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Economist Richard Thaler, who was awarded this past week the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics, has been in the forefront of the field of behavioral economics. Thaler’s ideas were extracted in part from Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s writings where these two former Nobel Prize winners’ employed risk factors to economic models of rational behavior. In the early 1970s, when Thaler was a student, his professors didn’t argue that human beings were perfectly rational.

Over the past number of years, numerous articles found on this site and elsewhere address questions related to American Judaism. Beyond those studies that examine specific elements of Jewish life, there is a growing body of research examining the impact of religion in general on the lives of its adherents and on the behavior of the larger society. In examining this research about American religion, how might these findings inform us about the Jewish experience? To be sure, the United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to identify with some branch of the Christian faith.

First, we want to thank Bob Goldfarb for continuing a much-needed discussion around the possibilities of planning collaboratively and proactively for our Jewish community. We expect that people will interpret articles like ours (“Rosh HaShanah 5778: Challenging Ourselves and the Jewish Communal System,” published in eJP on September 14, 2017) through the lens of their own aspirations about the Jewish future, assumptions about possibilities and limitations around collaboration, and our ability to better anticipate the future.

At the second cohort gathering of CEO Onboarding-Leading Edge, I had occasion to address this extraordinary group of some 15 newly appointed Jewish professionals. Coming to the Jewish community from an array of diverse backgrounds, they shared concerns that sparked not only a thoughtful dialogue but reminded me that these individuals, better than most, will be confronting on a daily basis the demographic, policy and social realities that are redefining Jewish life in the second decade of this century.

By Rabbi Hayim Herring, Ph.D. & Steven Windmueller, Ph.D. Complications of Communal Planning in the 21st Century: According to the Zohar (Terumah 161b), before the creation of the world, God looked into the Torah, using it as a kind of architectural plan. This is a bold metaphor, suggesting that even a presumed Omniscient Creator needed a blueprint to transform a chaotic world into a more orderly universe. As a thriving 21st century Jewish community with unprecedented power and resources, we also require the capacity to plan and act collectively. But many of the last century’s organizations and systems that accomplished so much collective good for the Jewish community are no longer working. We lack an updated map of our organizational landscape as we need to think differently about the possibility of planning for collective Jewish impact in a radically new communal landscape.

The Trump Presidency has resulted in a fundamentally disruptive moment in this nation’s political culture. Not only are we experiencing strikingly different policy options and directions, but the cultural artifacts of politics, namely how this President operates dramatically challenges the existing norms of political behavior and action. As we have shifted from a period of American liberalism to a time of political populism, deep fissures are dividing Americans in general and Jews in particular. In the aftermath of November, Jewish political differences may never have been more pronounced, as Jews debate and disagree over what defines their vision for America and how they understand their self-interests in this new political reality.

The events in Charlottesville this past weekend serve as a metaphor for a broader battle over what is America and who are Americans. The alliance of alt-Right groups present in Virginia last Saturday seeks to return this nation to a European-oriented culture of white superiority, where class and race matter. “Jews” served as the lightning rod for what would unfold on Saturday. The language, threats, and intensions of these Gestapo-type units who came to “demonstrate” were on display. Their dress, their weapons, and their demeanor would convey their message of hate.

As the pages of this website are constantly reminding us, there are new structural and social realities that are reshaping the contemporary Jewish story. How might we describe the current “state” of the American Jewish enterprise? How Jews are living their lives and expressing their Jewish connections have radically changed. How contemporary Jews are accessing information, creating “community” and building relationships within the Jewish eco-system represent a different paradigm. The changes underway are producing a new type of American Jew.

The events in Charlottesville this past weekend serves as a metaphor for a broader battle over what is America and who are Americans. The alliance of alt-Right groups present in Virginia last Saturday seeks to return this nation to a European-oriented culture of white superiority, where class and race matter. “Jews” served as the lightning rod for what would unfold on Saturday. The language, threats, and intensions of these Gestapo-type units who came to “demonstrate” were on display. Their dress, their weapons, and their demeanor would convey their message of hate.

What divides the Jewish people? Jewish history is filled with communal conflict, disagreements over religious practice, personal conduct, and communal policy. In fact, Jewish texts reflect these controversies, offering at times detailed scenarios depicting the rabbis offering various perspectives. At times, we are introduced to a “majority opinion” accompanied as well by a “minority report.” The rabbis seem to be able to battle through their arguments yet still able to acknowledge their opponents’ ideas, even giving recognition to these dissenting opinions.