Politics, Religion

Same story in two movements

Crossposted to The Reform Shuckle.
The JTA brings us this today: “Figuring out why promising Conservative alumni set up ‘indy minyans.'”
The article is basically a summary of the Conservative movement’s mostly ineffectual attempts to draw in former members who have left for the indie minyans, or the emergent scene.
The most interesting qutoe in the article, to me is this:

“They live precisely as we told them to, but paradoxically they practice their Judaism outside our movement,” Epstein wrote. “They perceive that there is no place for them and their Judaism in the Conservative synagogue. If we want to grow in numbers and strength, if we want to inspire passion and commitment, we have to welcome those Jews who live our values and ideology outside of our synagogues to do it inside our synagogues instead.”

This is the same challenge that I and many of my friends face with our own Reform movement. The Reform world has educated some of us so well and so effectively taught us how to be engaged in some sort of active personal reformation and now we’re so into it that all the “normal” Reform Jews think we’re nuts.
Meanwhile, according to this article, the same thing is going on in the Conservative movement. Jews who want to live as true ideologically Conservative Jews have no real home in their movement because everyone else thinks they’re nuts for being true to the ideals of the movement.

20 thoughts on “Same story in two movements

  1. There’s a slight difference. In the Conservative Movement, everyone thinks they’re nuts for not wanting to join a synagogue and/or take leadership positions. (Most) Conservative leaders (including lay leaders) understand the move towards observance on the part of a younger generation, they just don’t understand why they don’t feel comfortable being the only (pick one: young, shomer shabbat, single, whatever) person in a congregation on a Saturday morning. (My sense from the Reform side of things, and please correct me if I’m off, is that much of the leadership can’t even get past “what do you mean you want to make different Jewish choices than we did? put down those phylacteries this minute!”)

  2. Yes, that is the difference.
    In the article, it seems, Yehuda Kurtzer makes the strongest point. The question is, is the success of a movement defined merely by its numbers, or the promulgation of its ideals and theologies and the living out of those ideas in real life? I have to believe it is the latter.
    And so, contrary to the article’s suggestion, the success of independent minyanim committed to traditional egalitarian davening, talmud Torah and social justice is precisely the success of Conservative Judaism in a future, more dynamic and fluid American Jewish community.

  3. I think dlevy is absolutely right. I also think that what Epstein et al fail to understand, coming from a future Conservative ordained rabbi who was the gabbai of an indy minyan, is that it is PRECISELY being engaged with the movement that is the problem. If we can pursue egalitarian, halakhically inspired and influenced communities without paying dues, and manage to have successful prayer communities, why do we need the movement at all?
    In my opinion, and this is overtly crass, movement folk want to keep their movement jobs and they view us as a threat. Hence the USCJ donating grants to indy minyanim willing to have relations with Conservative shuls. I think they believe that when people need religious school and day-care they will join a shul. For now this may be true, but I am sure eventually indy minyanim will be able to figure out how to provide that for their own communities similar to what the havura movement was able to do in some instances in the 70s.

  4. There’s a slight difference. In the Conservative Movement, everyone thinks they’re nuts for not wanting to join a synagogue and/or take leadership positions. (Most) Conservative leaders (including lay leaders) understand the move towards observance on the part of a younger generation, they just don’t understand why they don’t feel comfortable being the only (pick one: young, shomer shabbat, single, whatever) person in a congregation on a Saturday morning.
    I think the difference between the movements isn’t quite this large. Many younger Conservative alumni who opt to participate in independent minyanim (etc.) and not in Conservative synagogues do so because of substantive differences between the minyanim and the synagogues, and not only because they don’t want to be the only x person at a synagogue. And part of the disconnect between the C movement leadership and the movement alumni is that the leadership fails to perceive this difference (even when they visit the minyanim) and think that the minyanim are doing exactly what synagogues do but with a different age group (after all, the differences aren’t so large on paper). Here is an example of a rabbi at a Conservative/Reconstructionist synagogue taking this blindness to extremes.
    (My sense from the Reform side of things, and please correct me if I’m off, is that much of the leadership can’t even get past “what do you mean you want to make different Jewish choices than we did? put down those phylacteries this minute!”)
    Right, and as a result, some Reform movement folks see people leaving and say “Oh well, I guess they’re not really Reform anymore anyway, so it makes sense that they don’t want to be here”, whereas the Conservative movement folks (whose perception of what Conservative practice should be does include what they perceive the indy minyan people to be doing) can’t say the same thing (mutatis mutandis).

  5. Justin writes:
    In my opinion, and this is overtly crass, movement folk want to keep their movement jobs and they view us as a threat.
    I don’t think this threat is numerical/financial: even after the massive growth over the last decade, the number of people involved in independent Jewish communities is still miniscule compared to the number of synagogue members, and is also miniscule compared to the number of Jews who aren’t part of any Jewish community. Getting all the independent minyan people to join synagogues would be a drop in the bucket numerically. The threat is in some ways more serious: the movements see the people whom they think of as their success stories unable to find a place in the movements, and they develop existential anxiety about what it is they’re doing. (That is, in the Conservative movement, they do; in the Reform movement, they should.)

