Besides being a back-cover blurbster for End Of The Jews, Esther Kustanowitz is a fabulous person.  She blogs.  She tweets.  Based in LA, she is a Senior Media Consultant and doyenne of the NextGen Engagement Initiative for the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles.  So when she wrote today about “getting engaged”, I read closely and not just because of the head-fake in the title.

Many of us in the Jewish world – single and married, younger and older – are tasked with creating “Jewish engagement” opportunities every day. Some of us even have the actual word in our professional titles; for others, it’s implied. But the one thing everyone agrees on is that no one knows what “engagement” really means.

But we do … We just called it something else when the “Jewish engagement” opportunities were for Jews under the age of 18.  We called it education.   But I digress.  More from Esther…

She goes on to explore “engagement” (in the smoochy, rock-on-finger waving sense of the word) as a seemingly fit framing metaphor.   Many sociologists (this century’s rock star “theologians” according to Eli Valley) take the metaphor literally, counting inmarriages and baby-making beyond replacement level as one of the prime measures of success in the game of Jewish continuity.   But:

…Jewish engagement must be bigger than marital status or parenthood potential, otherwise it retroactively and tacitly deems those who do not meet their soulmates – or those who do meet soulmates but are not on a parenthood path – as engagement failures. It also conveys the false message that those who are married and/or on the parenthood track do not need to be engaged. So the success of Jewish engagement cannot be measured solely by marital status or parenthood potential.

I would go even farther and say that touting these measures is a distraction … much in the way that folks look at graduates of eight years of day school education and say: “Now that’s a viable Jew right there!”   But I digress.

Esther continues with BREAKING NEWS for some Jewish folks…  The Jewish community today is increasingly dominated by Next Jews for whom:

Affiliation is a choice. Civic engagement is a choice. Social activism is a choice. And when it comes to making space in their lives for those choices, many of which exist concurrently and definitely non-exclusively, most NextGen people don’t rely on organizations to do it for them, because they can do it better, faster, stronger and cheaper themselves. As Clay Shirky titled it in his book, Here Comes Everybody, this is the particular power of “organizing without organizations.” Is there any concept more terrifying to legacy organizations than the threat of their obsolescence?

And when I say “dominated”, I mean numerically – despite the “Fear of a Black Planet” narrative of an impending Orthodox takeover.  But even then, Next Jews do not dominate where, from a legacy organizational standpoint, it truly counts: in the Board Rooms. (But that, too, is changing… I guess.)

Esther concludes with two questions that provide the segue for the forthcoming second part:

1) How can we create experiences that encourage the formation and deepening of relationships among program participants as well as between them and Jewish organizational professionals?

2) What can the organized Jewish community provide to this self-reliant and independent group of people that they cannot provide for themselves?

So, returning to my lead SAT analogy headline, does Jewish education have anything to say about this?

Jewish education is not a synonym for day school learning exclusively, although many folks look to day school to deliver the continuity goods.  (Insert usual caveats and critiques here.)  I would add Jewish summer camps as a site of powerful Jewish education as well.

What these programs do well and most effectively b’gadol is create an environment which values Jews as Jews, positioning Jewish experience as normative.

One could say dismissively: “What do you expect?  When you have a captive audience Monday through Friday for eight years or 24/7 for eight weeks, you can stir the heart and rouse the soul.  You can make a Jew out of anybody.”

Well, not really.

What one could say instead is: These meaningful normative experiences happen because there is time for it to happen… sometimes, by design, sometimes, on its own… which necessarily demands commitment (of time, at least) from everyone involved.

BREAKING NEWS #2: Next Jews are not commitment-averse.  They just need a compelling reason to commit.  (Hint: Inertia is not a reason.  Fear is also not a reason.)

This is where the challenge lies… and, despite appearances, it is not a challenge solely for those working with adults.

…which is why I, too, am eagerly awaiting “Getting Engaged: Part Two”.

In the 1990s, it was day schools.

In the 2000s, it was the Israel experience.

In the 2010s, SUMMER CAMP is the new black.  And here’s the infographic to prove it.

(Read the full Foundation for Jewish Camp report later.)

I have big love for summer camp.  I never went as a kid but worked at Camp Ramah in Wisconsin as staff and LOVED IT.

I want my kids to go to summer camp too.  All three of them.  For as much as there is summer.  And more.

But “CAMP WORKS”?  Well, if one bases one’s judgment on it “working” based on the criteria set out, then hells bells, it does work.

But is being a Jew solely based on…

• marrying in?
• feeling that being Jewish is important?
• lighting candles on Shabbat?
• being emotionally attached to Israel?
• donating to a Jewish charity?
• joining a synagogue?
• donate to the Federation?
• attending synagogue more than once a month?

Oi.

In-marriage?  It might start one off on more solid ground vis-a-vis “Jewish continuity”, but it guarantees nothing vis-a-vis Jewish identification going forward.  

Feeling that being Jewish is important?  Feeling that Israel is important?  Like the previously alluded-to buzzword “Jewish continuity”, it sounds good to feel Jewish or to be emotionally connected to Israel but how does that translates into concrete action?  (Hint: It’s coming…)

[Concrete Action #1]  Lighting candles on Shabbat!  Ah the great bellwether of Jewish identification… In my house, we light five candles each week, one for each person in the house… so, if I light my five three times a month, and you light two four times a month, do I win?

And of concrete actions #2-5, how many involve money?  If you guessed three, you would be correct.  Three of the measured concrete actions (joining a shul, giving money to a Jewish charity and giving money to the Federation) involve the concrete action of putting your hand in your pocket and giving it to a Jewish organization.  Hmm.  Is this what being a Jew involves in the 21st century?  I hope not.

And last, shul attendance.  I am also a big fan of shul attendance.  But I am lucky.  My shul is great and anchors a wonderful community of deeply committed, egalitarian progressive Jews.   Some shuls suck.  And y’all know what I am talking about…

However, despite the questionable sociology (and its underlying assumptions about Jewishness) behind the meaty section of the infographic, what really drove the point home about summer camp WORKING was the data in the second row.

Jewish summer camp is a hothouse for future Jewish leadership in North America.  

These stats support what I know to be true from my own experience in the field, having met passionate rabbis, communal leaders and educators who point to summer camp as a formative Jewish experience (not to mention a formative sexual experience too…).

So good on you, URJ camps and Ramah and Shomria and Gesher and all the other camps out there who are providing an unadulterated Jewish experience that Jews can love, be nostalgic about and carry forward across the seasons and generations.

But it begs a HUGE question: If Jewish camp works this well, shouldn’t summer camp be every North American Jew’s birthright?  

I’m just saying…

Jews and camp? For real?

According to Abigail Pickus, it’s Jewish camp!   Cheaper than day schools (but not by much if you calculate cost per week) yet packs (almost) the same Jewish continuity punch… well, not exactly… although:

The [Foundation for Jewish Camp] plan also references recent studies in the Jewish world that show a direct link between Jewish summer camps and an increased involvement and commitment to Jewish life, practice and leadership roles within the Jewish world.

Ta da!

Strange though… as I made my way through the piece, I was waiting for Abigail Pickus to let us in on her institutional affiliation… as in was she an employee of the FJC?   Her piece read like a press release from the Foundation… but apparently, NO.  She writes for ejewishphilanthropy.com …

Nevertheless, every time I think of summer camp (and I do think of it sometimes with some wistfulness, longing and sexual frisson as I was a counsellor in Conover, WI @ Camp Ramah), I also recall the words of Donald Glover who said:

Jewish people love summer camp.  They all went to the same summer camp.  Which is weird, because if I was Jewish I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near a camp.