive from public aid to religious schools. According to this view, hostility to formulas permitting state aid to religious education is simply another illustration of the failure of historical Jewish agendas to be aware of the needs of diverse constituencies and the totally new character of the threat to Jewish communal security. a The Church-State issue, then, is symptomatic of the deep cleavage in attitude within the Jewish community. There are, however, shared perceptions and factual convergence which could bring about consensus. The search for a new frame• work for action on this question is of major importance to Jewish communal development in the 1970s. The Task Force recommends an educational and com• munal policy evaluation group which would examine this issue in the light of the present demographic, educational, and legislative realities. Such a study, by being responsive to the diversity of interests, opinions, and sentiments could reduce recrimination. It should aim at providing guidelines for the community. The Task Force takes note of the ongoing review of this issue by the Joint Advisory Committee of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Coun• cil and the Synagogue Council of America, the deliberations of which may meet the substance of this recommendation. 5) Loyalty to Peoplehood * Jews retain a strong identification with the notion of the unity of the Jewish people. There is, accordingly, strong

28 reaction against internal differences, whether rooted in religious separatism or in ideological universalism which is interpreted as a threat to this unity. The sense of loyalty to peoplehood, shared by most Jewish organizations and individuals, has been a major community asset. It would presumably be a value which should be cultivated even as various institutions cultivate strong bonds of institutional loyalty. One inevitable dilemma is that such loyalty can breed conformism which does not allow criticism. This not only deprives the community of its critics, but often tends to make the organized or affiliated Jewish community appear as a monolithic entity with little room for dissent or critical nonconformism. The Jewish community will have to resolve this dilemma by pursuing both aspects of the problem. It will have to encourage nonconformism and not exclude or brand as disloyal institutional critics. On the other hand, it will demand a high degree of communal responsibility because of the vulnerability of the community. There was no consensus on priorities in this regard although on balance the Task Force calls for the encourage• ment of minority experimentation and innovation within the community, and willingness to assume risks to communal defenses.

The Dimensions of Association The sociological profile of the Jewish community distin• guished among three kinds of Jewish identification: that which seemed marginal to Jewish association or affiliation; that which comprised patterns of social relationship and association with Jews, and that which was characterized by affiliation. Proposals for community activity vary signifi• cantly with reference to each group.

1) Marginal Association The reason why the organized Jewish community makes special efforts to reach out to those Jews who do not even

29 associate with other Jews derives from the view that within this group there is differentiation: some have selected exclusion and some may have had exclusion thrust upon them. There is evidence of the social and economic exclusive- ness of suburban congregational life which may affect negatively those who cannot afford the price of admission. Academics, students, or professionals who are remote from centers of Jewish activity often find themselves in communi• ties where the natural drift is away from associative patterns. Patterns of withdrawal which are specific to age may reflect upon particular and available patterns of Jewish association. The changes in extended family ties will perhaps lead to the exclusion of marginally integrated Jews who previously would have been associationally involved. It is noteworthy that a large proportion of emigrants to Israel in the last few years were not previously affiliated in any way with the Jewish community. The inference is that there is a strong latent sentiment regarding Israel and Jewishness by persons who are not involved in the present institutional structures of American Judaism. The same may also be true of American Jews in their associational patterns. The institutional framework currently provides many avenues of Jewish affiliation and association. The community should aim at significant approaches to Jews who are remote from the mainstream of Jewish society. The Task Force did not provide specific recommendations for achieving this aim. 2) Patterns of Jewish Association The strongest bonds of Jewish identity are the demon• strable ways in which Jews associate with other Jews outside the organizational framework. It is important to realize that many of these associative patterns which determine Jewish style and attitudes in the United States are marginally influenced by the decisions of the organized community. However, since most Jews who relate -socially to other Jews have participated in and are affiliated with one or more Jewish organizations, there is clearly a method for effecting a

30 continuing influence upon Jews through their communal institutions. 3) A /filiated Jews Patterns of association crucially reflect ethnic Jewish ties even though the largest single organized Jewish affiliation is the religious congregation. The studies on affiliation show statistical constancy of membership. There seems to be evidence that pervasive gratifications which should follow from membership are declining. If this is true, it is an early warning to various Jewish groups to reexamine the magnet• ism of their activities. The image of communal affiliation, at one extreme, would be a service agency where the consumer selects and pays for each organizational membership and for the specific limited purposes of that organization. The challenge to the Jewish community is to correctly interpret the needs which motivate membership. Persons who join Hadassah, for example, are, for the most part, not simply interested in seeing hospitals built in Israel and in raising funds for that purpose. They are often in search of patterns of identity and identification within a framework of Jewish institutional self-expression. It would therefore seem that, to a marked degree, the various membership organizations of Jewish life should respond to the latent motivation for Jewish expression which led to affiliation. This suggests programs which stress Jewish self- expression. Such efforts could be adopted by organizations whose organizational purposes are "religiously neutral" and whose primary purposes are reasonably well-defined. The results would serve as directional guides for the general process of making affiliation in any single Jewish organiza• tion a vehicle for the transmission of the basic elements of Jewish knowledge and values. The premise underlying this trend is one of "organicity" in identity though not in communal structure. If a person chooses affiliation with a Jewish organization for limited purposes, his choice presupposes shared Jewish peoplehood.

31 Accordingly, he can be involved in those activities and experiences which are fundamental for peoplehood. This premise is not currently acted upon by many Jewish voluntary organizations. Its practice would test a direction in which most Jews who affiliate wish to go in the 1970s. The Task Force recommends to the boards of each Jewish organization, no matter how specific its goal, the feasibility study of a program of concern with the full range of Jewish self-expression, so that Jewish leaders in special areas of Jewish life should not find the range of Jewish life or experience alien to them.

32 PSYCHOLOGICAL ISSUES

Programs for the explicit development or reinforcement of Jewish identity have not been part of the traditional Jewish agenda. Jewish education, for example, has characteristically assumed a natural or familial development of identity and has stressed the acquisition of cognitive skills or the cultivation of appreciation of particular traditions of Judaism. Teachers have been aware, of course, of the influence on the sense of identity which stems from cognitive skills or from cultivation of tastes. Jewish communal agencies have also assumed Jewish identity as given and have interpreted their tasks as responding to individual needs for specified services, or defending Jewish or Jewish related interests. Many factors coincide in the growing communal concern over Jewish identity. One is the tendency in the general society to transfer to secondary agencies responsibility for many educational or social functions which were once carried out by the family—early childhood training is a relevant example. A second factor may be insecurity about the ability of the Jewish community to assert Jewish continuity in the light of the increased freedoms of expression and of choice for the young. Related to this is the anxiety and concern generated within the community by the prominence of young Jewish persons in the radical and youth culture. It is an obvious blow to Jewish morale if articulate and publicized segments of Jewish youth are willing to cooperate in movements that are consistently anti-Israel, often opposed to Jewish institutional interests, and occasionally even anti-

33 Semitic. Finally, there would seem to be a very strong desire which has no simple etiology, among those who are active in the community and those who are not, to find ways to assert Jewish solidarity and identity. The central locus of identity development is the family and primary associations. Yet very little is known about the normal genesis of Jewish identification. The American creative literature of the past two or three decades—as exemplified by writers like Arthur Miller, Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, and Saul Bellow—has focused on Jewish identity in conflict and in alienation. This approach has had significant influence in shaping the image and self-image of the Jew, even though these accounts seem distorted if read as a socio-psychological portrait of the community. Conflict over the preservation and assertion of Jewish identity is present also in Israeli and Soviet intellectual life. The best young Israeli writers—Yehudi Amihai, Aharon Meged, S. Yizhar, and others—are raising the question of how Israelis come to terms with their Jewish self-consciousness. Soviet intellectuals are also grappling with issues of Jewish identity. Our scientific experimentation lags behind this literary inventiveness. Here, too, we run the risk of taking images projected by the media for the reality. The Task Force papers reflect the concern of the Jewish community over the ambivalence in Jewish identity forma• tion within the youth culture and New Left. There is significant evidence that 10-15 percent of Jewish youth is involved in the counter-culture, either of the "radical" or "hippie" variety. This percentage is sufficiently large to account for the marked visibility of Jewish youth within this culture. The causes for the rise of youth culture are controversial, but most opinions include political, socio• logical, and psychological reasons. It would appear that on most causal accounts, Jewish youth is particularly vulnerable to involvement. Thus, to some extent radical youth culture appears as a developmental reaction to liberal attitudes of parents. This has particular significance for Jewish youth

34 since the Jewish parent community is, on a comparative basis, overwhelmingly liberal. The socio-psychological factors usually correlated with New Left participation are relatively affluent economic status, protected family environment, and a tendency for a protracted educational term. This pattern fits Jewish groups in §. statistically differential manner. The disturbing consequence is that participation in the counter-culture delays the mature assumption of responsibil• ity and often generates self-destructive tendencies. Jewish radical culture has been marked by a repudiation of parents. At its extreme, this results in the willingness of young Jews to be involved in fringe anti-Semitic and explicitly anti-Israel activities. Most of the Jewish youth participating in New Left or counter-culture activities, however, are ambivalent about Jewish loyalties. There is, therefore, a challenge placed upon Jewish institutions to communicate with these groups and to channel their possibly positive responses to Jewish life. This has been done, usually, by involvement in support of Soviet Jewry's right to emigration or with direct experience of the Israel reality. The repudiation of the Jewish community by significant but small youth segments is presumably "age-specific." Youth attitudes on this view change with the assumption of familial responsibility and with the resolution of maturation problems. Further, the phenomenon of deferred obedience subsequent to revolt suggests some of the latent strength of Jewish continuity. Even if the above facts turn out to be confirmed in the next few years, there could be a permanently revolving membership of Jews active in the New Left and the drug culture. This will depend in significant measure upon the general psychological health of American society. The perm• anence of the drug culture or of a politically estranged youth community is not predictable on the basis of trends of the past two years. If either were to become permanent, then it would pose a special challenge to the Jewish community in

35 the 1970s. This would require communal response with a degree of investment far beyond what is now being done. On any view of the future, however, the concern with youth culture should be directed toward the general field of research and programs that relate to Jewish identity.

Research in Jewish Identity It is a truism that even the most advanced of the social sciences, economics, cannot be used with confidence as a basis for prediction and control. The truth applies with greater force to sociology and psychology. There are severe risks, then, in developing programs which derive their rationale and their misplaced confidence from psychological or sociological theory or evidence. Yet often research can guide judgment by telling us what we do not know and by suggesting possible lines of action. It would seem that research in Jewish identity may replace themes like "prejudice" or "the authoritarian personality" and compete with sociological studies of Jewish community change as a major research area for the 1970s. Such research, especially involving institutional experiments, should be an ongoing part of Jewish communal culture. Research in itself is always unsatisfactory as a prescription. It seems to deflect energy away from acting on the basis of what we know which may be sufficient for practical purposes in the light of the alternatives. Yet on balance the Task Force recommends communal support for further research, in areas that are relevant for Jewish identity. Beyond research, the appropriate response to awareness of deep concern over the transmitting of a healthy sense of Jewish identity would then seem to be significant programs in education for identity. These programs relate to two areas: family education and informal education.

