Jewish Scholars’ Task Force Outlines Major Changes in Next Decade in Jewish Communal Life

Three major innovations in Jewish communal life will take place in the coming decade according to 34 leading Jewish sociologists, philosophers, religious and communal leaders who comprised a task force on the Future of the Jewish Community in America, organized by the American Jewish Committee. A 104-page report of their deliberations over a two-year period is scheduled for release tomorrow by the AJ Committee. The changes foreseen over the next decade include:

Reordering priorities for Jewish communal organizations, which will place greater emphasis on education, community involvement in synagogue activity, and improvement in the quality of Jewish life; enlarging the scope of Jewish communal service by pooling organizational resources and establishing regional centers of Jewish culture; changing the way the Jewish community operates by enlarging its decision-making base to give greater representation to academicians, the poor, and the less affluent middle class, and by setting new criteria for professional and lay leadership.

Dr. David Sidorsky, philosophy professor at Columbia University, wrote the Task Force report and Louis Stern of South Orange, N.J., former president of the Jewish Welfare Board and of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, was the Task Force chairman. The work of the Task Force was a project of the AJ Committee’s Jewish Communal Affairs Department, directed by Yehuda Rosenman. Coordinator for the Task Force was Morris Fine, AJ Committee’s program coordinator, assisted by Phyllis Sherman, program analyst.

BASIC CHANGES IN DEMOGRAPHY

Underlying the Task Force’s deliberations were some basic observations of demographic and sociological changes that have affected American Jews, namely, the steady migration of Jewish families from the metropolitan centers of the Northeast to smaller communities in the West and South; shift in population between the city, the established suburbs, and the newer suburbs.

Other observations included recognition that poor Jews comprise a significant, though as yet undetermined, percentage of the total group, and that the aged and retired are a growing segment; search for new forms of expression for American Judaism in light of the current stress on ethnicity; and the effect of the interaction of American and Israeli Jews on the development of Jewish cultural and religious expression.

While today’s Jews are still concerned with the broad general problems of the society in which they live, they are placing a growing emphasis on communal efforts to ensure the continuance of their religious and cultural identity within that society. In considering new approaches for the enhancement of American Jewish life, the Task Force stressed the need for Jewish communal agencies to cooperate in raising the standards of Jewish education, using mass media as a means of interpretation of Jewish religion and life, and developing regional centers of Jewish culture.

The Task Force deplored the “prejudice, errors or superficiality” in text books and other educational materials used in the general American educational system concerning the “spectrum of Jewish culture as related to the study of world civilization”; noted the need for programs of adult education in Judaism; and observed that even many Jewish communal leaders were inadequately informed on Jewish religion and history.

The Task Force also recommended that Jewish organizations, even those with a limited and specific focus, develop for their members “programs of concern with the full range of Jewish thought,” and that these organizations institute programs of formal Jewish education for the members of their boards.

SUGGEST CHANGES IN AGENCIES

Regarding what is called the “cultural infrastructure” of the Jewish community, the Task Force urged increased concern for the strengthening of existing Jewish museums, libraries, theaters, dance groups, art schools, newspapers, book publishing enterprises, and the establishment of new outlets in these areas. “A mature Jewish community.” it stated, “should aim at the functional analogue of a City Center or a University School of the Arts.”

Another suggestion for change in Jewish agencies involved an analysis of the way communal decisions were made. The Task Force recommended higher standards for the recruitment and education of professional personnel in these agencies and urged that they undertake self-examination of the representativeness of their boards of directors to make sure that all segments of the community and all points of view were included in the composition of these decision-making groups.