Who Owns American Judaism?

June 1, 2021 12:11 PM

Who owns American Judaism? What does that imply for the cultural and political autonomy of ordinary Jews in creating and sustaining Jewish life? And, given that the institutions of American Judaism are largely controlled by philanthropic capital, what are the possibilities for a genuine Jewish left?

An essay about 'The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex: The History of a Multibillion-Dollar Institution', by Lila Corwin Berman. Written by Raphael Magarik for Jewish Currents.

posted by latkes (22 comments total)

Link to the book.
posted by latkes at 12:12 PM on June 1, 2021

Young Jews today are used to being offered gifts, incentives, and payments for participation in Jewish life, each with its own application form, expectations, and conditions: Birthright, Honeymoon Israel, and Masa grants for Israel travel; OneTable “nourishment credit” to host Shabbat dinners; free Jewish books for parents from PJ Library.

This really depends on what kind of young Jew you are and whether you seek it out. Readership of Currents is already kinda self-selecting. I went to a Reform synagogue in Santa Monica, where the group in the story is meeting; not that many kids went on birthright tours.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:36 PM on June 1, 2021 [8 favorites]

Jewish philanthropy is absolutely being used to swing donors' weight around:

First Jew of color to lead an American Jewish museum resigns, citing gender and racial discrimination

The board was initially her ally. Upon the announcement of her hiring, Schindler praised Moyo, citing her unique background and accomplishments. Two months later, in an extensive profile on Moyo and her vision for the museum, the president of the museum’s board, Barry Kirschner, said, “Gugu has the most remarkable biography I have ever seen in an applicant for a position.”

And when two major donors — Wayne and Amy Gould, whose family name was on the museum’s Holocaust History Center — took issue with Moyo’s approach, Schindler backed her.

In January, the Goulds demanded that their family name be removed from the Holocaust center because Moyo had refused to accept their interpretation of the center’s mission. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, she had sought to connect historical Jewish persecution to Floyd’s death and other flashpoints of special significance to African Americans.

“The core work is to continue with the mission of the museum, which is to tell the story of Jewish experience in this particular region and also to place our history alongside the history of others, to make connections between the things we have experienced as Jews, with the experience of others in our wider community,” Moyo said in an interview around that time.

Wayne Gould told JTA he and his wife were simply asking that Moyo refrain from making political statements on behalf of the museum.

“I saw a presentation from the center about bail bonds and I’m thinking, ‘What does that have to do with Holocaust education?’” Gould said. “We donate to anything that helps educate people about the horrors of the Holocaust as long as it is apolitical.”

posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 12:57 PM on June 1, 2021 [9 favorites]

Also recently in Jewish Currents:

J Street Goes on Offense, Carefully
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:09 PM on June 1, 2021

Young Jews today are used to being offered gifts, incentives, and payments for participation in Jewish life

Yes, everyone (aka people over 60) continue to freak out about Jewish continuity and are begging young Jews to join up, and yet they fail to notice that if you make your congregations and organizations affirming and welcome to diverse thought, the young people come. Maybe not when they are 22 (and are up too late on Friday to make it to morning minyan), but when they are 28 or 32, or 34 and they just had a kid. My congregation is actually affirming of LGBT members, Jews of Colour and Jews by Choice - and a diversity of opinions re Israel/Palestine - and we have young adults joining up even during the pandemic.

But back to the main part of the article: yes, capital really throws its weight around - and big donors are recognized much better than, for example, hard-working volunteers. Someone might contribute $5-10k worth of labour over a year, but it's not recognized the same way that cash is. This isn't a Jewish-specific issue; I've seen it in all sorts of non-profit situations.

What is specific to the Jewish community is how out of step big organizations can be about issues like anti-Semitism. Our local bigwigs keep talking about anti-Semitism on the left (e.g., BDS) as being of the greatest concern, but everyone under 40 (and a couple of us over) are freaking out because QAnon has just gone full-on Nazi. It wasn't a leftist who attacked in Pittsburgh or Poway -- and it wasn't leftists in Charlottesville shouting "Jews will not Replace Us". BDS wants people to stop buying Israeli wine; the far right wants us to die. These threats are not comparable - but I have heard richer, older Jews compare them as being similar.
posted by jb at 1:20 PM on June 1, 2021 [52 favorites]

Thanks for posting. Really good article. Thought provoking.

