Uncategorized
We have seen the Jewish future, and it is all about choice
There was a young lady of title
Who insisted on wearing a sheitel.
She didn’t care much
For kashrut and such,
“But the sheitel,” said she, “now that’s vital!”
(JTA) — As the old limerick suggests, there has long been a tradition of picking and choosing Jewish observance in America, whether it involved keeping kosher or observing Shabbat, or, in this case, covering your hair with a wig (a sheitel) if you’re a married woman.
But in America today, choice has come to occupy a central place not merely in how Jews practice Judaism but in the very way they conceive their religious identity.
Over the past several decades, Americans have come to regard their religion less and less as an ascribed identity — as something they were born into — and increasingly as what they choose to be at the present time. This shift has had a particularly dramatic effect on Jewish Americans, in whose tradition religious identity had for millennia been ascribed at birth. The tension between ascription on the one hand, and choice on the other, informs American Jewish religion.
How is the Jewish community responding to this new regime of choice? That is the central concern of our new book, “The Future of Judaism in America.” Understanding religious identity as chosen is crucial to understanding the future of Judaism in the context of its denominations, its numbers, its relationships with other faith communities, its stance on public affairs — and, perhaps most important, its ability to renew itself in response to pressures from outside and from within.
Let’s consider the different denominational streams.
Reform, after steady growth in synagogue membership from the late 1970s until the new century, is no longer the fastest-growing movement. Still, Reform in America, while it struggles with the boundaries of “who is Jewish,” has lowered the barriers to participation in its brand of Judaism. “Inclusiveness” is the byword for contemporary Reform, both externally (outreach to non-Jewish spouses), and internally, by welcoming those Reform Jews who choose to embrace rituals — tallit and kippah and tefillin, mikveh, full synagogue services — traditionally considered outside the sphere of a movement that does not regard halacha, or traditional rabbinic law, as binding. “Reform Judaism teaches that each of us is an autonomous individual, able to make thoughtful, religious choices,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president the Union for Reform Judaism, at his installation a decade ago.
Have Reform’s accommodations worked? So far, the answer appears to be “yes,” as the percentage of Reform in American Jewry has remained stable at around 35-40% for decades.
For its part, the question for the Conservative movement is more about ascribed identity than about anything else. The movement is struggling with the question of how long it can sustain its policy of forbidding its rabbis from performing marriages between Jews and non-Jews. (The question is of a piece with the angst always felt by Conservative leaders when their commitment to halacha collides with the movement’s commitment to change.) The question of intermarriage is central to the future of Conservative Judaism, as its contemporary identity is defined and has always been defined by the clear line it draws between Jew and non-Jew. This dilemma, in addition to the host of serious issues that plague the movement — not the least of which is a precipitous decline in Conservative’s numbers, from 43% to 17% of those who identify with a denomination over some two decades — suggests that the future of the Conservative qua independent movement is highly uncertain.
Many analysts (including several authors in our book) suggest that Reform and Conservative Judaism will ultimately merge and become a single heterodox movement. That, or Conservative will remain as a smaller movement, concentrated in large population centers.
Orthodoxy, meanwhile, claims 17% of Jews ages 18 to 29, compared with just 3% of Jews 65 and older, according to Pew. If current trends continue, their proportion of the entire Jewish population in America will grow from a small minority to a dominant majority by the end of the century.
Yet there is no one “Orthodoxy” in America. Orthodoxy is expressed in Modern and Centrist forms, the many flavors of Hasidism, the numerous forms of non-Hasidic “haredi” Orthodoxy, Chabad-Lubavitch and the Orthodoxies that push the religious and ritual envelope in countless ways. It’s about choice.
But the price for Orthodoxy may be high, as the increased fractionalization of the movement demonstrates. Haredi groups (what we call Sectarian Orthodox, and others call “ultra-Orthodox”) operate by preventing choice, especially in some of the more sectarian Hasidic groups that create barriers to prevent adherents from leaving. More progressive Orthodox groups have adopted strategies that accommodate choice.
Orthodoxy will remain strong, but its future presents no consistent pattern.
Understanding Jewish Renewal is central to understanding the present and future of American Judaism. The varied expressions of Jewish Renewal that took root in the 1960s and ’70s — the havurah movement, Jewish feminism, practices that bear its spiritual approach — found newer expressions in communities such as Kehillat Hadar in New York; Yeshivat Maharat, which provides Orthodox ordination to women; The Kitchen in Los Angeles; “partnership” minyanim that maximize women’s participation within the parameters of traditional halacha, or Jewish law, and New York’s unaffiliated B’nai Jeshurun congregation. Indeed, while the formal structures that generated Renewal recede in memory, Renewal has had a broad and deep impact on American Judaism and on American Jewish life.
The impulse of Renewal, whatever its varied expression, was and is to create alternatives to the prevailing Jewish movements and forms. These alternatives are “chosen” ways of participation, and Renewal is yet vibrant.