Family Education n Historically, the strong sense of Jewish identity derived from involvement in family practices and a strong sense of family loyalties. The Task Force discussion of the pathology

36 of repudiation of Jewish identity traced its origins to efforts to express hostility to parents. Concern with strengthening of family structure and with healthy family ties is often connected with the development of a valid self-image as a Jewish person. A recommendation of the Task Force is that a significant segment of Jewish work in family services be directed toward programs in Jewish family education. The Task Force further urges the Jewish agencies active in family-services work to develop their professional skills and sensitivity in awareness of the Jewish identity issues that arise among Jewish clients. It recommends the examination of a variety of programs on relevance of Jewish identity for individual growth and self-acceptance and their exploration in concrete settings. To some extent, such programs are now being conducted by agencies, synagogues, and centers. Reinforcement of this trend would require significant training in the Jewish skills of case-workers and in the psychological skills of Jewish educators. The recognition of the deficiencies of the formal educa• tional system in identity formation, as well as research on the fairly superficial impact of synagogue services on the family, suggests that programs in family education represent a promising approach for those concerned with the continuity of Jewish identity. In this connection, it is interesting that major Jewish women's organizations have functioned as service or philan• thropic agencies, secondarily as educational agencies, and have not, generally, undertaken experimental programs in Jewish family education.

Informal Education Informal education is a loose term for those educational and cultural activities ranging from nursery play groups, camping, Hillel, choirs, to guided trips to Israel which comprise learning experiences outside the formal school system. Successful informal education usually involves creat• ing a shared experience which is memorable. At extremes,

37 this covers the lighting of the Hanukka candles as a national-liberation-front ceremony to enlighten the prenatal experience of a soon-to-be-born child (as detailed in a recent issue of the Village Voice) or the benediction at a fund- raising dinner. In a field so vast and so crucial to attitude-formation, no agency can plan an overall approach. There exist significant models of excellence in almost every area of Jewish experi• ence. The challenge to the community over the next decade is the identification of these models, and the transmission of their influence as models to the responsive part of the community. This general approach of trying to imitate the best applies for every area of informal education. There are some excellent Jewish nursery schools, youth programs, camps, adult study groups, etc., which can serve as models. Like all human activities, these ebb and flow with the particular generation of participants or of staff. The appropriate in-depth follow-up of successful programs and their replica• tion as paradigms of excellence as part of the funded cultural assets of the community have not usually been viewed as communal responsibilities. An effort to take an overall view of agencies of Jewish informal education would aim at such identification, evaluation, communication and replication of the best programs. The Task Force recommends that there be communal responsibility for identification of successful models, for a clearing house which informs relevant agencies of these models, and for mechanisms for support of replication of these models.

38 EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

It is- a commentary on the state of Jewish education or, more accurately, on the general perception of that state, that the Task Force, in near unanimity, agreed that Jewish education was in need of fundamental reform. The more specific claims from which this attitude derives included the following: 1) Graduates of most Jewish schools are functionally illiterate in Judaism and not clearly positive in attitudinal identification. 2) Most graduates of Jewish schools report negatively on their educational experience. 3) There are very few schools which are generally ac• cepted as model institutions within their denominational or ideological constituency. 4) Jewish educational personnel currently do not enjoy high professional status or authority within the community. 5) It is difficult to recruit talented young Jewish persons into the profession, and given the present realities, perhaps of dubious morality to do so. This, even though three of the leading Israeli educational institutions are headed by Ameri• can Jewish educators. So severe is the portrait that it seems pertinent to ask why hundreds of thousands of Jewish families continue to regard Jewish education as a highly desirable and necessary experi• ence for their children. The answer does not simply lie in the

39 need for Bar Mitzvah preparation or in confirmation of Jewish identity. Relative to particular goals, to some limited demands of clients, and for particular age groups, many schools function well, even extremely well. Loyalty to Jewish education, however, appears sufficiently viable; the sense of dissatisfaction with the present situation is sufficiently severe; and the impetus for reform is suffici• ently intense and widespread so that the agenda of the 1970s will include a movement toward the development of a Jewish school system in the United States. The Task Force recommends the clear assertion of Jewish communal responsibility for the development of a Jewish educational system. This will involve a concentrated long-term communal effort. Such an effort should result in significant changes within the American Jewish community. It will involve the question of Jewish attitudes toward public aid to private or parochial schools. It will mean change in the degree of communal involvement in the autonomous functioning of the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements beyond the present supportive and evaluative services of the Bureau of Jewish Education. It will sharpen competition for the allocation of resources. These and other challenges will face the development of any Jewish school system which can be viewed as minimally adequate for a large and affluent community whose self- respect commits it to maintaining its tradition and values for the long-term future in America. The Task Force examined many of the problems with special reference to the following ten issues: 1) clarification of the goals of the Jewish school; 2) communal, congrega• tional and "movement" schools; 3) curriculum; 4) model schools; 5) Day Schools; 6) non-sectarian Day Schools; 7) Jewish high-school education; 8) professional status and recruitment; 9) Jewish education in the general school system; 10) college programs of Jewish studies.

40 Clarification of the Goals of the Jewish School The presupposition of much of the criticism of Jewish education is that there is a clear set of educational goals which the schools and teachers fail to achieve. In fact, it is more correct to say that where particular goals have been carefully defined, the schools have been able to achieve them, whether the goal was preparation for Bar Mitzvah or learning spoken Hebrew, the facility to participate in religious services, or the ability to read Yiddish classics. An illustration of these expectations is the belief that the Jewish school should be able to develop Jewish identity and to produce learned Jewish adults. Obviously, one goal of Jewish education is the cultivation of positive Jewish identification. There is evidence, however, that a formal school experience is not the best vehicle for identity formation by comparison with programs of family education, communal service, or planned Jewish experiences. A major goal of Jewish education has always been the training of the learned Jew. Yet often this goal of the American Jewish school system has been unrealistically formulated relative to the hours available, the age of the student, and the priority which the program is afforded in the student's schedule. The equivocation of the school's goals is reflected in many of the worst features of the present educational system. The teaching of Jewish history or religion often tends to be excessively apologetic out of the desire to inculcate loyalties. The curriculum tends to include stress on language skills which are seldom mastered in an effort to be faithful to the ideal of the educated Jew. Accordingly, simultaneous with any other constructive effort toward reform in Jewish education, there should be clarification of the possible goals of particular kinds of schools. The Task Force recommends, as a first step, that the education policy-makers seek to clarify the goals of Jewish education and that the various school boards educate

41 themselves and their constituencies with regard to the realistic frameworks of possible achievement afforded by choice of day school, afternoon school, Sunday school, or other patterns of Jewish education.

Schools: Communal, Congregational, "Movement" The Task Force, in recommending the assertion of communal responsibility for a Jewish school system, is not thereby endorsing the concept of communal schools. The history of Jewish education in this country has shown a pattern of competitive co-existence among communal, con• gregational, movement, and "private" schools. In the 1950s, with the growing suburbanization, the local congregational school system gained dominance in most parts of the country. These schools had as a significant aim the develop• ment of congregational loyalties and the preparation of the child for his or her subsequent place within the congregation. In recent years, this model, which had never completed its institutionalization, has been upset. Within the Orthodox movement, the large Orthodox synagogue has become a less significant source of loyalty for parents than the yeshiva, which requires independent tuition and receives independent loyalties. Even in the Conservative movement, attachments to the all-day Schechter Schools and to Ramah Camps some• times replace congregational loyalties. More fundamentally, it has been argued that the loyalties of Jewish youth who have grown to maturity through the congregational system derive from ethnicity and are not directed toward the congregations. Specifically, the graduate of the Reform or Conservative school may not be anxious to take his place in his parents' congregation, despite (some• times, because of) his education, though he may be intensely involved in the cause of Israel or of Soviet Jewry. If he does later join the congregation, he apparently will want a different kind of educational training tor his children than he himself has undergone.

42 This suggests that the educational trend of the 1970s will move away from the congregational school pattern. One trend here, especially in the high-school program, is that of intercongregational regional schools. Such schools would presumably receive'communal support and might cross some "denominational lines.'J The willingness of Reform, Orthodox, and Conservative congregations to look beyond the congregational school formula only sets the stage for the appropriate patterns of communal and congregational relationships. The develop• ment of these relationships is a crucial item on the agenda of Jewish education in the 1970s. The Task Force recommends that communal bodies, and Orthodox, Reform and Conservative school boards, examine the merits of cooperative schools, particularly high schools with shared facilities, especially in the areas of informal education and media education. The Curriculum There has been significant experimentation, research, and development in the area of Jewish curriculum. There have been numerous efforts at sequential and experimental cur• ricula, and large numbers of syllabi and texts for different subjects have been prepared and introduced. These have been evaluated by individual schools and bureaus of Jewish education and updated constructively. To a significant degree, however, the curriculum innovation has functioned within a comparatively narrow circle of professionals. The analogy to the post-Sputnik effort to involve scientists who would not ordinarily be involved in curricular preparation is relevant for Jewish education. The achievements of that effort can be exploited, despite its several faults. If the Jewish community is to develop a proper system of Jewish education for the 1970s, what is demanded is a quantitative leap in the preparation and research of curricula

43 materials. This should be preceded by a major effort to involve professional educators and Jewish scholars in the research and development effort. The Task Force recommends communal support for the preparation of sound and imaginative curricular materials, using media resources, on a scale far in excess of what has taken place in the last thirty years. Textbooks for the Jewish school should, at the very least, be as good as their equivalents in the field of general education on every level of achievement. Model Schools At various times in the past hundred years of Jewish education in the United States, particular schools had developed reputations as centers of excellence and achieve• ment. These were often copied. Yet the major movements of Jewish life have seldom developed or affiliated with institu• tionally recognized "model" schools which serve as bases for their own experimentation, training grounds for their best professionals, or models for replication of their achievement. In part, this may be a consequence of the highly voluntaristic and extremely localized aspect of the Jewish school system in this country. Within each of the movements in Jewish life and in several different areas of the country, there are good schools which have recognized reputations. Their explicit designation as model schools and the consequent heightened effort to confirm their quality as standards for a communal Jewish school system could have significant impact. The Task Force recommends that the Jewish educational leadership in this country be prepared to enhance and support these model schools as a guide to Jewish school boards and community leaders around the country.

Day Schools 0 The growth of the Jewish religious Day School, especially but not uniquely among the Orthodox, has been one of the

44 surprising phenomena of recent years. This achievement has stretched the possible forms of American Jewish adjustment. It has refuted educational assumptions about the limits imposed by the American social framework and by the desire of Jewish parents to integrate their children into that framework. In changing the limits of possibility in American Jewish education this particular development has had signifi• cant influence on the wider spectrum of Orthodox congrega• tions as well as on Conservative and even Reform groups. There is a particular challenge to the Jewish community to develop communications with the separatist Orthodox consti• tuencies, particularly in their educational achievements and problems. This communication cannot impose upon their religious autonomy and yet it cannot be limited to funding mechanisms. Usually the selection of the appropriate kind of professional staff can help prepare the communications on shared interests and problems which can be fruitful for the general Jewish communal agencies concerned with education and for the-separatist Orthodox. Two issues inevitably arise in any discussion of Jewish Day Schools. The first is the question of Church and State. The "traditional" American Jewish attitude has been to favor separation, which in turn has led to community opposition to state-support of religious schools. For the poor or marginal Jewish groups seeking such support, this view seems doctrin• aire at best and subversive of Jewish interests at worst. Significant reappraisal of the separation doctrine has been taking place both among the Jewish national organizations and at governmental levels. In the urban centers, the utilization of the parochial schools by large numbers of Blacks and Puerto Ricans will probably increase the pressure - for programs of state aid in a variety of forms. While individuals and groups should certainly pursue their constitu• tional principles, it is questionable whether Jewish agencies can pursue efforts at stringent exclusions of state aid to religious schools as an inherent part of a program of defense of Jewish interests in the United States.