I have come to the belief, over the past 10 years or so, that a couple of changes really need to happen:

Tax code changes. Re-definition of a religious organization. Ratios of capital used vs. capital stored. Salary ratios.

Non-profit auditing. There are dark, dark spaces in the non-profit world that are used for the most nefarious purposes. There needs to be a truly empowered (law, statute and funding) body responsible to oversee these areas. Board governance that disallows family member participation (see: Liberty University). A version of public facing board minutes with high level financials available quarterly.

I'd love to see a massive spend down on all religious "superfunds".
posted by zerobyproxy at 1:21 PM on June 1, 2021 [6 favorites]

US Jewry is shifting profoundly and Chabad is on rise
posted by Adamchik at 1:21 PM on June 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

As the article snuffleupagus posted upthread points out, J Street was barred from membership in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and they're left-of-center. Here's another Currents article that describes how the same Conference of Presidents has not only refused to boot an openly bigoted white nationalist organization, they let them dictate the terms of business--using the same rhetoric of the Poway Synagogue shooter.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 1:21 PM on June 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

Yes, I'd hope the book gets into that more; and that the absence of any mention of J-Street from the review is because of the review form. Not that J-Street is perfect, but it's the most visible counterweight right now.
posted by snuffleupagus at 1:23 PM on June 1, 2021

But just as universities are casualizing their workforce, so too the Jewish professional world is now organized precisely to squeeze value from ordinary workers: Reports from The Forward show a massive gulf between well-compensated (and overwhelmingly male) senior management of Jewish nonprofits and the vast majority of workers, who are paid a pittance.

Quoted for truth; details are private, but I know organizations these comments definitely describe.

Again, I don't know whether that is a Jewish-specific issue; non-profits in general are notorious for burning up and out their junior staff.

I also agree strongly with questioning the replacement of social services with charitable funding - as also argued by Anand Giridharadas in the (excellent hate-read) Winners Take All.
posted by jb at 1:32 PM on June 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Comment and a couple replies removed. Please keep this focused on the content of the actual post.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:06 PM on June 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

Faint of Butt: it's totally understandable. I was chatting with a friend who was feeling similarly trapped.

I've been mostly following Jewish-Leftist voices on Twitter, so I get to live in a headspace where both antisemitism and war crimes are called out. For anyone who is interested, I've been recommending T'ruah: the rabbinic call for human rights; I also enjoy following the @TheRaDr (Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg - I love that she gave herself a Rashi-like acronym) and @AbbyChavaStein.

On preview: sorry, it may be that this is a derail. But I'm leaving my comment because I think the links I just provided may be of help.
posted by jb at 2:07 PM on June 1, 2021 [3 favorites]

This is super interesting to me. Thanks for the post. I've been on the young leadership board of two different Federations and was asked to join the main board of my local Federation, which I declined to do because of some of the same issues raised in the article. The reform temple I'm a member at and where my son goes to preschool just forced our progressive female Rabbi out because of complaints from long-time wealth donors for reasons that were never clearly explained but certainly seemed like maybe they didn't like how much emphasis was placed on social justice issues. I'm likely to change temples after my son graduates preschool because of it. So way to chase the young members you so desperately want away.
posted by Arbac at 2:34 PM on June 1, 2021 [8 favorites]

US Jewry is shifting profoundly and Chabad is on rise

It should be noted that this was written by a Chabad spokesperson.

The key quote is here: " Jewish communities have historically had a “pay to pray” policy. Join a congregation, pay membership, and you can become part of the community. Chabad’s approach is “get involved.” If you like what you see, you can partner with and support your community. But as a Jew, you are automatically part of the brotherhood. Each Chabad center is financially autonomous and the rabbis and rebbetzins take stronger leadership roles and engage more personally with the community..."

