The Jewish community for years has worried about young adults drifting away. It’s true that people in their 20s and 30s are less likely to go to synagogue regularly or belong to a congregation or other Jewish communal institutions, which can make it look like young adults are disengaging from Jewish life.

But new research suggests that many of them aren’t abandoning Jewish life at all. They’re practicing it at home with friends and family, often through food, culture, and meaningful conversation. This development speaks to a broader evolution that will shape the Jewish future. While young adults still crave Jewish meaning, identity, and belonging, they increasingly expect to find them in ways and places different from their parents and grandparents.

The Jim Joseph Foundation recently commissioned Project Prism, a study of more than 2,000 Jewish Americans ages 22 to 40 in 49 states over 40 weeks, conducted in partnership with Sense Worldwide, and with NORC at the University of Chicago. The research included a nationally representative survey alongside qualitative and cultural research, and included many people whose lives rarely, if ever, intersect with Jewish institutions.

What we found complicates the conventional story about religious disengagement. Three out of four Jewish young adults say they do something Jewish regularly. But 45% of all respondents say their Jewish participation occurs exclusively in informal settings. That includes celebrating Jewish holidays with friends and family, engaging in Jewish cooking and food traditions, and discussing Jewish topics or current events with people close to them. Others express their Jewish identity through music, books, humor, and media, or by observing Jewish rituals and traditions at home.

In other words, a young adult who rarely sets foot in a synagogue or other Jewish institution may still consider Judaism a meaningful part of their life. They aren’t abandoning Judaism; they’re simply engaging in it in places and ways that are comfortable for them, reflect the home-based component of Jewish ritual, and bring them meaning.

What communities can do

The research is the starting point for understanding how young adults navigate life. For example, many Jewish young adults feel that they have a strong sense of purpose or direction in their lives, but a much smaller percentage say that being Jewish plays a strong role in creating that sense of purpose. Instead, they draw meaning from helping others, personal growth, their careers, and family. So rather than wondering why young adults are not going to existing Jewish spaces, families and community leaders might ask how Jewish tradition can deepen the things they already find meaningful. Helping a neighbor, caring for family, sharing a meal, and contributing to one’s community are deeply embedded in our teachings and rituals. Thankfully, our community has many existing organizations committed to these experiences. There is more work to do to help young adults find and connect with these existing offerings, and our community should also strive to design new, innovative offerings that don’t yet exist.

At the same time, the research shows that participation alone isn’t enough to create positive outcomes. When a young adult feels a sense of belonging, an experience is much more likely to have a lasting positive impact. Immersive and socially intensive experiences are especially effective. As people are increasingly worried about loneliness and social isolation, it’s important to recognize that simply getting people through the door cannot be the end goal. We need to think about how we help them build relationships and feel a part of something bigger once they arrive.

We also need to remember that these immersive experiences, as powerful as they are, attract only a minority of Jewish young adults. The vast majority are engaging on their own or in smaller groups. For Jewish families and organizations seeking to reach them, the research offers some practical guidance.

Young adults say Jewish experiences would be more appealing if they were more cultural and less religious, offered low-pressure opportunities to participate without a major commitment, fit their schedules, and allowed them to engage alongside people they already know. That could mean a casual Shabbat dinner, a Jewish cultural event that welcomes friends and family, or a gathering where participants can explore Jewish identity without feeling judged or pressured to participate in a particular way. These approaches recognize that young adults are navigating busy schedules, competing demands, and a polarized environment, while still seeking connection and meaning.

At their best, Jewish communities and institutions can provide exactly what these young adults are looking for — relationships, opportunities for meaning, and places where they feel part of something larger than themselves. But doing so may require thinking differently about how and where Jewish life happens. A generation that celebrates a holiday around a friend’s dinner table, talks about Jewish identity with family, and seeks community outside traditional institutions is constructing Jewish life differently than previous generations did, and can still create a meaningful Jewish life.

Rather than expecting young adults to come to them, Jewish organizations can help support the experiences young adults are already creating, whether by providing resources for home-based celebrations, partnering with informal groups, or making existing programs more flexible and welcoming.

Our community can continue offering the powerful immersive experiences that resonate with some while also embracing the more informal expressions of Jewish life that resonate with many others. In doing so, we can help more young adults experience Judaism as a meaningful part of their lives — wherever and however they choose to engage.

The post Young Jews aren’t disengaging, they’re finding Jewish meaning in different ways than their parents and grandparents did appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — One of the last surviving Jewish witnesses of Kristallnacht told German police leaders they have an “enormous responsibility” to learn the lessons of the past.

