JPD, part the first
Rambling here is going to be my prep for two (!) articles that I've managed to snag on the topic of post-denominationalism and (Jewish) feminism. If just reading that made you want to throw up in your soul a little, click on. It's going to be a mouthful.
So, from the beginning: while there's not a hell of a lot written about post-denominationalism (at least Jewish post-denominationalism--now to be known as JPD, ere my fingers fall off), but I found something on MyJewishLearning.com, cribbed from Contact Journal. The author describes JPD as a movement constituted by Jews who "abjure" the concept of denominations--not those who merely don't see themselves as affiliated. The author, Steven Cohen, calls JPD "quite a healthy phenomenon" in Jewish life, and cites several examples, including Pardes and Kehilat Hadar. He also strongly leans on the Conservative Movement as the source and pool-of-resources for JPD. These are all important points, but I've got a lot more to say about the subject. Let's begin.
Working perhaps backward (not so much a first for me), I want to talk about the rise of cool cultural Judaism. By now, everybody and her mom (or, in my case, her dad), has heard of amazingly popular Matisyahu, and although I guess the argument could be made that he's not entirely secular entertainment--although I think a majority of his fans are using him as iPod fodder rather than a religious experience--he's still only indicative of a general upsurgence in Cool Jewish Stuff: everything from Jewzapalooza to Chosen Couture to Heeb magazine. We had a guest in the office last week who said that for the very first time in her life, she understood how someone could call him or herself a cultural Jew and really get something out of it. For the purpose of this train of thought, the only thing I'd like to take away from this is that there has been, if not a forerunning, at least concurrent phenomenon of reimagining taking place in Jewish secular life. Ten years ago (and this is being generous) there wasn't really much going on that was Jewish and cool. Of course, there have always been tons of Jewish musicians and artists, etc., but from Irving Berlin to Bob Dylan to Natalie Portman, the whole name-changing-and-not-mentioning-the-Jew-thing didn't really help shake the self-image of uncool Jews. Of course, there's been a rise of ethnic-as-cool across the board, which probably helped spike this phenomenon, but I'm seriously digressing here, so let's put it away for a while.
I'd like to take a moment to talk about Evangelical Christians. (I know, I know--hold on.) The New York Times just published an article about the movement's concerns over losing its teens--read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/us/06evangelical.html?ex=1160798400&en=53f06f3b16392e8e&ei=5070&emc=eta1. The point is, whether it is the nature of the youth to rebel or there's something in the water these days--like the rise of secular humanism--that's drawing people away from their religious bases. Hillel, in its "Millenials" report, found that today's young Jews lack interest in traditional Jewish institutions. (Hillel didn't publish their findings--although I saw a very impressive PowerPoint at the 2005 GA--but you can read more at http://www.pbcsmarketing.com/hillel/article4.php.) So, there's resistance to current religious institutions across the board, and a current rise of street-level empowerment, made possible by the rise of the Jewish hip. What's going to happen?
Well, obviously, a hell of a lot of Jews are going to drop out of the scene. Interestingly, for those who don't drop out, or who drop and later drop back in, there's a new sense of agency in the creation of The Jewish Now. And although JPD is a movement which draws its movers and shakers out of a Conservadox Millenial pool, I think there is a strong arugment to be made, theoretically, that this movement is an inheritor of the Jewish feminism of the 1970s.
A common enough phrase around the Lilith office is "voting with your feet". Just today Susan Schnur told me she believes in it--but I don't think she does, not the way I mean it. Especially not Schnur, a woman who believes that we're just biding our time before we take over the liturgy and rework it to make it more feminist. From Paula Hyman & co's statement that "we are your daughters", Jewish feminism was the pioneering movement of our time that really called for a radical restructuring of the very core of Judaism (and Jewishness)--from the inside. While contemporary secular feminists urged a departure from organised religion, Jewish feminists of all stripes were calling for a New Jew Order--revolution from the ground up. While Queer Jews are definitely an offspring of this methodology, I'm ready to explore the possibility that post-denominationalism will be the feminism of my generation--a shift in the paradigm of Judaism that starts from the ground up. It works well with what we've seen are the tendencies of Millenials--we're "hypercommunicators", we're tech-savvy and we deminstrate an awareness of living in an increasingly "flat" world. All of these are helpful attributes if you're going to democratize an often extremely hierarchical religion.
