The Hope Generation embraces social activism as Jewish expression

RALPH GENENDE: Stop kvetching about young Jews avoiding legacy organisations and kvell about increased commitment to social action

SOME 200 YEARS ago, the celebrated American poet, Emily Dickinson wrote a marvellous poem about hope:

Hope is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops - at all

For Dickinson the bird of hope finds its place in the human heart and soul. This is not a universal belief. For the ancient Greeks and their deterministic philosophy, hope was a harmful apparition. Nietzsche called it “the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man”.

Judaism, however, always nurtured this little feathered thing. From the birth of Abraham to our towering prophets, from the rabbis of the Talmud to the founders of modern Israel, hope has fuelled our dreams and fired our aspirations. Hope has not only nourished our prayers, it has driven our social activism and belief that we can make the world a better place.

And it is this spirit that is activating and energising young Jewish people across the world and certainly within our Australian community. It is evident in the energetic response of young Jews to the pressing social issues of today – climate change, care for the disenfranchised, recognition of refugees and support for the first peoples of our continent.

It is manifest in organisations like Stand Up and the Jewish Climate Network, and in the spirit and energy of most of our youth movements be they Habonim or Hineni, Netzer or Skif. You can find it in our secondary schools, you can see in the young community services offered by Zooz and Koleinu.

As Mount Scopus teacher Rabbi Sammy Brygel puts it: “For our younger generation, the spark of their Jewish identity often emerges in a desire to make the world a safer and more caring place.”

Of course, many young religious Jews may well find more fulfilment in an inspiring Shul service or shiur than a social justice activity.

Rami Maserow remarks “We (at Zooz) think there is space in the community for meaningful Jewish engagement and believe young people have an appetite for it. Zooz Tikkun Leil and High Holiday shul services are testament to this.”

But many young Jews are expressing their Judaism through Tikkun Olam, using the term in the definition of Jonathan Sacks as “Mending the world”. In this sense, Tikkun Olam is a convergence of some complex tributaries, some theological, others mystical, combining in the imperative to ameliorate the human situation by constructive engagement with the world.

Young Jews are more likely to go to an event to hear a Sudanese refugee than a rabbi. We expect hundreds of them to come to Habo House on Saturday night to listen, share and engage in rigorous debate on topics that span from the eco-revolution to Indigenous-Jewish solidarity, and the Torah as a blueprint for social and economic justice.

The keynote event that night is a conversation Nyadol Nyuon, human rights lawyer, and me, representing Kesher-The Connecting Community, on the meaning of freedom.

This event represents a trend in social activism among young Jews and speaks to the majority of them in our community and not just a niche group of young activist Jews.

Professor Andrew Markus’s monumental Gen 19 Survey showed that most Jews in Australia don’t identify as religious but rather as traditional or secular. It seems plausible to extrapolate that young Jews are seeking to define their Jewish identity through a heightened social consciousness and practices that promote justice.

This is a view shared by some of our young, talented, and inspirational Jewish leaders. Courtney Winter-Peters, the new CEO of Stand Up, is one of them.

“I definitely think we are seeing a rise in activism amongst young Jewish people, particularly when you look at important issues such as equality, diversity and First Nations justice,” she says.

“I think in my younger days, activism was limited to the youth movements. But that is changing, as organisations such as Stand Up give more people the chance to engage with these issues and channel their desire to act.”

 As Senior Rabbi of Jewish Care Victoria, I can attest that our organisation is actively supporting the desire to act. It was most evident to me at the recent Jewish Care Annual Dinner where at least half of the room were under the age of 40 and one of the star speakers was a young woman, Cassie Barrett.

Gabe Freund, the thoughtful Merakez of Habonim notes that when he graduated from a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school over a decade ago, “There was a growing sense among my peers of alienation from the traditional structures of Jewish practice in Australia. The shules and "legacy" institutions that had been central to our parents' and grandparents' generations participation in communal life seemed out of touch with what was important to young Jewish people.

“I recall the great effort and resources invested by large community organisations to develop programming specifically for the 18-30 bracket, with little success. In retrospect it occurs to me that these top-down attempts at "engagement" were ill-equipped to close the gap with young people whose values and interests were increasingly misaligned with those represented by the institutions.

“Broadly speaking, whereas the organisations that had been at the centre of Jewish life in this country for generations were concerned with preserving traditional religious practices and protecting Jewish continuity, my friends seemed more interested in broader societal issues of social justice and the environment, as well as finding Jewish meaning through more secular-cultural avenues. I believe it is the challenge for Jewish and Zionist thought leaders to figure out how to provide channels for these people to harness their idealism inside the Jewish World.”

Both Courtney and Gabe articulate the challenge facing our venerable and well-established Jewish organisations: How to tap into the energy of our young for the good of our community and in a way that expresses and deepens their Jewish identity.

Courtney identifies an important element of this challenge: “There is a move away from action just through donating. People really want to not just understand where their money is going, but the power of their actions. There is an incredible energy amongst young people, not just Jewish people, who are realising the power of their voice. People no longer want to stay quiet to ’keep the peace’ at the Shabbat table. They want to engage in meaningful conversation.”

She goes on to make a critical point: “What I hope for people who engage with Stand Up is that they realise the power of their voice and then go on to engage with other organisations - both Jewish and non-Jewish - and really use the power of their voice.”

Tired and conventional thinking expressed in comments like ‘young people no longer care about the community׳ or ‘they have a little knowledge or awareness of Torah and Judaism’ are not only superficial but also self-defeating.

It’s time to stop kvetching about the young Jews of today and to start kvelling about their enthusiasm. It’s time to listen and speak to them and to recognise that their concerns are concerns that Judaism has always had. After all, in our most common daily prayer, the Amidah,we connect to God ‘who loves charity and justice’.

Rabbi Soloveitchik speaking from tradition says, "We have always considered ourselves to be an inseparable part of humanity. We have never proclaimed a philosophy of contempt of the secular."

We have steadily maintained that involvement in the creative scheme of things is mandatory.

As a Modern Orthodox rabbi, I also believe that Jewish identity is not a matter of shul versus social consciousness but that it’s all connected. You grow a soul by accessing your spirituality, by struggling with your God, by reaching out to with compassion to others, by caring for the vulnerable and dispossessed, by championing freedom and by working to preserve our fragile planet.

That’s what hope is all about. That, says Dickinson, is the sweetest thing, the little Bird that has kept so many warm.

Rabbi Ralph Genende will be in conversation with human rights lawyer Nyadol Nyuon as part of Between Revolution & Revelation, a Tikkun Leil Shavuot hostel by Habonim and Kehilat Kolenu and Beit Habonim on 4 June at 8pm.

Photo: Young Jewish people working with Sudanese refugee children (Stand Up)