George Shefi, 94, this week returned to the city of his birth to share his story with senior law enforcement representatives from Germany, the United States, and other European countries at the city’s New Synagogue, a target of the Nazi-spurred mobs on Kristallnacht. The event held Thursday, titled “Not on Our Watch: Operationalizing Never Again,” marked the 88th anniversary of the pogrom.

“I have come here at this time to say that Germany’s responsibility to preserve the memory of the Holocaust is eternal,” Shefi told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview before the event. He does not believe today’s generations of Germans are “guilty of what happened,” but nonetheless said they “have an enormous responsibility and a duty to learn from the past to ensure that it never happens again.”

Shefi was almost seven when the Nazis unleashed violent pogroms across Germany on the night of Nov. 9, 1938, in which the Berlin synagogue that housed his school was burned to the ground.

Months later, his mother sent him alone to safety in Britain on the Kindertransport. He would never see her or her sister again. They were murdered at Auschwitz.

The New Synagogue, like many others across Germany, was set on fire that night, but it was not completely destroyed thanks to the bravery of Wilhelm Krützfeld, the head of the local police precinct, who called the fire brigade. One of the few Germans to stand up to the violent antisemitism on Kristallnacht, his memory was honored at the event on Thursday night.

The event was an initiative of the International March of the Living, in collaboration with several other partners including Germany’s largest police trade union. It is part of a wider international educational program which sends senior police representatives on the annual march in Poland to deepen their understanding of the Holocaust and protect global Jewish communities.

Shefi, who immigrated to Israel  in 1949, has shared his personal story with more than 12,000 German students over the past two decades and also spent years volunteering with the Israeli police. Last year he received Germany’s Federal Order of Merit for his commitment to Holocaust education.

“There is special significance in giving my testimony before them [the police] in the very synagogue that was saved from burning on Kristallnacht thanks to a police officer who did the right thing. He was a human being. He did not stand by, and he did not allow the flames of hatred to spread,” Shefi told JTA.

“I call on police officers in Germany to learn from him and draw inspiration from his courageous act,” he said. “If he could act that way under Nazi rule, police officers today must also act and refuse to stand by in the face of hatred.”

Shefi recalled the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht in an onstage interview with Revital Yakin Krakovksy, the March of the Living Israel CEO. He said that when he woke up the following day, his mother told him there was no school but gave no explanation.

It was only three days later that he saw the result of the carnage. He recalled seeing the remains of a vandalized hat shop close to his house.

“The windows were broken,” he said. “Glass was everywhere. Hats were thrown around, and half of them were probably stolen. That’s one picture I’ll never forget.”

He also recalled antisemitic graffiti daubed on the side of a store belonging to a Jewish man and his Christian wife. “The Nazis didn’t break their store, but on the sidewalk they wrote in big letters: ‘This store belongs to a Jewish pig who is married to a German swine.’” He said that while someone tried to clean up the abuse, dozens of people stood around “yelling and screaming.”

A day before the event, Shefi returned to the area where he was brought up to see the stolpersteine, memorial stones, laid for his mother and aunt. Last month a town in Germany voted to ban the stones, something which Shefi said had to be “fought tooth and nail.”

“That’s the way things start,” he said. “You start out with a law which looks very mild and very quickly grows, and people have to wake up to it. If you want to keep this country democratic, you have to start immediately to fight against such situations.”

Stressing the importance of the stones, which have become a feature of remembrance in Germany and other countries that had been occupied by the Nazis, he said: “That’s the only symbol we have that there was a Jewish community here, and they always will be if the police protect that right.”

The event came at a time of heightened antisemitism globally. According to a new report published by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Fighting Antisemitism, 244 incidents targeting synagogues, Chabad centers and worshipers in their vicinity were documented across 34 countries between Oct. 7, 2023, and Oct. 21, 2026.

Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, the president of the International March of the Living, told JTA that remembering Kristallnacht is important because it was a “critical warning sign of what was to come”.

“Had the world acted to stop the violence and persecution at that time, the devastating consequences might have been different. We do not see Kristallnacht merely as a lesson in history, but as a reminder and a warning about antisemitism today,” she said.

“This year, we chose to hold the event in Berlin, where the pogrom took place, in a synagogue that survived thanks to the courage and humanity of one police officer, Wilhelm Krützfeld, who prevented the mob from setting it on fire,” Heideman said. “Our message to the senior police officials attending this event is clear: learn from his example. Do not stand by in the face of antisemitism and hatred. Do what is right, and protect those who need your protection.”