There's a lot more to be said about this, and I'll get around to it, but I think I need to go do some research now. Please leave ideas!
Kol tov...
So, from the beginning: while there's not a hell of a lot written about post-denominationalism (at least Jewish post-denominationalism--now to be known as JPD, ere my fingers fall off), but I found something on MyJewishLearning.com, cribbed from Contact Journal. The author describes JPD as a movement constituted by Jews who "abjure" the concept of denominations--not those who merely don't see themselves as affiliated. The author, Steven Cohen, calls JPD "quite a healthy phenomenon" in Jewish life, and cites several examples, including Pardes and Kehilat Hadar. He also strongly leans on the Conservative Movement as the source and pool-of-resources for JPD. These are all important points, but I've got a lot more to say about the subject. Let's begin.
Working perhaps backward (not so much a first for me), I want to talk about the rise of cool cultural Judaism. By now, everybody and her mom (or, in my case, her dad), has heard of amazingly popular Matisyahu, and although I guess the argument could be made that he's not entirely secular entertainment--although I think a majority of his fans are using him as iPod fodder rather than a religious experience--he's still only indicative of a general upsurgence in Cool Jewish Stuff: everything from Jewzapalooza to Chosen Couture to Heeb magazine. We had a guest in the office last week who said that for the very first time in her life, she understood how someone could call him or herself a cultural Jew and really get something out of it. For the purpose of this train of thought, the only thing I'd like to take away from this is that there has been, if not a forerunning, at least concurrent phenomenon of reimagining taking place in Jewish secular life. Ten years ago (and this is being generous) there wasn't really much going on that was Jewish and cool. Of course, there have always been tons of Jewish musicians and artists, etc., but from Irving Berlin to Bob Dylan to Natalie Portman, the whole name-changing-and-not-mentioning-the-Jew-thing didn't really help shake the self-image of uncool Jews. Of course, there's been a rise of ethnic-as-cool across the board, which probably helped spike this phenomenon, but I'm seriously digressing here, so let's put it away for a while.
I'd like to take a moment to talk about Evangelical Christians. (I know, I know--hold on.) The New York Times just published an article about the movement's concerns over losing its teens--read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/us/06evangelical.html?ex=1160798400&en=53f06f3b16392e8e&ei=5070&emc=eta1. The point is, whether it is the nature of the youth to rebel or there's something in the water these days--like the rise of secular humanism--that's drawing people away from their religious bases. Hillel, in its "Millenials" report, found that today's young Jews lack interest in traditional Jewish institutions. (Hillel didn't publish their findings--although I saw a very impressive PowerPoint at the 2005 GA--but you can read more at http://www.pbcsmarketing.com/hillel/article4.php.) So, there's resistance to current religious institutions across the board, and a current rise of street-level empowerment, made possible by the rise of the Jewish hip. What's going to happen?
Well, obviously, a hell of a lot of Jews are going to drop out of the scene. Interestingly, for those who don't drop out, or who drop and later drop back in, there's a new sense of agency in the creation of The Jewish Now. And although JPD is a movement which draws its movers and shakers out of a Conservadox Millenial pool, I think there is a strong arugment to be made, theoretically, that this movement is an inheritor of the Jewish feminism of the 1970s.
A common enough phrase around the Lilith office is "voting with your feet". Just today Susan Schnur told me she believes in it--but I don't think she does, not the way I mean it. Especially not Schnur, a woman who believes that we're just biding our time before we take over the liturgy and rework it to make it more feminist. From Paula Hyman & co's statement that "we are your daughters", Jewish feminism was the pioneering movement of our time that really called for a radical restructuring of the very core of Judaism (and Jewishness)--from the inside. While contemporary secular feminists urged a departure from organised religion, Jewish feminists of all stripes were calling for a New Jew Order--revolution from the ground up. While Queer Jews are definitely an offspring of this methodology, I'm ready to explore the possibility that post-denominationalism will be the feminism of my generation--a shift in the paradigm of Judaism that starts from the ground up. It works well with what we've seen are the tendencies of Millenials--we're "hypercommunicators", we're tech-savvy and we deminstrate an awareness of living in an increasingly "flat" world. All of these are helpful attributes if you're going to democratize an often extremely hierarchical religion.
There's a lot more to be said about this, and I'll get around to it, but I think I need to go do some research now. Please leave ideas!
Kol tov...
posted by Di Freye Froy at 4:57 PM
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