45 The Task Force has not taken a stand on this question. Presumably what is required here is continued re-thinking of Jewish attitudes to state aid to private and religious educa• tion, aid which has been going on for more than a decade. The second issue involves the public schools, particularly the faith expressed by many Jewish groups and individuals in the public-school system, as the classroom of democracy and as the vehicle of integration of students from different social, ethnic, religious, or economic groups. Concern with the accuracy of this belief in the past and with its viability in the future should be part of Jewish attitudes toward Day Schools. Since the public-school system will function in any event as a major education institution for most Jews in the 1970s, the major effort at complementary Sunday, Saturday, or weekday school programs as part of the Jewish school system is realistic. If there will be a move toward private schools by large numbers of Jewish parents, it would be similarly realistic for the Jewish community to expand its parochial or private Day School system.

The Non-Sectarian Day School One significant area for educational innovation is the development of private Jewish schools along the lines of institutions like St. Paul's, Groton, and Portsmouth Priory. These Christian denominational private schools are strongly marked by their religious interests, but they are also marked by a sufficient degree of religious freedom and educational excellence to attract a number of non-Christian, including Jewish, students. Jews, in particular, have been noted for their aspirations toward excellence in general education, and have shown an awareness of the needs of American culture for improved educational achievement. There have been the beginnings of one or two Jewish-sponsored secondary schools. These schools, unlike the traditional, Jewish Day School, could accept non-Jews as students. Their religious environment would presumably be Jewish in orientation and in some of its

46 required subjects. Such schools can have a special role in American Jewish society in the 1970s. They can contribute, first, toward ending any double standard between the way secular subjects are taught in many Day Schools as compared to the instruction in the better private schools. They can help significantly in raising the professional status of ?he Jewish teacher. They can gain the loyalties of a constituency which sends its children to the "top" schools but will not send them to yeshivas. Finally, in terms of curriculum innovation and experimentation, such schools could be of major significance for the entire Jewish school system. The Task Force endorses the embryonic efforts to develop such schools and recommends further exploration of the viability of one such school in a number of metropolitan centers.

Jewish High-School Education One of the major structural weaknesses of the Jewish school system is that the education of the child often stops at the age of thirteen or so. Consequently, Jewish studies have come to be identified with childish pursuits, which are to be rejected at maturity. Accordingly, stress on high-school development has major significance in any reform of Jewish education. There is some evidence that this will require a turning away from the well-intentioned effort to cultivate attitudes and to involve the students with commitments to long-term goals of Jewish knowledge. On the other hand, in adolescence, attitudinal motivation seems important, especially in a culture of "instant" gratifications. No instant solutions were available to the Task Force.

Professional Status and Recruitment Many of the most difficult problems of Jewish education are "knowledge" problems—that is, we do not know how to define our ends clearly, nor for that matter, do we have any adequate knowledge of the relationships between means

47 and ends. In the case of raising the professional status of the Jewish educator, which may be a crucial variable for other achievements, it would seem that reasonably straightforward steps can be taken toward its achievement. The Task Force endorses those enlightened efforts of professionals which include such major reforms as the following: 1) a structure of the work week which permits full time employment for the teacher; 2) pay scales which are competitive to other fields; 3) a work pattern which may include adult education that gains respect and status from the community. The process is circular: if we have poor schools that educate only until the age of Bar Mitzvah, we will not be able to recruit for them teachers of ability and self-esteem. If we do not recruit persons of high quality, we will not develop teachers who can serve as magnets for youth and adult classes. However, the situation is not altogether hopeless. It should be possible with the present variety of consumers of Jewish education to professionalize the present educational work force. The anticipated improvements of standards would make possible a further recruitment of professionals. In the growing number of students of Jewish studies at colleges, in the changing patterns of vocational choice among rabbinical students, there is already emerging the basis for a profession of Jewish education. Its gestation and fruition is a potential achievement of the 1970s.

Jewish Education in the General School System No review of the Jewish school system can omit the related significance of formal programs of Jewish studies, or of language instruction, or of Jewish curricular subjects taught in the general schools. These studies occur to a degree in elementary schools and most significantly in high schools and colleges. The Jewish communal effort has been directed primarily at two goals in the public-high-school curriculum. The first is the introduction of Hebrew as an elective language. Since the

48 learning of languages in public schools is one of the disaster areas of American education, this program has not always had the desired results. Nonetheless, Hebrew-language study has a self-selected student body and there are wide oppor• tunities here for reinforcement through further studies of the ulpan-type, and through visits to Israel. The second area of concern has been that of prejudice, or errors, or superficiality in text books or other educational material, ranging from the presentation of the Priests or of Pharisees in ancient history to the study of activities of the Jewish community in modern Western societies. This defen• sive stress can and should be transformed during the next decade. There is sufficient expertise, demonstrable relevance, and receptivity for the introduction of many curricular topics, whose goal would be the accurate and sufficiently nuanced presentation of Jewish historical and literary mate• rials relevant for students of Western civilization. These topics occur in fields as diverse as the archaeology of the Near East, the history of religion, the study of comparative religion, the history of literature, the history of totalitari• anism, and so on. The Jewish community can involve leading scholars in these fields in a major effort at curriculum development. This would be a signal contribution for Jewish education. It would also be a significant contribution to American education. The Task Force took special note of the deficiency in the general American education brought about by a historical record of superficiality and unexamined bias regarding the character of ancient Near Eastern culture, the evolution of Christianity, or the history of the modern Middle East. The Task Force stressed the unique duty and opportunity for the Jewish community in this area. It recommends that the appropriate agencies, both those in traditional communal- relations work and those in Jewish education and scholarship, develop a broad program for preparation of curricular materials for the study of the spectrum of Jewish culture as related to the study of world civilization.

49 College Programs of Jewish Studies The past five years have seen an unprecedented burgeoning of programs of Jewish studies in the colleges. These programs evoke particularly strong communal loyalties since they are directed to Jewish youth and they give general legitimacy and status to Judaism. They have received measured support from the general university system. Accordingly, the consolidation of a network of programs of Jewish studies is an achievable goal of the 1970s. This development is an important resource of the Jewish educational system. The appropriate integration between Jewish schools and college curricula has not yet been developed. Such an integration could have an important impact on standards or motivation in the Jewish school system. It can serve as an additional apex for the Jewish liberal arts for those who are not committed to a Jewish profession. It is also true that the faculty of these colleges and their more advanced students become an important personnel resource for community education. To be sure, the develop• ment of these programs has occasionally been marred by confusions of purpose and by intrusion of erroneous stand• ards. Yet here as in so many areas of Jewish communal life, the better programs can be paradigms for all. The Task Force looks forward to the further development of college programs of Jewish studies during the next decade. It recommends Jewish communal involvement, on local and national levels, in support of that development.

50 CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURE

A small but significant number of cultural, educational, and communal institutions constitute the cultural infrastruc• ture of the community. Included in these institutions are agencies which train the civil servants of the community and which supply important services. They have special responsi• bilities for the character and continuity of Jewish communal life. Some of these institutions are ornaments of the community with special symbolic importance for Jewish self-respect. The development of these important cultural institutions reflects both the perception of changing needs and the voluntaristic character of communal response to those needs. In that process, particular institutions have undertaken significant communal functions, almost by accident or default. Thus a theological seminary may inherit a museum, a fraternal society undertake a Great Books project, a commu• nity relations organization publish a theological quarterly, and so on. One relevant issue is the efficiency of these accidental arrangements. A more crucial question is the recognition of communal responsibility for these functions. Such responsibility implies accountability by the particular institutions which carry out infrastructural functions toward the general Jewish community which, for its part, must not inhibit voluntaristic agencies from exercising their own initiatives. For the 1970s, there is a greater willingness by central communal agencies to assume responsibility in these areas, including financial support.

51 The Task Force recommends assertion of communal responsibility through the central communal federations toward the identification and support of those "infrastruc• ture" institutions which play a significant role in the continuity and strengthening of Jewish culture. It urges major Jewish funding agencies to develop guidelines for the support of these cultural institutions so as to develop both criteria of communal accountability and criteria for auton• omy of cultural and religious institutions. No exhaustive analysis of the Jewish infrastructure has ever been undertaken. No one would agree on a list of the appropriate agencies. A preliminary survey comprises evalua• tion of certain communal institutions.

Institutions of Higher Education There are three major functions for institutions of higher education in any society. First, they represent repositories of a society's fundamental traditions and by their scholarly and interpretive work with those traditions bear a particular responsibility for the transmission of the cultural heritage. Secondly, they train the educators and other professional workers in the professions that the society values. Thirdly, they represent concentrations of energy and talent which generate the persons and the forums for cultural criticism and for cultural innovation. The Jewish situation is special since the prominently recognized cultural institution of higher learning has not been the university but the rabbinical seminary which is tied closely to a major denomination. In the past this has determined some of the significant cultural realities of the Jewish community. The training of Jewish scholars has been located in a rabbinical seminary in historical continuation of rabbinical training in a yeshiva. Accordingly, Jewish scholar• ship has not been "value free." Further, there has been evidence among young generations 6i rabbis of vocational clash between scholarship and service in the pulpit. The inferior status of the profession of Jewish education

52 has been related, in part, to the secondary status of Hebrew teachers colleges as compared to rabbinical seminaries. The difficulties of training Jewish communal and social workers, who play so large a role in community direction, has been related to the religious character of the institutions of higher learning in Jewish life.w The new patterns which the seminaries are now beginning to adopt and shape will be crucial for Jewish higher education in the next decade. Presumably, they have been transforming themselves into graduate schools of Jewish studies with special professional programs for rabbis, teach• ers, social workers, communal workers, etc. The development of these new programs and their success or failure is crucial for the staffing of all Jewish community activities in the coming decades. The seminaries are no longer the unique source for Jewish scholarship, professional training, or critical energy. Some general universities, and particularly Brandeis University, have undertaken significant programs in each of these kinds of activities. The graduate programs in Jewish studies are just beginning to function as a higher education resource for the Jewish community. Their role in shaping community direc• tion can be significant in the 1970s. There have been significant changes in several Jewish academic institutions in recent years. In particular, several teachers colleges have been reexamining their role as liberal- arts colleges or as teacher-training institutes. These changes have an important impact on the Jewish community. In the light of the rapidly changing picture of the past few years, the Task Force recommends to the Jewish institutions of higher learning that they undertake a collaborative self-survey of their functions and new directions. This study would offer a point of departure for desirable communal participation in the support and direction of a major cultural asset of the community. The Task Force is assuming that the institutions of Jewish learning will request general communal support, particularly

53 for those purposes which are common to all Jewish denomi• nations. The general community should have improved mechanisms, like the newly formed Institute for Jewish Life, for deciding its priorities in joint ventures and for channeling support where such priorities have been ascertained. The Task Force noted communal efforts at the develop• ment of such mechanisms. The National Foundation for Jewish Culture has been prominent in support of a variety of infrastructural institutions. The American Association for Jewish Education has been a communal agency, for example, which has launched the field of "Jewish civics" for the utilization of different Jewish school systems. The Task Force believes that they provide models for Jewish commu• nal direction in the 1970s.

