The Jewish Future is Here: A New Vision of Identity and Community

American Jews construct lives of meaning by seeking out and choosing what engages them in whatever domain they find it. As the primary vehicle for transmitting Jewish identity, Jewish education plays a ubiquitous role in shaping Jewish identity in the Jewish community. However, Jewish education is almost exclusively delivered in institutions that are identified as primarily religious in nature. Therefore, there is a significant gap between the breadth of ways Jews find and build lives of meaning and the infrastructure of Jewish education in America. If Judaism is more than a religion and American Jews find meaningfulness in multi-faceted ways, then we must build an educational infrastructure that reflects both the breadth and dynamic nature of Jewish identity in the 21st century. This booklet offers a unique perspective as to why the current structure of the American Jewish community is increasingly inadequate to meet the needs of American Jews and offers a vision of a different kind of educational infrastructure. Without such a transformation, whatever we might create will be fragile and vulnerable to the changing nature of Jewish identity, Jewish affiliation, and membership in the years to come.