Guilt & Pleasure Quarterly’s Mireille Silcoff:

In the last couple of years, a lot of Jewish institutions have approached me, asking how they could get more young people through their doors. I have been asked: “what should we do with our youth programming?” I tell them I am not sure about anything other than the fact that no red-blooded youth likes being “programmed” to.

…Stop blowing so much effort and money on programs that exist with the sole aim of making Jews meet and marry and have babies with other Jews. These programs don’t work. A twenty-two year old can sniff a matchmaking event wrapped up as a hip hop block party a mile away. If all that time and effort was put towards cultural creation rather than this trial at demographic preservation, I think more youths might get engaged.

Blogs of Zion’s Ariel Beery:

I think one of the major factors contributing to the splintering of the Jewish community and the resultant self-isolation of the denominationally affiliated youth is the focus many Jewish organizations put on ‘continuity" instead of on enrichment. By focusing on continuity, Jewish organizations invest the majority of their time and capital reaching out to the unaffiliated through attractively packaged programming, working on the assumption that those already committed in one way or another to Judaism have already been won over. In doing so, the Jewish world paradoxically provides incentives for non-affiliation with specific communities—hence the ever-growing amount of “hipster” projects funded by institutional organizations—leaving those affiliated youths without the resources they need to further develop their communities.

(Original version here.)

Hat tips to Mobius and shamirpower, both at Jewschool.

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