Publications In this area, the needs have proliferated but the agencies— both institutional and private publishing companies that can respond to those needs—have also increased. Publication activities that merit special attention include the following:

Scholarly Publications: There are several different agencies for the publication of Jewish scholarship. The network includes the university presses, the Jewish Publication Society, commercial publishers like Schocken Books or Behrman House, and others. Their size and scope would suggest an adequate communal resource. Yet there has been significant disagreement about the publication, in English, of a major recent scholarly endeavor like the Encyclopaedia Judaica. Similarly, an urgent requirement in popular educa• tion is a library of Jewish classics. This need has resulted in projects by three agencies with differing standards and constituencies, each of which has certain deficiencies of skill or resources relative to the job. The history of the various partial and incomplete efforts to produce a reasonably popular and reasonably scholarly series of Jewish classics is a sobering and instructive lesson on the need for the pooling

54 and coordination of resources and intellectual energy to achieve the desired results. In the 1970s support of scholarship and assistance to scholarly publication programs will be major needs if present trends in the training of Jewish scholars and of growing readership continue. Accordingly, publication programs should be a priority item for the community. The Task Force in this area, as in other areas of cultural infrastructure, sought to recognize the necessity of particular institutional initiatives. At the same time, general communal support should be available in a coherent form. The Task Force suggests that the various Jewish agencies primarily involved in publication of works of Jewish scholar• ship should communicate more effectively to other Jewish groups the significance of their work and their goals. Communal responsibility toward these goals would then be an item on the Jewish agenda of the 1970s.

Communal-Service Publications: The question which emerges is communal responsibility for research publications like the American Jewish Year Book which serve communal needs or for service works like new editions of the Haggada or Siddur. The laissez-faire principle has been justified where the invisible hand of competition results in the communal good, and where intervention is likely to be harmful. For most publications of this sort, the particular agencies that have developed the relevant expertise will probably continue throughout the 1970s.

Information Media: The Jewish Telegraph Agency news service, as well as other informational publications, including local weeklies, should have standards equivalent to the best that prevail in the general society. One of the appropriate kinds of communal support would be the upgrading of the professional and Jewish skills of those who might go into Jewish journalism. The Task Force recommends a program of educational sabbatical fellowships similar to the Neiman

55 Fellowship programs for those responsible for Jewish publica• tions in this country. National Newsweekly: It cannot be statistically documented, but there is strong intuitive evidence that the most frequently advanced suggestion in the area of American Jewish publica• tions is that the community develop an equivalent to the London Jewish Chronicle. The failure to activate a suggestion so repeatedly made, however, may confirm its impracticabil• ity. This might stem from the geographical dispersion of the Jewish community, as well as from the much greater coverage the general American press gives to Jewish affairs. The feasibility of a communal newspaper, however, is a perennial item on the agenda. In the light of both the emerging agenda of Jewish communal responsibility for cultural activity and the new Jewish anxiety in major cities about the social basis for Jewish communal existence, the Task Force recommends that the need for and financial feasibility of a major weekly newspaper be investigated. Intellectual and Creative, Publications: As in the case of communal-service publications, individual sponsorship, both institutional or commercial, has apparently established the pattern for the community's intellectual journals. There is no significant indication that this will change or that it should for the 1970s, given the difficulty of any communal control in the publication of controversial or creative works.

Other Media The tradition of "free enterprise," which marks the field of Jewish publications, also holds true for radio, TV, and films. One seminary is responsible for a well-known TV series; one agency, for a particular program of radio commentary. Indeed, the number of individual and/or local initiatives is considerable. The significant question here is«whether communally sponsored initiatives should be undertaken in a selected

56 number of critical areas—for instance, a program of Jewish news, or a basic series in Jewish curricular materials. Especially with the technical emergence of cable or closed- circuit television, a number of new initiatives become relevant. The Task Force recommends that the Jewish communal agencies set, up a Study Group to propose specific media projects that would be of significant communal benefit, particularly for Jewish education. This group could reinforce the present programs. Specific suggestions proposed by members of the Task Force include a Jewish "Civiliza• tion" series and the sponsoring of major "special" programs appropriate for each Jewish holiday.

Libraries There are in existence major research libraries in Judaica, as well as numerous congregational or local libraries staffed by volunteers. These provide a basis for a functional network library system for Jewish communal life which does not now exist. Some coordinating efforts at integrating libraries into a system would have an important impact. Some pilot projects in setting up intercongregational or communal Jewish librar• ies have merit and would test out the necessity and validity of Jewish libraries for the 1970s.

Museums There are several specialized Jewish museums and many local art galleries. The guidelines here include some explora• tion of the coincidence and separateness of Jewish and universal interests. Though taste is a function of what persons like, the standards within the Jewish field should not be inferior, although they may be "narrower" than those of the general culture. The generation of artistic energy in Jewish areas may be an important communal concern, not simply as a public- relations outreach to the "art world" but as an expression of the artistic involvement with Jewish subject matter.

57 Theatre Arts An atmosphere of laissez-faire obtains in the fields of Jewish music, theatre, film, dance, following the pattern of the larger society. Yet the coordination of several diverse programs, agencies, schools or services—the American Israeli Cultural Foundation, the 92nd Street YMHA, the Jewish Welfare Board lecture bureau, the several cantonal schools, the Hebrew Arts School, etc., might result in a structure which could afford identity, stability, and continuity to a number of currently struggling endeavors. A mature Jewish community, while allowing individual enterprise, should aim at the functional analogue of a City Center or a University School of the Arts. The Task Force suggests to the various agencies directly involved that they examine the merits of communication and coordination with a view to strengthen• ing their potentiality for the 1970s. The Task Force cannot prescribe the development of particular institutions. It can help to make explicit what in fact the present institutions are doing as part of an overall communal infrastructure. It can throw a spotlight on the importance of these activities, not only as they fit the goals of the particular institution, but as they serve the needs of the Jewish community. Such a spotlight might indicate those areas where rational planning and allocation of resources can improve on a pattern which has developed haphazardly.

58 THE SYNAGOGUE

The major institution of American Jewish affiliation is the synagogue. This reflects both the Jewish historical heritage and the social trends of the postwar years. The following reasons are usually given for the growing institutional significance of the synagogue: 1) the transforma• tion from an urban community with informal patterns of Jewish association to a suburban community with greater formal affiliation; 2) the accommodation of the synagogue to the societal framework of the triple melting pot; 3) the decline of the secularist movements whose membership was largely recruited from an immigrant generation. The result of these trends has been the consolidation of the "American" synagogue as a unique and distinctive institution, which differs significantly from the synagogue as it exists in other countries or as it has existed in previous periods of Jewish history. There is no single archetype for the American synagogue. Its function in American Jewish communal life is diverse. For many members, it serves as a kind of surrogate family. For the community, it acts as a service center for the Jewish rites of passage. The synagogue is a "local" institution, directed to the particular needs of its members, yet it often undertakes communal functions which reach beyond its membership. Most notably, the local synagogue and the synagogue move• ments replaced the communal and private educational system of the 1930s with a network of congregational schools.

59 Since the rabbinate forms a major segment of profession­ ally trained Jewish leadership, and possesses distinctive religious and scholarly authenticity, the synagogue movement has undertaken a number of communal responsibilities and functions including counseling service, library service, and adult education. The Task Force analysis included a diagnosis of the present situation. It also included an examination of several major problem areas. In these areas, the Task Force was particularly concerned with the mutual responsibilities of communal organizations and synagogues.

־ Diagnosis There was divergent opinion regarding the present situa­ tion of the American synagogue as it faces the 1970s. The range of agreement or disagreement on the diagnosis was pursued in the following areas:

Religious Attrition: The thesis was advanced that there is a continued erosion of religious practice in the Jewish commu­ nity. This will result in the community taking on the defensive psychology of a "saving remnant" which guards the relics of the faith. Drastic innovation is required to change this drift. The counter thesis was advanced that there has been a growing synagogue constituency both in numbers and quality of commitment. Thus the agenda is to continue along the present lines of growth. Statistical studies apparently do not decide the issues since they indicate constancy in the proportion of Jews who go to the synagogue.

Generation Gap: The thesis was advanced that there is a severe generation gap between an affiliated and loyal older generation and an indifferent or hostile younger generation. The contrary view was that the present adult generation was in far greater revolt against the affiliational content of their parents' Judaism than is currently true of the younger

60 generation. The question here is the future decisions of the current "under-30" generation.

Religious Crisis: The thesis was advanced that the current generation suffers from a crisis of faith. Thus it was argued that the dissatisfaction with synagogue service stems from the absence of a religious point of view which alone can render prayer or religious services meaningful. The contrary thesis argued that this analysis derives from viewing the Jewish situation as the mirror image of Christian• ity, which may be undergoing a theological crisis. Even if the synagogue's religious practices were deriving their current support from the permanence of Jewish ethnic and senti• mental bonds, this would not be a confirmation of theologi• cal crisis since the expression of Jewish peoplehood always has been a part of traditional Jewish religious values.

Problem Areas The disagreement over diagnosis is not simply a matter of temperamental optimism or pessimism. It suggests differing emphases for action in the next decade. Several problem areas were particularly identified. There is evidence that the constancy of affiliation with the synagogue which serves as a family surrogate or ethnic shelter obscures a deep frustration and dissatisfaction with the synagogue. According to this view a dramatic redirection of the synagogue's approach to significant communal participa• tion is needed. This requires the willingness of congregational leadership, both volunteer and rabbinical, to undertake self-analysis in several areas. The success of the congregation in taking over Jewish education and modernizing its framework masks the great dissatisfaction with the achievement of the congregational school. A restructuring of the Jewish educational system, including the synagogue-school system, is in order. The Task Force urges both congregational educational leadership and communal leadership to reexamine new frameworks for the Jewish educational system of the 1970s.

61 It also recommends particular programs of mutual concern. Jewish communal leadership should take special interest, for example, in the teaching of contemporary Jewish commu• nity. Congregations have a vital interest in initiating their students into an understanding of the nature of contempo• rary American Jewish citizenship, if this is at all feasible. The success of the synagogue as the service center for Jewish rites of passage, particularly Bar Mitzvah, often points to the absence of a communal congregation. This point is given emphasis if the major magnet for Sabbath services is the Bar Mitzvah—particularly since this ceremony is itself not an operative ritual in Jewish life, but a route of exit from Jewish education. The synagogue's vitality lies in part in developing operative rituals for the expression of Jewish values. The 1970s mark the end of two decades of synagogue - construction during which architectural and artistic excel• lence were recruited in the service of the synagogue. Yet these programs, important as they were, have not resulted, as it was sometimes hoped, in heightened religious morale or better functional standards. The same kind of energy must now turn to the content and style of congregational activity.