The wildcard in American Judaism is, of course, the “nones,” those who identify as Jews of no religion. According to Pew, the percentage of U.S. Jews who do not claim any religion is 27% — higher among the young and going up. The future of Judaism in America will depend in part on the relative percentages of Jews with religion and Jews of no religion: Which will grow, and which will decline?
What has changed in American Jewish religious life? It is what Will Herberg, in his landmark book “Catholic-Protestant-Jew,” did not see in the 1950s: There is no longer any pressure to remain within any given religious community, nor in any movement or stream of Judaism, nor within Judaism itself (as the rise of the “nones” suggests). The American Jewish religious future — for all the movements, denominations and post-denominationalists — will be positioned in this dynamic.
When religious identity is increasingly seen as a matter of personal choice, groups that have depended upon ascribed identity to guarantee their numbers will be challenged to develop not only new means of keeping and attracting members but also new ways of conceptualizing and communicating who and what they are.
—
The post We have seen the Jewish future, and it is all about choice appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Hezbollah Chief: Disarmament Would Be ‘Death Sentence’ for Lebanon
Lebanon’s Hezbollah Chief Naim Qassem gives a televised speech from an unknown location, July 30, 2025, in this screen grab from video. Photo: Al Manar TV/REUTERS TV/via REUTERS
i24 News – Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem said on Saturday that it was not the responsibility of the Shiite terror group “to prevent aggression,” but rather the Lebanese state’s, and it is the responsibility of Hezbollah to engage “when the state and army fail to do so.”
In a recorded televised statement, Qassem sarcastically posed the question whether it was not Hezbollah that should be demanding the Lebanese Army’s disarmament if the latter fails to stop “Israel’s ongoing aggression.”
On the issue of disarming Hezbollah, Qassem said that disarming it in the manner currently proposed is a death sentence for Lebanon.
“Even if the sky falls, we will not be disarmed, not even if the entire world unites against Lebanon. We will not allow this and it will not happen,” Qassem said.
Uncategorized
High schoolers’ ‘human swastika’ on football field shakes San Jose Jewish community
(JTA) — The photo spread swiftly after a student posted it on social media: Eight California high schoolers were lying on their school’s football field, their bodies arrayed in the shape of a swastika.
Alongside the picture was a quote from Adolf Hitler, threatening the “annihilation of the Jewish race.”
The incident at Branham High School in San Jose began on Dec. 3 and has roiled the local Jewish community in the days since, as the wrenching saga has ignited suspensions, recriminations and alarm from around the world.
The photograph and the response to it were first reported by J. Jewish News of Northern California.
“We don’t want to see hatred,” Cormac Nolan, a Jewish Branham senior, told the local Jewish newspaper. “We don’t want to see the idolization of one of the most evil men to ever walk the face of the Earth. We don’t want someone who spews out hatred like this on our campus.”
The school’s student newspaper reported that the students involved had been suspended, and that dozens of other students walked out to protest the incident.
The San Jose Police Department told J. that it is investigating the incident, and the school’s principal, Beth Silbergeld, who is Jewish, said the school was working with the Anti-Defamation League and the Bay Area Jewish Coalition, a local antisemitism advocacy group, “to ensure that we receive appropriate support and guidance as we work to repair the harm that’s been done to our community.”
Silbergeld told J. that she felt pressure to learn from the incident.
“I’ve been in education for a long time and have seen, sadly, lots of incidences of oppression and hate toward many groups,” she said. “I think that we always have a responsibility as schools to do what’s right and to take action and learn from the experiences of other other schools and other incidents as a way to hopefully eliminate actions like what we’ve experienced.”
The incident is not the first time Branham High School has faced controversy over antisemitism on its campus. In April, the California Department of Education ruled that the school had discriminated against its Jewish students by presenting “biased” content about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a 12th-grade ethnic literature curriculum.
It is also not the first instance of a “human swastika” roiling a school community. In 2019, nine middle schoolers in Ojai, California, also arranged themselves in a “human swastika” and faced disciplinary measures from the school.
Exactly what possessed the Branham students to do what they did is not clear. But psychologists told the J. that the teen years are a peak moment for transgressive behaviors that may or may not reflect deep-seated biases.
“It’s a developmental time where you’re doing new things, you’re trying new things, you’re making mistakes, you’re trying to fit in, you’re trying to get laughs and likes,” Ellie Pelc, director of clinical services at the Bay Area’s Jewish Family and Children’s Services, told the newspaper. “And you often do so in some hurtful or harmful ways that you don’t always have the capacity to think through in advance.”
The photo was met by condemnation by California State Sens. Scott Wiener, who wrote that antisemitism was “pervasive & growing” in a post on Facebook, and Dave Cortese, who said he was “deeply disturbed” by the incident in a statement.
