Involving Young Adults in Jewish Community:
an interview with Rabbi Daniel S. Brenner

Speak EZ: What is the primary challenge you face in your capacity at Birthright Israel?

Rabbi Brenner: The focus of my work in the past year has been on how to get young adults involved in Jewish communal life. David Brooks, of The New York Times, has described them as “being in their odyssey years.”

SEZ: What does that mean, the “odyssey years”?

Brenner: A number of sociologists have looked at the widening gap between the time people leave home, when they are 18, and the time they set up a home, when they get married and settle down. In the last couple of decades, that gap has grown greater every year. The average age of marriage has gone from the lower 20s to 28, and we think that among Jews the average age is getting close to 30.

That means that we have a gap between 18 and 30 when people are not settling down. Thirty percent of people in their odyssey years go from one apartment to another apartment, from one city to another city. People in their odyssey years have an average of over 10 jobs during that time. They bounce around professionally and change their minds about what they want to do. Due to these factors, the normal wisdom about how people plug into a community after college just doesn't apply.

SEZ: What are the principal challenges of getting Jewish young adults involved in the Jewish community?

Brenner: I don't think there is a Jewish institution that gears itself towards the needs of people between the ages of 22 and 30. Successful synagogues are geared towards young families. Hillels for the most part end their involvement at 21. There are some Hillels that have graduate school programs, but they are nowhere near the size and scope of the undergraduate programs. Jewish Community Centers are increasingly geared towards families and the elderly. There isn't a natural organization or institution in the Jewish world that clicks with people between 22 and 30.

SEZ: What happens if we don't succeed in getting Jewish young adults involved?

Brenner: Young adults live in a society which is increasingly focused on commerce and fashion and calls on them to change their identities multiple times. It is also a society that is 24/7. I feel that the Jewish community offers a counter cultural way to live. It offers a way to say that history matters, that some sense of the sacredness of rest and the Sabbath matters, that life is lived best with friends that form a community.

I think that is very important for young adults. They are often the first to feel the effects of the economic shifts. And they’re often away from home and away from community. So, community is an important factor in their lives. It's something that many of them are looking for. And the Jewish community has a particular take on community that I think is very grounding for many people.

SEZ: And is there a danger to the Jewish community if we don't involve young adults in greater numbers?

Brenner: I'm not one of those people who thinks the sky is falling at every moment for the Jewish community. But I think that we have a choice. If in 10 years, we want to have hundreds of thousands of Jewish couples bringing their three year olds to TotShabbat, we've got to invest in the 25 year olds now.

Not many people are doing that. I feel that the Jewish community has got to rethink the role that we can play in the lives of 22 year olds to 30 year olds, and I think we'll find that we can reap incredible benefits. The biggest benefit is that we'll have a generation that creatively leads the Jewish community forward. It's not that we'll have more members in any particular Jewish organization, but that we'll have the incredible creative energy of this generation and real leadership to pass the community on to.

SEZ: How does Birthright Israel fit in with that objective?

Brenner: The program that's been the most successful by far in engaging people 18 to 26 has been Birthright Israel. Working with Birthright Israel, I'm working with over 100,000 Jewish young adults. We have incredible name recognition among this group, and very positive vibes. 97% of the people who go on Birthright Israel trips say it was transformative, it changed their lives, it was a great Jewish communal experience.

Our goal is to empower the young adults to do the community organizing themselves, to involve them in organizing their friends, those they met on the trip and friends from other parts of their lives who are Jewish or connected to Judaism. To that purpose, we started a program called Next Shabbat, in which Birthright Israel trip participants organize their friends for Sabbath dinner. It cannot be in a commercial venue, it can't be in an institutional venue. It has to be in their apartment or in a park. And they organize through the Birthright Israel web site. We make it easy for them to create a web page and send out emails to invite their friends.

Within the first week we had this offer available to our alumni, we had over 800 people sign up to host events. They've invited over 10,000 friends. In our first round, we found the average size of an event was 14. Some crammed 20 and 30 people into their apartments. And we reimburse them for the expenses of the event.

The statistics are fantastic. 78% of the meals were home cooked. 87% said Kiddush. 82% reported the meal was kosher or kosher-style food. 77.6% wouldn't have hosted without this program. 55.2% said it was their first time hosting a Shabbat meal.

When I look at that kind of impact, I think, we need to see more of this. We need to see more of young adults, more organizing, on their own terms. We need to encourage that, we need to support it. So, we're working on a Shabbat resource guide, and we're working on training for Shabbat hosts.

This is a way to say, being part of the Jewish community does not mean going to something; it means getting involved in creating something. That's the ethos we're encouraging, and we're very excited about how hundreds of young adults are engaging in this way.

Rabbi Daniel S. Brenner is Vice President, Education, Birthright Israel Foundation.
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