  6. In my opinion, and this is overtly crass, movement folk want to keep their movement jobs and they view us as a threat. Hence the USCJ donating grants to indy minyanim willing to have relations with Conservative shuls. I think they believe that when people need religious school and day-care they will join a shul. For now this may be true, but I am sure eventually indy minyanim will be able to figure out how to provide that for their own communities similar to what the havura movement was able to do in some instances in the 70s.
    It may be partly that movement people want to keep their movement jobs, but keep in mind that indie minyans are not really even an option for most Jews, let alone Conservative Jews – they tend (not exclusively, but mostly) to cluster in extremely large, Jew-packed urban areas. If you’re not in one of them, there’s probably not enough resources to support an indie minyan, even if you’re lucky enough to get a town.city with different movements, one of them being more or less close to yours.
    But the real point is one which (as someone who is basically preferring indie minyans, and certainly on their side, a relatively recent rabbi, and an indie minyan member/supporter of long time standing) I think that the leadership is right about, and more so than they even think, which is that the observant, traditional, but not ortho types depend heavily on resources created by the movement – and even more so on other movements (namely Orthodoxy) – which is a separate conversation, but also very important.
    Need about a Torah? – a few indie minyans have managed to raise enough money to provide their own Torahs and siddurim – but not most of them – most of them have their books and scrolls donated or loaned from somewhere else, or else everyone brings their own and an extra for guests.
    Need a daily minyan? Well, how many indie minyans meet three times a day, or two? ore even once every day? If you want to daven in a minyan every day your best bet is still a shul (although even most shuls have trouble with that now – my only local daily minyan is Chabad, and I don’t count there).
    My point not being that there’s anything wrong with minyans, except that they only provide Jewish community up to a point – anything that really requires money isn’t going to go forward until the minyan becomes more fixed with people who are less transient and willing to put money into longer terms structures like, yes, religious school and preschool – of those indie minyans I know who have those things, they have begun to resemble synagogues with dues (yes, you’ve got to pay if you want a building and teachers).
    My actual hope is that indie minyans won’t get sucked up into institutional Judaism and lose what s best about them, my fear is that indie minyans are great for people who are young and have young easy to take care of children, but that as singles become families, the indie minyans can’t really provide what is actually needed, and indie minyans won’t be able to survive without the support of the institutions that their members don’t really love and don’t want to pay for, or that the will be communities which are vibrant for a particular in-group and if you’re not in that group, as the larger institutions – the ones which provide those necessary services- fail, there won’t be those services any more.

  7. BZ – you make a good point about the actual differences between what goes on in the synagogues and in the minyanim. An intensifying factor for the Conservative Movement that I’ve observed is that many of the leaders decrying the move to indy minyanim do so from within communities like Teaneck, NJ or even New York City, where there are so many synagogue options, some of which might feel more like what the indy folk are creating, that these leaders don’t understand the same thing doesn’t exist in Conservative shuls in places with a lower Jewish population density.

  8. dlevy, right on.
    David, that’s an important distinction and I think you’re right about. Is it better to have the big organization without true observance of the movement’s ideals? Or is it better to have a decentralized minyanim that observe true Conservative values?
    Justin, you’ve hit on a big curiosity of mine. I wonder whether I myself will feel inspired to join a synagogue when I have kids that need religious school. I am heartened by the example of a kid that became Bar Mitzvah in my minyan here in NJ (chavuratlamdeinu.org) back in the fall.
    BZ, this problem happens on a smaller scale in the Reform movement, so most don’t know that there’s anything to be owried about. But there are some very clever movement wonks who are worried. I know them. And I’m kind of one of them. But kind of not.

  9. The rise of day schools has made the “what about the children” question moot for many indy-minyanaires in Boston. Again, in places with lower Jewish population density, that may not be an answer. However, programs like Kesher which offer new, independent models for Jewish education, may also play a larger role in the future. Kesher has already branched out into New York City, and the model could be adopted or adapted in smaller cities as well.

  10. KRG writes:
    the observant, traditional, but not ortho types depend heavily on resources created by the movement – and even more so on other movements (namely Orthodoxy) – which is a separate conversation, but also very important.
    This isn’t just an issue for the independent minyan crowd, but for the liberal Jewish community as a whole. Every Reform or Conservative synagogue has one or more sifrei torah, yet the number of sifrei torah written by Reform or Conservative Jews is probably still in the single digits. How many Reform or Conservative lulav vendors are there? Kosher meat producers? Editions of the Talmud?
    my fear is that indie minyans are great for people who are young and have young easy to take care of children, but that as singles become families, the indie minyans can’t really provide what is actually needed, and indie minyans won’t be able to survive without the support of the institutions that their members don’t really love and don’t want to pay for
    You’re assuming (IMO incorrectly) that most single people involved in indie minyanim will continue to live in the same places as they have children, and the minyanim will “age in place”. Based on the socioeconomic realities, it seems just as likely that people will be priced out of their neighborhoods as they have children and will move elsewhere, and other single people will take their place in the minyan. This has already been happening to some degree in my neighborhood. What to do next is certainly an issue for the people who move elsewhere, but much less of an issue for the minyanim themselves.
    as the larger institutions – the ones which provide those necessary services- fail, there won’t be those services any more.
    See my point above about numbers. If the larger institutions fail, why is this to be blamed on the small number of people involved in independent minyanim, rather than on the large number of people currently involved in those institutions, or the large number of people affiliated with nothing?