“What happened at Branham High School was not a joke, not a prank, and not self-expression — it was an act of hatred,” wrote San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan in a post on X. “The fact that this was planned and posted publicly makes it even more disturbing.”
By Tuesday, the uproar had sparked a response from district leaders. In a post on Facebook, Robert Bravo, the superintendent for the Campbell Union High School District, wrote that the district “will respond firmly, thoughtfully, and within the full scope allowed by Board Policy and California law.” (Displaying a Nazi swastika on the property of a school is illegal in California.)
He added that the school district considered the incident an instance of “hate violence” based on California state education code, which allows for suspension or expulsion in such cases.
“Our response cannot be limited to discipline alone,” continued Bravo. “We are committed to using this incident as an opportunity to deepen education around antisemitism, hate symbols and the historical atrocities associated with them.”
The antisemitic post comes two months after California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill creating a statewide office assigned to combatting antisemitism in California public schools. The office, which is the first of its kind in the country, was met with praise from local Jewish advocacy groups while some critics warned it could chill academic freedoms.
Marc Levine, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in the Central Pacific region, called the incident “repulsive and unacceptable” in a statement on X. The incident was also condemned by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Bay Area, which wrote in a statement that it had been working with the school about “how to ensure an effective response.”
The Bay Area Jewish Coalition also issued a statement on Tuesday, writing that the antisemitic act had “shaken Jewish families across Northern California and beyond.”
“We hope that what happened at Branham serves as a wake-up call for California and for the rest of the country to take the antisemitism crisis seriously and reverse the trend through real, meaningful action and long-term change,” the statement continued.
The post High schoolers’ ‘human swastika’ on football field shakes San Jose Jewish community appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Nashville Jewish community center sues Goyim Defense League over alleged campaign of intimidation
(JTA) —
A Jewish community center in Nashville has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the neo-Nazi group Goyim Defense League and several of its leaders and affiliates, accusing them of orchestrating a campaign of antisemitic intimidation, harassment and trespass aimed at terrorizing the city’s Jewish community.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of the Gordon Jewish Community Center, a 120-year-old nonprofit that serves as a major hub for Jewish life in Nashville. The complaint names the Goyim Defense League, its founder and leader Jon Minadeo II, extremist streamer Paul Miller, who is also known as GypsyCrusader, and several associates.
At the center of the case is a January 2025 incident in which Travis Garland, a Tennessee man affiliated with the Goyim Defense League, allegedly disguised himself as an Orthodox Jewish man and infiltrated the Jewish center’s secured campus. According to the lawsuit, Garland livestreamed the intrusion, mocked Jewish customs and the Holocaust, and refused repeated requests to leave before being forcibly escorted off the property by a security guard.
Garland was later arrested and pleaded guilty in state court to trespassing at the Jewish center, receiving a sentence of nearly a year in jail, according to Nashville television station WTVF.
The complaint alleges Garland acted as part of a coordinated effort, receiving guidance and encouragement from Miller and others who followed the incident in real time via video chat and later promoted it online as a “stunt.”
“Using fear and harassment to threaten and intimidate groups is a despicable act that cannot be tolerated in a multicultural society,” Scott McCoy, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s deputy legal director, said in a statement. “This is the second lawsuit the SPLC has brought against the Goyim Defense League for their actions targeting Nashville’s Black and Jewish communities.”
The lawsuit also ties the January incident to a broader campaign by the Goyim Defense League during a 10-day visit to Nashville in the summer of 2024, when members of the group allegedly harassed Jewish and Black residents, assaulted a Jewish man and a biracial man, and intimidated Black children downtown while waving swastika flags. The SPLC previously filed a separate lawsuit on behalf of a biracial man who was assaulted during that tour.
According to the lawsuit, the Jewish center has spent roughly $75,000 on additional security in the wake of the incidents and says staff and members have altered how they use the campus because of heightened fear.
The lawsuit comes as the Goyim Defense League has faced mounting pressure online and in court. Following a recent investigation by Nashville television station WTVF, websites operated by Minadeo were taken offline by their domain registrar, and several of his accounts were suspended from X. Other Goyim Defense League members have been convicted or indicted in connection with violent incidents during the group’s 2024 visit to Nashville, according to local reporting.
The suit invokes the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 and other federal civil rights statutes and seeks court protection as well as financial compensation and punitive damages.
“This lawsuit demonstrates the Nashville Jewish community’s resolve to stand firm in the face of antisemitic intimidation and to hold accountable those who perpetrate it,” said Ben Raybin, an attorney for the Jewish center.
For a time, the Goyim Defense League was among the most prolific distributors of antisemitic propaganda in the United States, with members spreading flyers in Jewish neighborhoods and other public spaces. While the group’s online reach appears to have diminished more recently, Nashville has remained a focal point of its activity.
The post Nashville Jewish community center sues Goyim Defense League over alleged campaign of intimidation appeared first on The Forward.