CAJE: Up from the Ashes

[cross posted to TAPBB]

On the poster that changed CAJE’s name from the Coalition for “Alternatives” in Jewish education to the Coalition for the “Advancement” of Jewish Education was this Midrashic quotation picked out by Stuart Kelman.

At the end of the great persecution our teachers met together at Usha… They sent to the elders of Galilee saying, ‘Whoever has learned, let him come and teach, and whoever has not learned, let him come and learn.’ They came together and studied and took all necessary steps.
[Song of Songs Rabbah 2:18]

It perfectly captured the dream. CAJE started out as a dream. There were a bunch of us sitting around on the sofas at Boston University Hillel talking about the teaching we were all doing in Hebrew Schools. (We hadn’t yet gotten to Supplemental Schools or Congregational Schools or the other “reconceptualizations” of the process). The insight came from Cherrie Koller-Fox. She said, “We all have something to teach each other.” We began to imagine a local teacher’s conference where each of us would teach stuff, and get to learn stuff from others. Nothing came of that particular conversation. I don’t know how many times it was repeated. Eventually it made it the Network of Jewish Students who decided to hold a first Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education at Brown University, to a Continuations committee who held a second conference at the University of Rochester, and then an organization was birthed. A few of us on the West Coast (Wolfson, Kelman, and Grishaver) put together (with a single staff person, Jody Hirsh) a West Coast Conference on Alternatives in Jewish Education. That was the third. And from then on the national organization took root and created its annual conference. It was all very Woodstock.

The midrash from Song of Songs was speaking of the Hadrianic persecutions, the Roman reaction to the Bar Kokhba revolt. When CAJE was formed, we were speaking about a tyranny of formality and the chains formed by the status quo. Today we are suffering from famine. Dire famine as nourishment for Jewish education shrinks and fades. There is no Egypt, there is no Joseph to go to. We have only ourselves as a resource. No single foundation is going to save us. This puts the obligation on us. With CAJE not happening, our job is to gather (not this summer, but soon) to teach and learn. Our reaction to the floundering of CAJE can’t be sadness but motivation. What had been taken care of for us, we must now do for ourselves.

The international growth of Limmud and the success of the Hazon Food Conference show that the basic CAJE model (the model away from which CAJE has drifted) is still viable. To a large degree, CAJE’s shift away from this model was a big contributor to its present state of decline.

Here’s what I believe:

1. The North American Jewish Community needs an annual trans-ideological, pluralistic education conference.

2. It needs to be lead by 20-30 year olds, not late 50 and 60 year olds. We who founded CAJE have a role as mentors and elders.

3. I don’t know whether what follows will still be called CAJE or not, but I do know that it must travel light and lean, and return to an emphasis on volunteerism.

4. I know that it must be accessible and desirable to lay people as well as educational professionals and that means an emphasis on Tikkun Olam and Torah l’Shma needs to be more prevalent in the mix.

5. Whatever we restart will need to involve coalitions between the educational organization and other players in the Jewish community—including a lot of new organizations.

6. The words, “we’ve always done it this way” need to be banned.

7. The keys need to be a fusion of “big names” and a renewal of the chance for “new voices.” The notion of grassroots needs to be revived.

8. We need to speak to all of those “who outgrew CAJE” not with a few new elements, but with a fundamental reconsideration.

We sit in a moment where much of what we know is collapsing. We have no choice but to rebuild. We need another gathering at Usha.

Invitation and Obligation (or “What I Learned on My Summer Vacation”)

(cross posted to TAPBB)

I am getting old. I learned that at the CAJE conference. We were out to dinner with a number of young educators and I got into an argument. It took a few days to realize that I was wrong (and that is sad). Sad not cause I can’t handle being wrong, but sad because more of the world I believe in is disappearing.

A while ago Steven M. Cohen wrote an important article called “Outreach to the Marginally Affiliated” (Steven M. Cohen, “Outreach to the Marginally Affiliated: Evidence and Implications for Policy-makers in Jewish Education,” Journal of Jewish Communal Service 62, No. 2 (Winter 1985): 147-157). It appeared in the original Torah Aura volume, What We Know About Jewish Education. He has a new article in the new volume, What We Now Know About Jewish Education. In “Outreach” he teaches two important lessons. First, that we need to realize that many more Jews have contact with the Jewish community that we imagine. If you look over a lifetime we find that most Jews have contact (and affiliation) with the Jewish community over the course of their lifetime. If we take a snapshot of affiliation and participation at a given moment, we find that the number is less than fifty percent. His conclusion is that we do a very bad job of holding on to Jews who come to us at a given moment in their life and then drift away. He suggests that our major outreach needs to be not to the unaffiliated but to the marginally affiliated. His second insight is the one that proved me wrong, that we need to speak the language of “invitation” rather than the language of “obligation.”