Communal-Synagogue Action The central point of departure in the Task Force's discussion was the formulation of general communal interests and concerns as they relate to the synagogue as a membership institution. The following five issues were of major impor• tance: 1) The Task Force recognizes a communal responsibility for the integration of neglected constituencies, especially the poor, into the framework of Jewish life. This responsibility has direct relevance to the synagogue as an institution whose financial requirements may price the individual Jew out of passive or active participation. In large urban centers, a census of the poor is on the commtmal agenda. The Task Force pointed out that the use of this data in connection with synagogue "outreach" programs is one way of guaran-

62 teeing that membership in synagogues is not restricted to a more affluent constituency. 2) The more challenging neglected constituency, which is partially a self-excluding constituency, is the academic or intellectual community. In this area, the Task Force recom• mends that the communal and synagogal agencies should collaborate in a variety of efforts to connect the synagogue with the large and important Jewish academic community. To a marked degree, the synagogues have been unaware of the growth of this constituency and its potential for involvement. 3) Those who stress membership dissatisfaction with the synagogue recognize that the synagogue simultaneously serves a number of different constituencies. An approach which is appropriate for one constituency is inappropriate for another. Hence the program of alternatives or simultaneous services and programs. A variety of experimental or inno• vative approaches can be adapted to the vita'lization of Jewish religious services. The Jewish community as a whole has an interest in the success of these experiments and innovations. 4) One direction of synagogal innovation has been toward smallness, to the revival of "participatory" community. The celebration of the neglected and, to some extent, lost vitalities of the synagogue—Simkhat Torah dancing, or the Sabbath Kiddush—is appropriate to small group frameworks. On the other hand, at the opposite extreme, the syna• gogues and the community can cooperate meaningfully in revitalizing the communal sense of Jewish religious experi• ences, now restricted to High Holy Days. There is significance for Jewish morale, as well as possibly eventual religious significance, to public manifestations and media advertise• ment of Jewish religious ceremonies. The obvious illustra• tions include public forms of celebration of the festivals of Purim, Sukkot, Simkhat Torah, and so on. Their impinge• ment in a dramatic and exciting manner on the media consciousness of the Jewish public would not simply be religious public relations but would generate in many Jews a

63 movement for the rediscovery of that which is usable, vital, or authentic in the tradition. The synagogue movements have been reluctant to move out of their confines, the communal agencies have been inhibited by personal capabilities and jurisdictional activities in this domain. As outlined in its discussion of the media, the Task Force recommends that, as a matter of Jewish public service, every major Jewish festival receive appropriate media treatment. 5) The multiplicity of rabbinical functions within the Jewish community has been a source of concern both among the rabbinate and the community. Six functions were delineated: a) prayer and worship; b) rites; c) educational administration; d) scholarship for the adult community; e) pastoral counseling; and f) communal services and public relations. There is need for significant redefinition or specialization of functions as a result of the rabbinic dissatisfaction with the multiplicity of roles. The determination of the new function will help to shape synagogue life in the 1970s. There will be new mechanisms for communal-rabbinic cooperation in the redirection of the rabbinical-school curricula and of the training which is required for the multiple functions. In each of the above areas there is need, first, for informational research about the present situation; second, for support of experimentation; and third, for evaluation of achievement. The major rabbinical organizations and semi• naries are currently moving in new directions. The programs should not, however, be left in the exclusive domain of professionals, even when these professionals are vested with rabbinical authority. The Task Force recommends that com• munal leadership be directly involved in the mechanisms for the development and evaluation of diverse models for con• gregational schools, worship, rabbinical counseling, or synagogue youth services. *

64 ISRAEL AND THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY

The developing network of relationships with Israel will be an increasingly important item on the agenda of the American Jewish community through the 1970s. Some insight into the potential significance of these relationships derives from comparing the place occupied by Palestine in the American Jewish consciousness in the 1930s and by Israel in the 1960s—particularly since it would seem that the rapid growth phase of this relationship, which began in the wake of the events of 1967, has not yet peaked. The working out of a relationship with the State of Israel offers to many Jewish communities and institutions a challenge which, if success• fully met, can be extremely life-enhancing to the American Jewish community. It is noteworthy that Zionist theory has had no ideological framework in terms of which it understands or interprets the dynamic processes which have been taking place on the communal and individual level in the American Jewish community. Classical Zionist ideology, still the dominant belief among Israelis, at least in the official rhetoric, advanced the view that the Jewish future in the Diaspora involves a continuous and irreversible erosion for the major• ity segment of the community and a pattern of emigration to Israel for the minority. An alternative Zionist ideology, that of Ahad Ha'am, advanced the view that a restored dynamic Jewish center in Israel would radiate its transfusing energy to vitalize Jewish life in the Diaspora. Neither of these models

65 reflects either the real situation or the desirable paradigm for the relationship between American Jewry and Israel. The Task Force position paper placed special stress on the establishment and defense of the State of Israel as the demonstration of the Jewish people's recovery of historical self-determination. Accordingly, it becomes a crucial aspect of the moral character and morale of the American Jewish community that it play its part in the process of Jewish self-determination. This role, which has sometimes seemed to be primarily philanthropic, has in reality involved political action and probably will increasingly make demands in economic alloca• tion, social direction, and institutional planning. These activities are not remote from the other communal activities of American Jewry. The focusing of Diaspora energy on the shoring up of Israel's position and achievement has made Israel a center of concern, although in a way different from that which Ahad Ha'am predicted. This process has, however, charged American Jewish life with a. sense of responsibility for Israel, and has often made Israel the substance of Jewish program and activity. No one can predict the future military and political balance of forces in the Middle East. If these result in a reduction of tensions, then in the 1970s there will be a growing stress on those particular reciprocal activities which can meet the needs of the Israelis and at the same time fulfill the identity needs of the American Jew. In this context, it is of major importance to note that Israelis have not resolved the questions of their own Jewish consciousness and identity. For many American Jews, partic• ularly a generation ago, the meaning of the American experience was the rejection or reform of a parochial and authoritarian version of ghetto Judaism while retaining a Jewish identity, either ethnic or religious. For many Israelis to this day, the meaning of the Zionist experience was the revolt against Jewish Galut (Diaspora) culture. This culture,

66 in its religious tradition and social patterns, was to be replaced by an Israeli identity which would declare Jewish loyalties, recognize selected historical continuities, and yet significantly change the patterns of "Jewish" living. The Israeli pattern is complicated by the religious indifference of majority Israeli secularism, the militant Orthodoxy of the minority, the quasi-Jewish character of many Israeli institu• tions, and the complex legal situation on issues involving religion and the state. Yet, paradoxically, the contradictory and unresolved character of the Israeli expression of Jewish consciousness provides the American Jewish community with the most vital role of partners-in-search. In this search, there are areas of joint activity, in which the Israel experience provides models for the American Jewish community, and some areas in which the American experi• ence may provide models for Israel. The articulation of the institutional network of these relationships will be significant as part of the agenda of the 1970s. The following are some of the areas, both ongoing and in embryo, for special attention:

Joint Program Areas 1) The continuing investigation of the significance of Jewish identity and belief under conditions of modernity both in Israel and in America is an area of mutual self-study. This includes the study of "usable" Jewish traditions that derive from those areas from which Jews migrated to the United States and Israel, particularly Yiddish-speaking Eastern and Western Europe. It also includes the awareness of the significance of the Holocaust for the future generation of American and Israeli Jews. In addition, it includes the adequacy of a variety of ideological responses—Zionist, humanist, or religious—to modern Jewish dilemmas. The Task Force recommends, as a matter of communal priority, that this process be furthered through dialogue, translation of important texts, and support for a variety of pertinent projects.

67 2) Jewish scholarship, both in discovery or recovery of materials, their interpretation and their communication to relevant audiences, can be another shared task. The Zionist ideal envisaged Israel as an "ingathering" of the scattered cultural resources of Judaism. Israel-American partnership in such scholarly achievements is a vital symbol and means of this "ingathering," whose purpose must be to restore the varied and submerged traditions of past Jewish societies. This will be of inestimable value for Jewish groups in Israel or America concerned with Jewish self-definition. The Task Force asserts the significance for the American Jewish community of these research investigations. It believes that the Jewish scholarly institutions in America, libraries, museums, and media should be supported in any effort to communicate these research results to the public. 3) Worthy of special mention in this regard is participa• tion in archeological activities: These activities, like the Masada dig, often relate to vital aspects of the Jewish past which have a prominent role in reconstitution of Jewish self-identification. Of special interest here, without apologetics, is the Jewish origins and character of Christianity. 4) A joint undertaking of social scientific inquiry that relates to shared or analogous problems should also be considered. The inquiry might include such subjects as: the cultural integration of immigrant communities; the normali• zation of deprived communities; the adjustment of Soviet citizens to a pluralist society; etc. 5) Finally, joint ventures might involve participation in cultural programs that explore the musical, artistic, theatri• cal, or literary heritage of the Jewish people. In each of the above areas, the Task Force took note of current activities. It believes that the 1970s can consolidate positive trends and transform some small and pioneering efforts into established and ongoing programs.

68 Israeli Models for American Jews

1) The Israeli operational patterns of culture can be a source for innovation in Jewish cultural life in America. The revival of the Hebrew language by making traditional texts known to literate young Jews, has transformed the degree of understanding of religious practices in this country as compared to the preceding generation. The planting of trees in Israel, on Tu Bi-Shvat, is a minor but interesting example of Israeli revitalization of Jewish holidays. The obvious point is that culture is not transfused except when the recipient's desires or needs are compatible with those of the potential donor. Yet in connection with previously mentioned experi• ments in patterns of identity reinforcement, some aspects of Israeli life, including renewed stress on nature in traditional religious cycles, might be of significance for American Judaism. 2) The Israeli kibbutz may provide a model to those American Jewish youth in search of communal patterns of living. 3) The Israeli universities' successful integration of Jewish scholarship within the framework of a secular institution of higher learning can provide an ideal and standard for the many departments of Jewish studies at American universities. 4) The new Encyclopaedia Judaica, much of whose material was translated from Hebrew into English, is an example of the greater accessibility to Jewish knowledge available through Israeli cultural initiative. 5) The Jerusalem Museum can serve as a model for the expression of universal values in a particularistic idiom. As such, it provides an example for American Jewish institutions in their efforts which they should incorporate in their response to the challenge of the 1970s. 6) The vitality of certain features of Israeli popular culture—especially music—is an illustration of the influence which Israel may exert on American Jewish life styles.

69 Apparently, the laissez-faire principle operates in the transfusion of Israeli models in American life. Nevertheless, the Task Force is concerned that the institutional framework provide for the survival and advancement of the best products of cultural exchange between Israeli and American Jewries. The agencies most directly involved should be charged with that responsibility.