Jochen Kopelke, the federal chairman of the German Police Union (GdP) and president of the European Federation of Police Unions, lit a torch dedicated to combating antisemitism at this year’s march in April.

“The Federal Republic of Germany bears immense guilt,” he said. “It cannot absolve itself of that guilt, now or ever. Our enduring obligation is to remember the unimaginable atrocities of the Holocaust.

“In view of the alarming increase in antisemitic acts in Germany, I feel compelled, as a citizen, as a democrat, as a trade unionist, as a police officer and, above all, as a human being, to use every means at my disposal to confront the terrible, deeply troubling and unmistakable rise of homegrown German antisemitism,” Kopelke said

Paul Goldenberg, who served as a police officer in New Jersey for more than 25 years, heads up the “Operationalizing Never Again” initiative.

He said its lessons apply not just to German police but also to their colleagues worldwide. Livestreaming of the event was made available to a majority of major police associations across North America.

“It would be a serious mistake for police leaders elsewhere to regard these lessons as Germany’s responsibility alone,” he told JTA. “No country is immune from the politicization of policing, prejudice, or an institutional culture in which people stop questioning improper decisions. As an American police leader and chair of this international delegation, I believe we must bring the same scrutiny to our own institutions that we ask of others.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Kristallnacht survivor calls on German police to stand firm against hate appeared first on The Forward.

As early results streamed in on Election Day, many democrats felt hope and excitement, but the night was more complicated for Maria Franzblau, the Jewish 24-year-old co-chair of the Miami chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, who began her foray into socialist politics in the DSA’s youth movement.

In Florida’s Senate race, former state Rep. Angie Nixon, a DSA member, lost narrowly to Republican incumbent Ashley Moody. The state’s voters also approved Amendment 3, a property tax cut that DSA members opposed.

“It was a bit of an emotional roller coaster at first with the Florida results, that quickly gave way to a lot of exuberance and excitement as we saw how the rest of the country had gone,” Franzblau told the Forward.

DSA backed candidates won at least six seats in the House, wins that are expected to grow the organization’s influence within the Democratic Party’s progressive wing.

Franzblau took an interest in socialist politics at an early age, during Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 run for president. When she enrolled in Florida International University in 2020, she knew she wanted to join a political student club; the question was which one. A few months into her first year, she found the Young Democratic Socialists of America.

YDSA is the youth and student wing of the DSA. The organization has grown rapidly in recent months from 1,800 members last year to 5,200 dues-paying members now across 169 chapters, according to YDSA co-chair James Hernández. The largest chapters are based at University of Maryland at College Park, which has one of the largest Jewish student populations; Georgia State University; University of California, Berkeley; University of Oregon; University of Cincinnati and Binghamton University.

Hernández, who uses all pronouns, leads YDSA with their co-chair Mae Bracelin. They credit the increased interest to the “Zohran moment,” the rise of DSA-backed New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

What is the YDSA?

YDSA is based primarily on high school and college campuses, though it also has citywide chapters, and you don’t have to be a student to join. It started in the early ‘80s with a small presence at private schools, then interest spiked during Sanders’s first run for the presidency,  and by 2020, the organization had grown to more than 130 chapters across the country.

Membership requires paying dues to the DSA, with a “pay what you can” model. The DSA directly funds YDSA, providing chapters with support for flags, buttons, and pamphlets, and the parent group pays the youth organization’s national leaders.

The DSA is a staunchly anti-Zionist organization, and YDSA members who spoke to the Forward said that Palestinian rights issues are core to the movement.

“It’s been so central to us because of how it’s played out on our universities,” Franzblau said. “Questions of safety on campus, questions of academic freedom and free expression, questions of how our universities use our money, all can get viewed or analyzed through this lens of Israel and Palestine.”

Current and former members of YDSA said that affordability, LGBTQ+, labor organizing and reproductive rights issues initially spurred their interest in the organization. Today, YDSA campaigns range from pushing universities to provide free laundry services to forming sanctuary campuses to protect undocumented students from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But current and former members of YDSA who spoke with the Forward said they were also all active in their schools’ pro-Palestinian encampments and campaigns. And that was complicated  — because many of them are Jewish.

Jewish involvement in YDSA

The co-chairs said young Jews are active in the movement, and many participated in the pro-Palestinian encampments following Oct. 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza. Bracelin, who attended the University of Oregon and spearheaded the university’s YDSA chapter there, said there is often overlap in its membership and involvement with Jewish Voice for Peace.