Here was the argument. One of the educators proudly stated that she has expanded the number of students who participate in her synagogue’s madrikhim program by changing the obligation that they continue their own Jewish education at the same time. The educator went on to say that they will credit any Jewish experience as valid high school learning. You don’t have to come to our classes. You can do youth group, belong to a Jewish club at school, etc.

Having been raised with (and sometimes still trapped in) the “language of obligation,” I objected. I would like to see every Jewish teacher with an obligation to continue their Jewish education, let alone a high school student we are training.

My mistake was in thinking (and there is no sarcasm here) that students who opt to be madrikhim (and take on that responsibility) can be thought of as insiders and asked to do more. My mistake was in not realizing that in this day and age, leadership high school kids are still marginally affiliated and need “invitations.” I think that it is both sad and true. In The Jew Within, (Steven M. Cohen and Arnold Eisen, The Jew Within: Self, Family, and Community in the United States, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000) we learn that there are no guarantees. No one who makes a Jewish commitment can ever be assumed to continue that commitment forever. Rather, they subscribe to the sovereign-self, an absolute ability to make their own choices regardless of pressure or “assumption” from the Jewish community.

What I forgot that night, even though I may have once been right, that in the physics of our new universe (in the string-theory of Jewish affiliation) “invitation” always trumps “obligation.” While I really want Jewish learning post Bar Mitzvah and hope that it is deep and transformative, none of us can mandate it. While I believe that the community built by a combination of Jewish activities is the most powerful force for Jewish continuity, a strong “No” can easily lead to a “goodbye.”

So here is my apology. To a younger and vibrant group of Jewish professionals, I am glad that you are around, and force me—even if slowly—to reconsider the truths I hold too true.

There are Still Good Times Ahead: Welcome Limmud NY

Over Martin Luther King weekend, 650 Jews gathers in a hotel in upstate New York to learn Torah, celebrate Shabbat and build a sense of community.

Built on the model of British Limmud, an amazing celebration of Jewish learning that had CAJE as a point of origin, but that grew in completely different directions. British Limmud made a turn from teaching to learning, and then it began to grow. It is now a 2000 person intergenerational pluralistic gathering with real orthodox participation and with all ages participating actively, and with the leadership being for the most part in its late twenties.

Now, a group of lay people in New York, inspired by the British model, have added another event to the national Jewish calendar. For those of us connected to other learning events in North America a few small things were revolutionary. Cookies and Coffee (etc) were served all day. The food was pretty good. It had a bar as an adult hang out at night. Sessions were diverse, high quality and the central focus. There was no theme, no tracking, no programmatic organization, just good people teaching excited learners. The administration was supportive and did not blame participants. As a presenter, it was easy to solve problems and things were flexible.

What’s kind of amazing—what is worth talking about—is that at a time when Jewish education somehow feels smaller, somehow feels that we are on the losing side, a group of volunteers in New York have once again made magic, once again enriched us with a vision of the possible (and a great new conference to consider).

Rant of the Week

I hate model programs. If you live anywhere in the world of Jewish life, model programs seem to be the magical fountain of that life. Whether it is foundations, federations, synagogues, or individual teachers, the model of collecting “models” seems to be the latest messianic movement.

Go to a conference of teachers and you will find yourself glutted by the “handout queens.” These are Jewish education’s own “bag ladies.” Try to teach and you will find yourself attacked by an endless progression of people whose monologue begins, “I can’t…” and ends with “but can I have the handout?” It is as if the great teachers know the hidden path to the secret Sargasso Handout Sea—and the excellence of their instruction can be gleaned off old session outlines and worksheets designed to fit someone else’s teaching rhythm. I have often fantasized about offering a session called “classic handouts” and doing nothing more than bringing cartons of things I have passed out at previous sessions and let people pick over them at their will. I am convinced that it would be a great success.