American Models for Israeli Culture 1) There are certain general features of American eco• nomic and civic culture which may be of significance to Israel. In some cases, these could be realized by individual American immigrants. In other cases, they merit American Jewish institutional support. 2) A controversial question of major importance is whe• ther the non-Orthodox patterns of religious Judaism in America should provide the pattern for an Israeli culture presently divided into secularist and Orthodox halves. The Task Force referred to this problem although no consensus on communal strategies was suggested. The Task Force, however, supports the view that religious freedom must permit the legitimacy of non-Orthodox forms of Judaism in Israel. 3) The American pattern of voluntaristic secondary insti• tutions has significant potential for expansion in Israel where such institutions are relatively undeveloped. The successful adoption of this pattern would lead to joint undertakings on particular problems of interest. The Task Force urges American Jewish organizations to examine their potential roles in appropriate participation in Israeli society in diverse fields which may range from social welfare to musical culture.

Israel as a Personnel Resource The employment of Israelis in Jewish communal service, especially as teachers in supplementary school systems, developed out of market conditions more than twenty years 70 ago. There has been significant formalization and structuring of this resource. If the Jewish community is to develop better planned programs of personnel recruitment, the achievements of Israeli teachers, both resident and imported, must be examined. Here, too, reciprocal apprenticeship programs provide great opportunities for manpower training for the American Jewish community.

Institutional Participation A growing number of American Jewish institutions main• tain branches in Israel or have reciprocal relationships with Israeli institutions. In a voluntaristic community the growth and direction of these institutionalized structures reflects the felt needs of particular institutions and constituencies. The cumulative significance for the character of American Juda• ism of such participation, whether it is a high school or a year abroad for the rabbinical student, is enormous. The commu• nity might well adopt a laissez-faire attitude to the prolifera• tion of such participation. On the other hand, it should be aware of what is going on and be able to exploit the phenomenon for its purposes.

Cultural Exchange Private enterprise will itself spur some degree of cultural exchange, using the important criterion of audience response. There also exist mechanisms like the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and the program needs of the extant Jewish organizations to generate significant cultural exchange be• tween Israel and America. Yet the record of the past decade does not confirm that this exchange appropriately exploits the best resources available and directs them to the appropri• ate community, particularly the. college community whose potential receptivity is great. The Task Force undertook no study of the variety and comparative excellence of these programs. One follow-up of the Task Force would be an analysis of the performance and potential in this area. 71 Tours The explosive growth of Jewish tourism to Israel from America has provided the community with experiments in immersion in Israeli culture. The complex dynamics of interpersonal relationships involved in these trips, extended visits, study periods, etc., cannot be programmed. However, if the high rate of Jewish tourism to Israel continues as projected the American Jewish community might well consider how this can become part of the strengthening of its communal structures and resources for Jewish learning processes. The programs which are judged most successful should become identified as models for action by the community. Emigration to Israel Current estimates for American Jewish emigration to Israel run at about 10,000 persons a year. The present level of such emigration is far in excess of that projected through training for aliyah by Zionist youth movements before 1967. The significance of American emigration to Israel goes beyond its proportionately small figure, for two reasons: first, it signals to Israel and to the world Jewish community the direct involvement of American Jewry in Israel's future. Secondly, since those who do emigrate usually leave behind friends and relatives, even a small number of emigrants means that a significant number of American Jews have a personal involvement with Israel. These movements involve a rich and intensive exploration of Jewish identity and commitment. Sometimes they may involve a readjustment to American Jewish life, if the aliyah is aborted or unsuccessful. To a degree, Jewish communal or congregational agencies should be alert to the special needs for reintegration into American Jewish communal life of the returned American. «, More important, however, there is the question of the character and degree of the American Jewish community's

72 assistance to those who have chosen to immigrate to Israel. Committed as the American Jewish community is to the Jewish future in America, it is also committed to help meet the Jewish needs of individuals. Hence, the special needs of those planning to take up permanent residence in Israel legitimately falls within the purview of Jewish communal service. The Task Force accordingly recommends that appro• priate assistance be made available to those groups involved with emigration to Israel.

73 DECISION-MAKING

The Task Force has prepared an analytic study of the decision-making processes of the American Jewish commu• nity, which throws light on their diversity and complexity. The multiplicity of the processes suggests a measure of caution in their evaluation or reconstruction. The present governance of the community has aspects of democratic procedure with a variety of electoral mechanisms. The American Jewish community is not, however, and cannot be a one-man—one-vote electoral polity. Within the organized community, there are recognized areas of particular agency responsibility with developed inter-institutional lines of communication. The American Jewish community is, however, far from becoming a federal system with demarcation of autonomous units. The role of the full-time professional staff in initiating policy as well as in carrying it out is of extreme importance for the understanding of decision-making. The communal structure could not be characterized, however, as a functional bureaucracy. Fundraising is a major factor in the selection of leadership. It would be a distortion, however, to believe that the decision-making process is dominated by a closed trusteeship of the wealthy. On the contrary, it is not insulated from membership attitudes and is sensitive to criticism, particu• larly in a desire to avoid confrontation. There are identifiable ranks of national leadership made up of persons who know each other well, serve on many boards

74 together, and have national and international roles in Jewish organizations. These coexist, however, with strata of leader• ship of institutions and communities at local levels, which have a strong and independent influence on communal policy. The preceding list «of contrasts reflects a century of organizational continuity. This indicates the possibility of greater coherence and cooperation as well as the difficulties of proposing any overall communal plan. A focus on decision-making processes in the community does, however, suggest a number of emerging issues which will require communal action during the next decade. The Task Force examined six of these: 1) volunteer leadership in the community; 2) professional staff roles; 3) responsible deci• sion-making on controversial issues; 4) communal responsibil• ity and congregational responsibility; 5) American communal decision-making and Israel; 6) "local," "cosmopolitan," and "national" leadership.

Volunteer Leadership Jewish communal governance, like affiliation and partici• pation, is voluntary. This is its distinctive virtue: the ability to generate persons who will devote the required time, energy, and wealth to its management and direction. It also sets the scene for the problems of leadership development. This is a perennial problem, and the comparative acuteness of the problem for the 1970s is not clear. There is now greater concern that persons who are vested with communal authority should merit it by virtue of the character and quality of their personal Jewish activities and commitments. There are at present few agreed criteria of merit beyond demonstrated success in the general society, organizational ability, or willingness to contribute time or money. Efforts to insist upon criteria of devotion to Judaism in personal life or of Jewish knowledge or commitment may tend to be self-defeating in a voluntaristic framework by excluding at the outset those who learn from the experiences

75 of involvement. At the same time, to the extent to which communal leadership is exercised in activities which involve the fabric of Jewish values and culture rather than in enterprises of self-defense, overseas rescue, or traditional philanthropic activities, it will be mandatory that the volunteer leadership is significantly "at home" within that culture. Otherwise, the professional Jewish leadership would become the surrogate of the conscience of an emotionally remote volunteer leadership. The articulation of standards of leadership continuously takes place by the actual selection of leaders. The Task Force believes that the often described phenomenon of leadership of Jewish organizations by persons who are from the periphery of Jewish communal involvement has receded. The process which is emerging is for recruitment of persons to leadership who represent consistency of Jewish involvement in both public and personal spheres. This process can be enhanced through some explicit recognition of the Jewish responsibilities of Jewish leadership. The Task Force recom• mends that initiatives in this dimension be undertaken by every major Jewish organization. One possible direction is a present commitment to a binding acceptance of self-educa• tion upon future ranks of leaders. A second developing trend is the training programs which exist in Jewish organizations directed toward future leadership. A third possibility is the effort to recruit leadership from groups which are usually bypassed since they lack sufficient leisure time or money to serve on boards, but which may represent significant kinds of Jewish attitudes or learning. Fourth, the Task Force recom• mends that Jewish organizations institute programs of formal education for the members of their boards.

Professional Staff Roles Most Jewish activities are planned and carried out by full-time professional staff, working" in consultation with volunteer boards. The line which must then be drawn seeks

76 to resolve the boundaries of professional rights and of professional independence with the prerogatives of boards and the authority of the community. This has been a source of perennial controversy and there has been growing sensitiv• ity to standards of fair play on drawing the line. The professional manpower requirements of the Jewish community are varied and substantial. At the same time, there are very few institutions which have a significant tradition or expertise as successful training institutions in communal service, in education, or in institutional leadership. For the 1970s, as in the past, the community will be required to recruit a sufficient number of young persons of quality to serve the professional staff needs of the commu• nity. It will be responsible for the training of these persons in the appropriately relevant skills and the appropriate suppor• tive direction in their apprenticeships. It will continue to provide the institutional framework which can allow suffi• cient scope and freedom for the well-trained person to function. In Jewish education as well as in other significant areas of communal service, recruitment and training have often been accidental byproducts of general economic or social move• ments. There has been significant, even dramatic, improve• ment in standards of Jewish professional employment in the past two decades. There are in operation some programs for recruitment and some models for training. The strengthening and consolidation of these affirmative trends is a task for the 1970s. The differentiating excellence of the 1970s could be the conscientious effort to develop adequate programs for the preparation of the appropriate kinds of professional expertise for the community. The Task Force commends the programs for the prepara• tion of diverse kinds of communal staff which have been inaugurated in the last few years. It recommends their examination with the aim of intensifying and expanding, wherever appropriate, these training programs. The Jewish

77 community should assert as its communal goal the accurate projection of its professional needs and the institutions of training and preparation to meet those needs.

Responsible Decision-Making Studies of corporation boards, university trusteeships, or governmental advisory committees suggest that it is very difficult to assess the quality of decision-making. Decision• making within the Jewish community is seldom compromised by corruption, even of the subtle sort where political or personal interests may coincide with communal image build• ing. This can be a source for greater democratization of Jewish decision-making. It would require the involvement of neglected constituencies, as well as greater responsiveness by Jewish organizations. The Task Force recommends that boards of Jewish organizations undertake self-examination of the representa• tiveness of their boards to the appropriate constituencies whom they speak for or whose interests they may represent. Especially in those areas where leadership status or correla• tive traits may be insulated from the consequences of decision upon the Jewish community's rank and file, special effort at representation or articulation of competing view• points should be made. The aim of this recommendation is not to stifle diversity of minority viewpoints, whether "mass" or "elite." It is, rather, to guarantee that in the formulation of policy on critical issues those who would suffer the consequences of the policy, for better or worse, be consulted in the decision-making process. Further, it is an endorsement of a trend toward greater volunteer participation and democrati• zation in Jewish organizational life. Traditionally, decisions on local Jewish communal issues are not based on significant research or evaluation of options. The general moral sentiment, the intuitive common sense of the board, and the expertise of staff is adequate for many kinds of decisions. Policies on national issues have been