“YDSA chapters have become sort of like homes for anti-Zionist Jews on campus who are seeking a community,” Bracelin said.

Franzblau noted that at first, she didn’t feel inclined to involve her Jewish identity in her political activism, but that changed after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and the war in Gaza, when YDSA’s central organizing became focused on the Palestinian cause.

At one point, a Jewish community leader at FIU told Franzblau that the pro-Palestinian groups were using her as a “token Jew.” She was also doxxed after Oct. 7, when someone found out she helped draft a campus ceasefire resolution. These reactions led her to start sharing that she is Jewish when speaking on Palestinian issues, in an effort to show that Jews are not a monolith.

Former YDSA member Gabe Karsh, who has continued as a DSA member since graduating, was also active in Macalester College’s Mac for Palestine and IfNotNow chapters in 2023.

After Oct. 7, Karsh found themselves in the position of mediating between YDSA members and other pro-Palestinian groups on one side, and the school’s Jewish community on the other.

Karsh, who has family in Israel, would talk with pro-Palestinian groups about how “de-emphasization of the hostages” was “problematic.” Talking with those in the Jewish community, Karsh would share why they thought Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza was a genocide that needed to be protested. Though some were “unhappy” with Karsh during this time, they said, the conversations often proved productive.

“Rather than being the ideological bulwark of my side, I found myself much more inclined to try to find a workable solution for everybody,” Karsh said. “I think I still needed that outlet to express my politics and my rage and grief and fear about what was happening in Gaza, and that’s when YDSA and Mac for Palestine became an outlet for that, when doing that work inside of the Jewish community became much more fraught and less appealing.”

Jewish YDSA member Roxy Satowitz, who serves on the organization’s National Coordinating Committee, worked alongside Karsh at Macalester. She pointed to the history of Jewish socialists in the Labor movement, particularly the General Jewish Labour Bund, as something that inspires her work.

Being Jewish, she said, grounds her approach.

“I think knowing your story and knowing your family history is really important as an organizer, because I think the way that human beings communicate is in a narrative, and the way that we learn, like the way that we talk to ourselves, is in a narrative,” she said.

How big is the tent?

Members often describe YDSA as a “big tent organization,” noting that ideological dissension is allowed in the organization, to a point. Hernández noted expulsions from the organization do happen if members drift too far from the core tenets of the movement, but declined to list examples.

Recently, internal disagreements took center stage in New York. Two days before the third anniversary of Oct. 7, multiple New York City YDSA chapters shared a social media post promoting a protest against Mamdani for, in their view, failing the Palestinian cause.

The New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America told the student groups to take down the posts and threatened to cut their funding, according to the student groups. The posts disappeared, but multiple chapters later reposted the protest flyer.

The protest, which included numerous other organizations, began outside City Hall and culminated with a march to Union Square, where demonstrators crashed a vigil held by the progressive organization Israelis for Peace, recognizing the victims of both Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza. Mamdani attended the vigil and stood silently as protesters called him a traitor and chanted, “Mamdani, you can’t hide. We charge you with genocide.”

The next day, five YDSA chapters shared an online statement accusing the NYC-DSA of trying to stifle their participation in the protest.

“Our commitment is to Palestine, not any elected official,” the statement read. It concluded with the words “Long live the intifada.”

The organization United Jewish Teachers was outraged over the use of the word “intifada,” and took issue with it being shared by a YDSA chapter at New York City’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School. The post has since been deleted by Stuyvesant’s YDSA but remains up on the pages of chapters at Hunter College, Lehman College, City College of New York and The New School.

Hernández said there had been a misunderstanding between NYC-DSA and the YDSA chapters that has since been resolved.

“I don’t necessarily politically agree with the aims of that protest,” Hernández said. “I think that’s a political decision the chapter had the right to make, even if I disagree with it. There’s room for people who are more to the right of even me, and there’s room for people who are more to the left of me.”

For Hernández, the disagreements are part of the give-and-take of fostering a diverse movement, but the divisions are something the DSA at large will have to contend with, especially as it gains power while growing a pipeline from the YDSA. What concessions and compromises — especially on Israel — will it be asked to make by younger, newer members? Will it continue to hold standards that even Mamdani, some believe, can’t reach?

For now, they’re united in celebration.

“In a time when many were losing hope, these victories are a brilliant light,” Hernández said of the midterm elections. “Our task now is to build a movement capable of confronting the institution to deliver on our working-class agenda.”

The post Thousands of students, many Jewish, are joining the Young DSA on campuses across the country. Here’s why. appeared first on The Forward.