Which sounds awesome on the surface, but if you read the fine print it's just as damning as the FPP article - money talks. Why pay a few hundreds a year to your local Reform or Conservative synagogue to go to High Holiday services or send your kid to Hebrew School when you can go to Chabad for free? So what if your Temple counts on congregants' Yom Kippur tickets to make up for their budget shortfalls because no one wants to pay for a membership anymore? So more and more synagogues are forced to combine or fold. So sure, Chabad is growing. And a lot of people love that they (really are) warm and accepting and free (if you're okay with the side order of sexism). But they're also operating on a predatory model where they succeed largely by cannibalizing off of other struggling congregations. And they're happy to provide "Jewish educational models that do not presume retreating from public schools into expensive, private ones," as the FPP yearns for. Don't look a gift brisket in the mouth, I guess.
posted by Mchelly at 3:57 PM on June 1, 2021 [7 favorites]

Mod note: A few more comments removed. If you feel compelled to include a "not to start a derail, but..." disclaimer in your comment, you probably have a pretty good notion that you are starting a derail.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:10 PM on June 1, 2021 [8 favorites]

This is a tough thing to comprehend as an outsider.
posted by adept256 at 6:30 PM on June 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

Very recently I was listening to this Judaism Unbound podcast episode which very much touches on these themes. Durchschlag is from that very rich stratum that creates foundations and guides donations, and she talks about how it works, why she found it disillusioning.

(it also left me with a strong desire to get my hands on this book which she talks about).
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 8:06 PM on June 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

[Chabad congregations are] operating on a predatory model where they succeed largely by cannibalizing off of other struggling congregations.

The same could probably be said of every congregation, no?

I have a friend who's a Chabad rabbi in the USA. His area doesn't have a huge number of Jews, so he's directly competing with, e.g., the local Reform congregation. Anyway, when my friend started up there he understood his role to be a provider of religious and pastoral functions: running a synagogue, visiting people, helping them make kitchens kosher, and so forth. He didn't imagine that people would be "joining" his congregation, per se: the people who came for prayer services would not necessarily be the same people as the ones in his study groups. It was basically a smorgasbord approach with lots of outreach activities to unaffiliated and transient people (e.g., Jewish students), and only a smallish core of regulars that could be described as a congregation.

So what he didn't understand was the nature of the Reform religious life cycle. Their model was congregational, and the idea was that you couldn't have your kids bar- or bat-mitzvahed unless they were part of the congregation and went to Sunday School etc. Life cycle events like this were a big way of locking people in to their congregation; and from their perspective, his offering to hold bar-mitzvah ceremonies without any precommitment was a form of sabotage. Well, my friend and his Reform counterpart started meeting regularly to discuss communal matters, and when he realised his activities were causing a problem he was shocked. It had never occurred to him, because from his perspective becoming bar- or bat-mitzvah is an automatic thing that happens when you reach a certain age: you don't need a ceremony at all, although it might be nice to mark the occasion. From his perspective the Reform congregation was just placing an artificial barrier in the way of Jewish identification!

I don't know how they sorted things out, but apparently they get on pretty well now that they understand each other better.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:13 PM on June 1, 2021 [12 favorites]

This is a tough thing to comprehend as an outsider.

It helps to remember, "Two Jews, Three Opinions. However..."
posted by mikelieman at 3:52 AM on June 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

Fear of disappearing will make a people do strange things.

It's hard to react to this as the Jewish kid of a financial planner, kind of makes me laugh because growing up we were a total stereotype in this vein. Over time I have found my own way, away from Zionism and the kind of weird obsession with charity that I eventually figured out was how I was trying to heal my broken life...so Jewish and so unnecessary. I still value charity, but it is no longer the way I show I am Good. It is possible to be good, and Jewish, and not toe some line made up by a bunch of guys who designated each other in charge.

On Jewish philanthropy throwing its weight around, see the University of Toronto, right now.
posted by wellred at 5:43 AM on June 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

Trying to figure out how one could object to PJ Library.
posted by pelvicsorcery at 4:26 PM on June 3, 2021

Well, sometimes the PJ Library books are a bit sappy ...

But hey, free books!
posted by jb at 10:20 AM on June 6, 2021