78 developed with reliance on staff capabilities, which vary enormously within particular Jewish organizations. Issues of moral policy or direction have usually been decided within an agreed liberal consensus. This suggests strain where the consensus seems to be changing or where it exists by virtue of ,,avoiding deep cleavages within the community. As the agenda shifts, particularly to issues relating to the urban crisis, to affirmative action programs, or to ideological or cultural issues, there is at present no firm consensus. The result will be that Jewish organizations which rely on general moral perceptions for their decision-making will be embroiled in controversy. (On such issues as Israel and Soviet Jewry, the heightened sensitivity of international diplomacy has imposed much more severe discipline in infor• mational analysis.) The explosiveness of communal issues will clearly require far more sensitive and more expert fact finding and analysis by Jewish groups on urban questions. These include com• munal security, housing, community control, school integra• tion, quota hiring, which are all part of a very recently emerging agenda. Similarly, if Jewish identity and education take a larger place in the changing Jewish agenda, as they are already doing, then relevant informational analysis will have to be increased and improved. The Task Force had no specific recommendation in this area other than to approve of virtue. Yet the Task Force sought to call attention to the need for the Jewish communal organizations to develop new expertise and to involve this expertise in their decision-making. Institutional life which is effective and responsible neces• sarily develops tendencies of inertia. It must commit funds to projects which cannot be lightly abandoned, invest in persons who cannot be turned out and over, and make new long-term commitments only with appropriate lead-time planning. Many aspects of Jewish communal life—the role of urban change, the growth of Day Schools, the rise of New Left anti-Semitism are the most familiar—have developed so

79 rapidly that the Jewish institutional response appears lagging. This invites the charge of neglect or irresponsibility, when, in fact, it may simply be institutionally difficult to catch up to the new agenda. What is required, then, is the courage to respond to change and the willingness to develop new kinds of programs and expertise required by changing circumstances. Procedures which make possible flexibility in bringing in new persons outside traditional areas of staff recruitment and in recruiting volunteer leadership from unrepresented constituencies are among the methods which the Jewish community can use in developing the appropriate mechanisms for responsiveness to change. The Task Force is itself a part of the process of reorienting the American Jewish community to possible changes in its agenda. A perennial dilemma in Jewish organizational life is charting the degree of emphasis between the responsibility of Jewish communal organizations to assert Jewish interests, to defend Jewish rights, and their coordinate responsibility to strive for moral and political ideals which Jews share with all men or whose enactment would presumably be important for Jewish welfare. This dilemma now reflects a severe cleavage within the Jewish community. _ Several lines of resolution have been developed. One is to restrict organized Jewish communal efforts to the defense of Jewish interests and rights; Jews would then have to find expression for their broader concerns in the appropriate general organizations. According to this view, Jewish com• munal organizations should turn "inward" both because there is an important and neglected "internal" agenda and because stress on familiar approaches to major societal issues or controversial issues may conflict with or even undermine Jewish interests. Another approach is to develop guidelines for action which recognize the legitimate role of Jewish ,organizations in trying to help fashion the character of American society but which

80 would place special weight on the pursuit of goals which may conflict with what appear to be Jewish interests. A third view is to seek to harmonize and redefine in light of current realities the nature of Jewish interests and the kinds of social values that Jewish organizations should seek to foster. In any event, the previous styles and tacit ideological approaches are being revised. The Task Force recognizes that a resolution of this dilemma adequate for Jewish communal needs and responsibilities will be an urgent task for the 1970s.

The Community and the Congregation There is a significant degree of overlap between communal decision-making processes carried out by Jewish Federations and communal staff workers and decision-making by rabbini• cal and congregational leadership. The community agencies do not assert isolated communal responsibilities for a particular service, like a hospital or a home for the aged, but rather see themselves as being responsible for wider educational, cultural, or religious needs. Congregations do not view themselves narrowly as religious sanctuaries but as houses of Jewish assembly for manifold Jewish purposes. Especially if there is heightened interest in communal concern for the quality of Jewish cultural life, the areas of mutuality and of autonomy will require demarca• tion. The lines have been drawn several different ways in Jewish communal history in the past fifty years. It would seem that they will be redrawn again with Community Councils expressing renewed interest in what was once left to "religion." The Task Force recommends that communal agencies and congregations seek in formal and informal ways the clarifica• tion of this relationship. The Task Force believes that this process of redrawing communal and congregational respon• sibilities can be mutually beneficial both to congregations and to communal programs in the 1970s.

81 American Communal Decision-Making and Israel The Task Force recognized the legitimate influence of the views of Israeli policy-makers on American communal policy. It distinguished among three types of situations. The first of these deals with issues affecting the security interests of Israel. Almost all American communal decision• makers defer to Israeli perception and judgment in vital areas that affect Israel directly. They do so because they recognize the superiority of Israeli information in assessing the nature of the problem and the range of options for its solution. Moreover, there is an awareness that the consequences of an error in these matters would be borne uniquely by the Israelis. The second situation concerns itself with issues affecting Jewish communities abroad, apart from Israel, such as the treatment of Jews in Arab lands, Soviet Jewish emigration, etc. Here Israeli policy-makers also assert a high degree of leadership, likewise deriving from their greater informational resources and expertise. It is also strengthened by the forums uniquely available to representatives of sovereign states. It stems, too, from the moral authority in Jewish matters which Israel has been prepared to assert on many questions. (Perhaps the most dramatic is the Israeli Supreme Court's effort to define who is a Jew.) However, the American Jewish community has a long tradition of involvement in these matters as well as special resources of its own by virtue of its position as the largest Jewish community in the world. The differences in perception and judgment which occa• sionally will arise between American Jews and Israelis can be both a source of tension and a basis for converging strengths. It is important that the American Jewish community continue to develop its skills for independent judgment and action and be prepared to argue for its views on "foreign

policy" questions. a The third situation touches upon issues relating to both societies, Israeli and American Jewish. There would appear to be significant interest by Israelis in involving Americans in

82 decision-making on a range of Israeli issues, from housing construction to educational planning. The painful exception here is the special restrictions on American non-Orthodox religious leadership in the framework of Israel's religious life, although even this exclusion permits a variety of activities. (There is, for instance, a largely American-sponsored Hillel House in Jerusalem, whose rabbi is a Reconstructionist.) There has been a significant shift of emphasis by Israelis, particularly since 1967, in their responsiveness to planning for the long-range American Jewish future. The possibilities of reciprocal input in decision-making on a scale that was not in evidence in the 1960s is therefore likely.

Local, Cosmopolitan, and National Leadership

On the local level, the Jewish community has developed groups of concerned and intelligent leaders who are respon• sive to particular institutions and causes. The community has also achieved in the past two decades an impressive number of recognized "cosmopolitan" leaders to deal with issues that relate to Israel or to international policy. Decisions are made in the Jewish community by both "local" and "cosmopolitan" leaders in their respective areas of concern. There is, however, an indefinite area of national communal policies which sets the directions and goals for many features of Jewish regional or national life where there seems to be much less visible leadership and less coherent processes of decision-making. This situation may simply be the consequence of the fact that the Jew in Texas, for example, may not require "advice" from the Jews of Philadelphia on communal issues and vice versa. The functional units of Jewish life may appropriately be "local" or "cosmopolitan." It may, however, reflect areas where leadership and direction are lacking because Jews are confused about their communal goals. The lack of coherent communal policy for New York City, in contrast to most other Jewish communities in the country, tends to confirm this. view.

83 Decision-making within the Jewish community is, to a significant degree, a process of communication. The commu• nication of the shared concern of American Jews as a community then becomes an element in the beginning of communal decision-making. There is a significant area for investigation and reform in the communications network of Jewish communal organizations. The Task Force believes that it is important that the problems of particular segments of the Jewish community be communicated accurately and extensively to other segments of the Jewish community. To the extent to which the present communications network may not do so remedial strategies are appropriate.

84 THE ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES

The Task Force made an effort to discover the propor• tional allocations to all communal functions of funds raised by the Jewish community. This effort was undertaken as a necessary research tool to evaluate the responsiveness of communal organizations to current conceptions of needs and priorities. It would therefore constitute a first step in the perennial process of reordering priorities. It is well known, though not well remembered, that every time a budget is adopted which involves even incremental changes, an ordering of priorities is taking place. The force of the demand to reorder priorities is, of course, the belief that a much more radical shift, in proportional allocations, or in the speed of reallocation, is required. This belief implies that the present proportions are incorrect either because they reflect an inappropriate ordering of relative values or an incorrect perception of relative needs. Some analysis of the notion of the reordering of priorities is itself in order. The simultaneous occurrence of the Vietnam war, the moon landing, and urban riots was the stimulus for concern about a "reordering of priorities" in American society. There was no such dramatic contrast in Jewish communal life—the most extreme contrast articulated was usually that between heavy expenditures for hospitals and lesser expenditures for Jewish education—although the demand to "reorder priori• ties" became part of the communal agenda of the late 1960s. This demand has diverse causes. It derives, in part, from a general mistrust of conven• tional institutions—universities, public utilities, newspapers—

85 which is also extended to conventional charitable philan• thropic institutions like hospitals or homes for the aged. Secondly, it reflects the feeling of some critics that the programs of the established welfare institutions do not meet the needs of neglected constituencies within the Jewish community especially those caught in urban change, like the elderly poor. These critics argue that if an old person requires hospitalization, there is a first-rate Jewish facility in existence, but if the older person lives in a deteriorating neighborhood or low-rent project, no program to meet his basic needs is offered by the Jewish commu• nity. The agencies, they say, are reluctant to get involved in such areas if it may result in communal confrontations or polarization. Thirdly, it reflects the merger of the new ethnicity with the style of the radical youth movement. Accordingly, demands for greater budgets for Jewish education or for Jewish student activities on campus have been asserted aggressively, in some instances with picketing or sit-in techniques, as part of a style confirming interest in radical social change by the Jewish youth community. Fourthly, it urges reinforcement of the apparently growing trends of Jewish philanthropic activities away from service to individuals to new programs in communal services. This trend is itself a plausible transition for many organizations, originally concerned with the plight of individual Jewish immigrants, which are now seeking to relate to a mature communal structure. Fifthly, it expresses a criticism of the alleged "univer- salist" bias of Jewish philanthropic activity and asks that such activity be directed to Jewish communal interests. According to this criticism, universalist priorities are not justified, even though they may be vehicles to involve "outsiders" in Jewish programs, since they misdirect Jewish funds toward particular favorite causes which have little significance for the Jewish community.

86 Sixthly, it stems, in part from a failure to take into account the traditional patterns of local and non-Federation support for educational, religious and cultural institutions. It also tends to neglect the way in which donors' wishes influence allocations and the limits institutions have in directing those wishes. : The demand for reordering of priorities, then, is caught up in a multiplicity of other issues. The questions it puts on the communal agenda are in themselves reasonably straight• forward : 1) What is the present functional distribution of funds raised for Jewish communal purposes? 2) Should the proportional allocations be changed? 3) In what direction should they be changed? The Task Force discovered that at the present time these questions simply cannot be answered. They require more specific definition of the variety of the sources of funding and of the plural functions of particular expenditures. The answer requires much more information on the resources and the expenditures of the Jewish community than is currently available. The Task Force has stimulated a project of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds to investigate these questions and to analyze the current allocation patterns of the American Jewish community. There are only preliminary conclusions available from this project, among which are the following: 1) National data on the financing of major activities by Federations are available over a long-term span. The analysis of the data over a 10-year period shows that priorities do shift. It also reveals that priorities vary considerably in particular localities. This provides a data base for an evaluation of the direction and degree of the shifts. Subse• quent to such an analysis, the Jewish community could examine whether the actual direction of these shifts accords with its sense of changing priorities.