  11. David A.M. Wilensky writes:
    But there are some very clever movement wonks who are worried. I know them.
    Tell me more!

  12. The rise of day schools has made the “what about the children” question moot for many indy-minyanaires in Boston.
    Wow, I really hope that’s not the way things end up. (Though that would certainly provide a strong empirical refutation of the claim that the reason people aren’t joining synagogues is because they don’t want to pay for Jewish life.)
    I hope we can come up with new models for supplementary Jewish education that would be different from the status quo not only in organizational structure but in content. My children won’t need to go to Hebrew school to pick up basic Jewish identity and culture — they’ll get that at home, in whatever Jewish community we’re a part of on Shabbat, etc. They’ll learn about the holidays by observing the holidays at home. Therefore, I’d want whatever hours in the week are spent on formal schooling to be used as efficiently as possible for things that are more difficult to obtain without formal schooling: Hebrew language and text skills. This is very different from most Hebrew schools, which are designed to take the place of the home.

  13. So I am constantly struck by the fact that not only does the leadership of the Conservative movement not “get” the indy minyan movement, but that people in the indy minyan movement don’t get the indy minyan movement. The independent minyan that I am part of (and was one of the founders of) is not made up of transient twenty somethings (though they are represented) or even transient rabbinical students (though they too are represented). The minyan encompasses singles and couples in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties and sixties. Folks who already have children and are dealing with the issues of children’s programming and paying for day school education or supplementary education. We have a constantly evolving children’s program on shabbat. We own our own sifrei torah (donated by a member), our own chumashim and siddurim (donated and purchased by members), pay rent for a site which is not in a synagogue or a church, and are always on the verge of looking for a larger place.
    We are very much a community (davening, learning, political action, births, weddings, deaths) and the main focus or most of our members’ ritual life. Moreover we are not transient (coming up on our tenth year). This is hopefully the the future face of one part of Jewish community life which is not a passing phase which will disappear when folks grow up and get jobs and families. We are all grown up, thank you. We have jobs (as of now–we’ll see how the economy goes) and many of us have partners and children.

  14. Aryeh, that’s fscinating. The minyan I attend regularly in Madison, NJ, Chavurat Lamdeinu (chavuratlamdeinu.org) is mostly older folks. At 20 years old, I’m regularly the youngest person there by 30 years. I figured we were a fluke. The other oddity about CL is that we’re suburban, were I assume most of these groups are urban.

  15. I think it’s important that “what happens in my backyard” may or may not be indicative of what’s happening across a “movement,” a word I’m not entirely comfortable applying to the independent minyan phenomenon.

  16. Aryeh and dlevy-
    Mea culpa. I was firing off my usual line about the two minyanim I am involved with in my neighborhood (where only the wealthy and the rent-controlled can afford to stay and raise children), and overgeneralized. What I wrote does apply to the places it applies to, but doesn’t apply everywhere (though I think KRG was writing about the same types of places I was, so my response was still on target). I am very much aware that independent Jewish communities come in all shapes and sizes, and that they weren’t invented in 2001, and that “the havurah movement” shouldn’t be referred to in the past tense, and that many independent minyanim/havurot have been operating continuously for multiple decades (I just visited Havurat Shalom this Shabbat).

  17. dlevy writes:
    a “movement,” a word I’m not entirely comfortable applying to the independent minyan phenomenon.
    Agreed. “Movement” may (or may not) be appropriate in the sense of a social movement, but not in the way the word is usually used in Jewish discourse (to mean “denomination”), and certainly not in a way that can be used as a parallel to “the Conservative movement” (unless the syllepsis was intentional).

  18. I think a lot of the philosophy here of why indy minyanim don’t join movements misses a key point. I see this as a very simple thing. If a movement offers something useful in return for joining, more congregations and minyanim will join. This is not saying the movements don’t currently offer anything useful, but, what is useful to an indy minyan might be different so the movements need to think about other benefits of membership. Until they figure this out, they’re merely asking indy minyanim to write donor checks.
    Does joining a Movement give indy minyanim access to more quality teachers, educational guides, leadership development or other growth resources? Do they have children that want to participate in one of the movement’s youth group? How do they pay dues when many of these indy minyanim have more fluid membership than synagogues and minyan dues tend to be much lower than synagogue dues?
    It is completely possible for the movements to find ways to answer these questions that will give indy minyanim reasons to join. The question is will the movements have the flexibility and desire to spend resources to attract the indy minyanim.

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