The Creepiest Sounding Headline of the Day.

Israelinsider: From Survive to Thrive: Creating Super Jews


Since at least the 1990 Jewish population survey, the overriding concern of the American Jewish community has been that assimilation and intermarriage could lead to catastrophic decline in the number of Jews in the United States. With each new X, Y, Z generation, Jewish organizations lament young Jews' lack of affiliation with synagogues, their weak connection with Israel, and their generally tenuous Jewish identity. For all the good work the alphabet soup of Jewish organizations are doing, they are largely preoccupied with survival. This is a mistake.

The approach toward students, for example, is that in the age of iPod young Jews function like computers with multiple windows open on their desktop and, while older generations might have made Israel their home page, the goal today is just to get students to put Judaism and Israel in one of the many windows they have open at any one time.

Social justice groups want Jews to care about their fellow humans, and are less concerned with their connection to Israel than their performance of good deeds.

The political Zionists are interested only in promoting involvement in the political process and working to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship.

The outreach groups seek ways to keep the parents and children of mixed marriages affiliated with Judaism.

All of these approaches have a similar minimalist agenda that essentially boils down to the plea, "Please God, help us insure the next generation is Jewish."

It's time to change the focus and raise the bar from this seemingly desperate effort to survive to socially engineering Jews to thrive. We should not just be seeking to hold onto Jews; we should be trying to produce super Jews.

What is a super Jew? Some of the characteristics include affiliation with, and support of the local synagogue and community, participation in social justice programs, involvement in pro-Israel politics, a passion for Jewish learning, and a willingness and ability to inspire others to similar engagement. Super Jews need not be rich, though it helps, but they do give what time, energy and funds they do have available to Jewish organizations and activities.

Is it sad or ironic that what is today called a Super Jew used to be known as an ordinary faithful Jew?