For years, American Jewish organizations eager to reach out to unaffiliated and intermarried Jews have wondered where to find them.
Apparently, they are out shopping.
That’s the finding of a popular Long Island, N.Y. program that is rapidly being replicated in Jewish communities throughout the United States.
Celebrations: Discovering Jewish Life in the Marketplace runs educational family programs in such untraditional venues as Home Depot, Barnes & Noble and Bloomingdales.
The three-year-old effort, under the auspices of the Suffolk Association for Jewish Educational Services, was recently touted by the Jewish Outreach Institute as one of the most successful programs engaging unaffiliated Jews.
The heavily publicized events, all of which take place in stores and shopping malls, have ranged from sukkah building at Home Depot to a tutorial on seder preparation at a supermarket to a Chanukah party that included a holiday-themed scavenger hunt around a shopping mall.
Among the other activities have been a Chanukah story hour at the children’s department of Bloomingdales, planting seedlings for Tu B’Shevat at a nursery and making seder plates at a crafts store.
Some 3,700 people have participated in the program so far, according to Kremer — 25 to 35 percent of them from intermarried families.
Several communities are replicating the program, from Providence, R.I. to Tucson, Ariz. and Spokane, Wash.
Costs are relatively low, because the hosting stores often donate materials and help with publicity.
But can Jewish heritage — with its timeless spiritual and ethical teachings — mix with the commercial, consumer- oriented, instant gratification culture of the mall?
Mindy Kremer, the coordinator of Celebrations, said program planners were concerned at first that some people might be offended by the concept.
However, it has gotten “incredible support,” she said.
“Rabbis have asked how they can do things in stores,” she said. “We had an entire religious school come to the sukkah event at Home Depot.”
The stores who host do not pressure participants to buy anything, Kremer said, but end up benefiting from the increased foot traffic and publicity.
At one toy store, “we had a huge event and when it was over, no one said you have to buy anything, but half the families were in line” at the cash register, Kremer said.
The idea to go to the mall grew out of a frustration with unsuccessful efforts to lure unaffiliated Jews into synagogues and Jewish community centers.
Traditional Jewish institutions “can be intimidating or they can be uncomfortable,” Kremer said. “But a store, which is a place they normally go, is familiar.”
However, despite the program’s success at drawing people in, it has done little follow up.
“We wanted to create relationships and deepen the learning people get,” Kremer said. But due to the project’s small staff, there has not been the manpower to pursue that goal, she said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
