What are the challenges facing contemporary Jews in America? Following on Carmel Chiswickâ??s interview last week, we invite Daniel Libenson â?? director of jUChicago and founder/president of the Institute for the Next Jewish Future â?? discusses his perceptions of the landscape facing American Jews and how he has been engaged in organizations such as Hillel and the rationale behinds the ones he now directs. As a â??thinker-practitioner,â? we get an inside look into how somebody is leveraging research being conducted in academic circles, including by Daniel himself, to adapt to a changing environment.
Our conversation begins with a discussion of challenges facing contemporary Jews in America. Dan notes that Judaism is not only seen as a religion, but as an ethnicity. And even though there has been an increase in the number of â??secular Jewsâ? religiously, there remains a great deal of pride in heritage among this group, which he notes provides a great opportunity for engaging Jews who may have been falling away from their spiritual roots. We talk about some of the demographic categories that were mentioned in last weekâ??s interview with Carmel Chiswick. Dan works closely with college students and understands the difficulty of â??young adult singlesâ? as they enter a period of their lives that is often devoid of Jewish rituals. He also spends some time discussing how Jews have always had to respond to changing circumstances, and discusses the emergence of a â??controversial re-imagination of Israelâ? in the form of secular Zionism over the past century and a half. He notes that young people today are trying to grapple with these changes, and likens the challenges and adaptations he sees going on currently to the business concept of â??disruptive innovation.â?
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