87 2) The available statistics relate to receipts and expendi• tures of agencies and institutions, but do not detail the functions performed by these expenditures. A functional analysis of these budgets is required. We do not know, for instance, how much synagogues spend on Jewish education. If we did, we might develop some paradigms for appropriate ratios as they relate to achievement. Similarly, we have at present no analysis of the proportion a "civic defense" agency spends on research or education. Only when we have criteria for evaluation are we in a position to consider whether this proportion is too low or too high. 3) The changes in funding of related programs by outside sources is a pertinent consideration in the analysis of allocation of Jewish resources. The teaching of Hebrew in the local public school and the construction grant to the hospital from the Federal government are examples of such relevant factors. In some cases, outside funding should reduce the Jewish expenditures. On the other hand, it can suggest the possibility for important achievement by augmenting re• sources in a particular area. 4) The degree of discretion in income is highly variable. Many gifts are restricted to specific purposes. These may not be available in any process of communal decision on priorities. 5) Change in priorities has been dramatically affected by unpredictable events like the Six-Day War or the emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union. 6) There are very substantial differences among Jewish communities in the resources available. Variations on a per capita basis are striking. This suggests that control of priorities on an overall policy basis is misleading. It might be that instructive lessons on differing evaluations of needs and goals can be derived from studying the differences in local patterns of allocation. 7) The study of the functional use* of resources and the priorities these reflect would require a research task of major proportions. (One consequence of the Task Force is the

88 decision of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds to go ahead with this research and evaluation.) On the basis of the present state of the data, the Task Force cannot provide concrete guidance on how allocation of resources could be reordered. Incremental shifts continually take place in light of constituency pressures, the availability of resources, the expression of felt goals, or the articulation of important directions. In the near future, the shift of priorities will reflect processes that have been taking place in the past few years. First, the activities of the welfare state, especially in the area of health care, will change the priority and the funding traditionally assigned to medical services. The general exami• nation of the health care supplied by governmental agencies will result in significantly different relationships between the government and the private philanthropic sector. The re• examination provides a framework for an overall evaluation of the special role of Jewish philanthropic endeavor in health services. Presumably, only special relevance to the needs of the Jewish community justifies special Jewish communal philanthropic activities. The Task Force recommends an evaluation of this area by those groups which possess the required expertise, by those Jewish institutions active in this field, and by persons concerned with Jewish communal priorities. This evaluation would presumably clarify the financial data, explain the special role or relevance of continued Jewish contribution, and chart the ground for a change of priorities in allocation of resources. Second, the crisis in consensus on significant features of traditional programs should result in a change toward support of Jewish interests more narrowly defined. The inappropriateness of any Jewish communal role as spokesman or financial underwriter for other ethnic or religious groups has long been recognized. Within the coalitions of interest groups, it is natural that Jewish communal groups will have to assert their role in defense of specifically Jewish interests. For in any coalition of interests,

89 if one party pursues the "general good" while the other parties advance their constituencies' interests, the result must inevitably be the victimization of the constituency whose representatives pursue the "general good." For a number of reasons, it appears to the Task Force that the direction of allocation of resources will move more exclusively toward Jewish interests in the 1970s. The problem this poses is not one of allocation but of morale and spirit. The Jewish community, as a community of American Jewish persons, must avoid facing only inward, even if the principles governing communal allocations should properly be directed toward Jewish communal purposes. It is a matter of debate whether Jews who will inevitably be interested in contributing to general social values should find the vehicle for this expression only outside the Jewish communal institutions. Third, the sense of Jewish communal responsibility will go beyond service to the individual Jew in trouble toward the development of the institutions which support Jewish group life. This shift reflects the maturation of the com• munity. It is the appropriate process for an established community able to react to long-term needs. To the extent, of course, to which the crisis of the family or of the city have created new problem-classes—drug users, victims of crime in urban areas, victims of coercive practices which continue to prey upon Jewish businessmen, profes• sionals, or residents—the question of individual welfare may assert itself. The agenda for treating these problems is, however, significantly different from the traditional approach to individual welfare and will require communal social strategies. The Task Force recognizes the significance of these new strategies for the Jewish communal future, particularly in the cities. Even taking into account the new threats to the Jewish communal existence, increased support for Jewish group activities in education and in other elements of the cultural infrastructure represents an important direction for alloca• tion of resources. The Task Force endorses this shift in the

90 allocation of resources as part of the process of development of concern regarding the quality of Jewish cultural and religious life which has been taking place within the Jewish community. Fourthly, emergencies abroad, such as the increase in the emigration of Soviet Jews, may determine crucially the allocation of resources in the 1970s. The Task Force did not seek to evaluate the potential impact of such situations. The Task Force noted the sensitivity of Jewish communal leaders, both volunteer and professional, to the issues raised by criticism of the present allocation of communal resources. This sensitivity, the stress on better information and evalua• tion, the significance of charting new directions, will be reflected in the reallocations of resources in the next decade. It would be instructive to aim at an agreed projection of the different proportions that should mark a more desirable order of priorities by 1980 and to match performance against projection. One predictable result is that this would clarify how priorities require continuous reordering. The Task Force recommends the examination of the process of allocation of priorities, taking into account both critics and defenders of current communal priorities. The allocation of resources in a significant sense derives from the perception of needs and the development of programs that promise significant results. The Task Force believes that there has been a greatly increased perception by many Jews of the educational, religious, and cultural needs of the Jewish community. The Task Force notes that in response to this new awareness, a variety of programmatic and institutional changes are being advanced. The Task Force considers its own activity to be part of that process of change within the Jewish community which represents a redirection of communal effort toward planning for Jewish continuity, which can have no single stopping place. Reflection upon the direction of change of the Jewish community, however, like that undertaken in the Task Force, should aim at reinforce• ment of those tendencies which currently give promise of shaping a better American Jewish community.

91 Supplementary Statement by Rabbi Jacob B. Agus:

Masterful and comprehensive though it is, this Report fails to bring to light the ideological alternatives and the central issues of Jewish life. It calls for "ongoing discussion and inquiry" but it does not point out the diversity of goals and the variety of concepts of Jewish identity. It avoids "the agonizing appraisal" that we face. On the assumption that the supreme worth of American Jewish life is self-evident, this Report fails to explore the entire dimension of Jewish interaction with American society—the implications of Jewry being one of the "creative minorities" within the American nation. A perspective would then be provided for the evaluation of the rights and wrongs of recent radicalism. I understand that this theme is treated in another Task Force, but the very treatment of the two themes separately, as if the American orientation is not germane to the self-image of our community, is misleading. On the alternative assumption that the Zionist ideology is self-evident, either in its Herzlian or in its A'had Ha'amist interpretations, certain conclusions of the Report follow logically. Indeed, this Report mentions only these two alternatives. What of the Non-Zionist and spiritual con• ceptions of the Jewish people—those of Simon Dubnow, Simon Rawidowicz and the previous "consensus" generally? I do not suggest that the Report accepts Zionist ideology, but that it does not illuminate the ideological alternatives. Again, it may be that this theme was considered outside the scope of this Task Force. Obviously, if we bear these philosophies in mind, we cannot agree with the widespread impression that "the continuation of Jewish history" and "Jewish self- determination" take place only in Israel. We should then regard Jewish life, everywhere and especially in the Free World, as being supremely worthy in itself, a continuation of the texture of Jewish history. We should then oppose attempts to "liquidate" various communities, by the use of

92 panic-propaganda, as was done in South America. Such attempts are logical consequences of an ideology that is utterly consistent. Already, the Jewish Defense League has emblazoned the slogan in a New York Times advertise• ment— "Jew, go home." Naturally, in respect of the decision-making process, it makes all the difference in the world whether our governing principle is one that accords equal value to Jewish life everywhere, or one that regards America and the Diaspora generally as transient, and Israel as the sole locus of Jewish history.

93 The following persons, not members of the Task Force, participated in one of the general conferences, or in special one-day consultations on Jewish education, the synagogue, or decision-making in the Jewish community. Their participation at these meetings does not necessarily imply approval of the contents of this Report.

*FELIX BERGER - Midway Jewish Center, LOUIS NEWMAN - Director, Melton Syosset, N.Y. Research Center, Jewish Theological Seminary *SAMUEL M. BLUMENFIELD - Brooklyn, N.Y. JOSEPH PREIL - Consultant, Board of Jewish Education, New York City BENJAMIN BRICKMAN - Assistant Direc­ tor, Board of Jewish Education, New RABBI JACOB RABINOWITZ - Dean, York City Erna Michael College of Hebraic Studies, Yeshiva University MICHAEL BROOKS - Somerville, Massachusetts **NATHAN ROTENSTREICH - Professor of Philosophy, The Hebrew University of SYLVIA ETTENBERG - Associate Dean, Jerusalem The Teachers Institute, Seminary College of Jewish Studies, Jewish Theological ALVIN SCHIFF - Executive Vice Presi­ Seminary dent, Board of Jewish Education, New York City RABBI MORRIS F I N E R - Director, Community Service Division, Yeshiva MORTON SIEGEL - Director, Commission University on Jewish Education, Synagogue Council of America *SEYMOUR FOX - Professor of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem GERALD S. SOROKER - Executive Direc­ tor, United Jewish Federations of ELI GRAD - President, Hebrew College, Pittsburgh Boston RABBI JACK SPIRO - Union of American *BEN HALPERN - Professor of Near Hebrew Congregations Eastern Studies, Brandeis University RABBI RICHARD STERNBERGER - HILLEL HENKIN - Dean, Herzliah Jewish Director, Middle Atlantic Council of the Teachers Seminary and People's Union of American Hebrew University Congregations JOSEPH KAMINETSKY-National Direc­ ABE L. SUDRAN - Executive Director, tor, Torah Umesorah, National Society Jewish Community Council of Essex for Hebrew Day Schools County RABBI NORMAN LAMM - The Jewish RABBI EFRAIM WARSHAW - Temple Center, New York City Israel of Great Neck ISAIAH M I N KOFF — Executive Vice- Chairman, National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council Deceased ״ RABBI DAVID MOGILNER - Director, **Also prepared a position paper for the Ramah Camps Task Force •>־ ־׳־AMERICAN TpW7r LIBRA >\. :.

Single copy, $1.50 Quantity prices on request POSITION PAPERS PREPARED FOR THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE TASK FORCE*

Judaism and the Revolution of Modernity David Sidorsky

Zion in the Mind of American Jews Ben Halpern

Emancipation Nathan Rotenstreich and Its Aftermath Wolfe Kelman The Synagogue in America

American Jewry: Sidney Goldstein A Demographic Analysis American Jewry: Identity and Affiliation Charles S. Liebman

Jewish Youth in Dissent: A Psychoanalytic Portrait Mortimer Ostow, M.D.

A Radical View of Jewish Culture James Sleeper

Toward a General Theory of Jewish Education Seymour Fox

Decision-Making in the American Jewish Community Daniel Elazar

*Scheduled for publication in 1973, under a grant from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation. THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE Institute of Human Relations 165 East 56 Street, New York, NY. 10022

econd printing, March 1974