Articles

As I have written elsewhere, 21st Century American Judaism represents a fundamentally different experience, requiring us to reconsider how we as a community are organized. We find ourselves with a 19th Century communal legacy model, serving a 21st Century constituency, often representing a 20th Century agenda!

The results of the 2024 election won’t just shift political power in this nation to the right, as this moment will mark the undoing of the foundations of American Jewish liberalism. In its aftermath, Jews will be confronting a changing political landscape both within our community, and beyond.

With Donald Trump’s election, the liberal agenda that has defined much of American Jewish political practice will need to be recalibrated.

The results of the 2024 election won’t just shift political power in this nation to the right, as this moment will mark the undoing of the foundations of American Jewish liberalism. In its aftermath, Jews will be confronting a changing political landscape both within our community, and beyond.

We can identify some 36,000 Israel-directed charities and nonprofit institutions operating within the Jewish State and an additional number of American-based organizations supporting Israeli society. A 2012 study assessing giving to Israel focused on Jewish philanthropy estimated that 774 organizations had raised $2.1 billion ( $3.06 billion in 2023 dollars).

In the aftermath of the past Tuesday’s presidential election, we can identify a number of generic and more definitive trends and outcomes that have implications for America’s Jews. In this essay we will be examining some distinctive findings.

We are living through an extraordinary moment in the American political drama, as few election cycles have been as emotionally tense and uncertain as this one. In some measure what we are experiencing aligns what we have seen taking place across the political spectrum, as election results among democracies in recent years have shifted nations to the political right, and that is what America is encountering.

Religions have always experienced renewal, change and transformation. Over the centuries, religious movements have also encountered periods of downsizing, loss and displacement. One should not underestimate the power, place, and purpose of religion in shaping individual belief, communal practice and global values.

As we move within two weeks of this election, we are likely to see the last efforts by both parties to reframe their messages and target segments of the voting public, while seeking to maximize their political positions.

South Africa doesn’t spring to mind as a high-priority Jewish destination — especially at this moment, as its government pursues its case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, but also because of South Africa’s largest political party’s long-standing criticism of Israel and targeting of the South African Jewish community’s deep ties to the Jewish State.

As rabbis prepare their high holy day sermons and as Jewish agency executives craft their New Year messages, various themes frame the agenda for 5785. In some measure these are all one message, and then again, we realize the broad and deep complexities that define our lives and this moment, and how each element is both separate and connected.