Kelman gives a short history of the struggle surrounding Israeli religious pluralism since the mid-1980s, when the Israel Religious Action Center was founded to promote liberal Judaism in Israel and create a more level playing field for non-Orthodox Judaism. She concludes that, "pluralism has the potential to strengthen peoplehood. That is the challenge facing us.…
Kaunfer calls for a pluralism of substance as a means strengthening Peoplehood. "In this model, the key to peoplehood isn’t pluralism per se, it is education. Only through education will Jews develop a deeper attachment to their Judaism." The goal is not creating individuals with the same values; it may actually lead to large differences…
Gross write about her work as director of a community outreach program with participants who represent a diversity of backgrounds, opinions and ideas about how to participate Jewishly. "Our gatherings welcome this diversity and demand an openness to hear others and learn from differences in order to better understand our own beliefs and commitments." She…
Gale, co-director of the Diller Teen Fellows asks, What will be the future of the Jewish People? Having worked so hard to create communities that support different ways of Jewish life, Jewish leaders are reluctant to engage in dialogue. "The ability to engage in dialogue and respond to each other sympathetically and empathetically is critical…
Edelsberg, Executive Director of the Jim Joseph Foundation, discusses the role of pluralism in its attempts to foster compelling, effective Jewish learning experiences for young Jews in the United States. He sees the concept of peoplehood as nebulous; no single, commonly accepted definition has gained currency. The Jewish people are still populated by homogeneous sects…
Through interviews and participant observation of young adult Americans Jews, Cousens understands the nuances of the concept of Jewish community (ies) for this group. Through her work, she comes to see Peoplehood as an ongoing dialogue , "even a tense dialogue – with Israel, the Jewish people, and the Jewish narrative. This is the essence…
Barber suggest that in most Jewish conversations about pluralism, the word is used to convey the thought that all Jewish narratives are true Jewish narratives and that none holds more weight than any other. However, she suggests that the community needs instead to understand pluralism as the need to learn about the multiplicity of Jewish…
Using the language of rock music, Arnoff suggests that in order to help the individual view Jewish communities as compelling enough to join, the Jewish educator must move beyond the personal and facilitate "a community comprised of individuals with rich, meaningful experience." He notes that, "navigating peoplehood requires a multidimensional, pluralistic map to the biblical…
This (10th) volume of the Peoplehood Papers sets out "to explore the potential for developing some kind of synthesis between Jewish Peoplehood and Pluralism." Today, Jews differ on core Jewish issues, and thus, sustaining a sense of commonality is increasingly complex. The articles in this issue are written by practitioners who were asked to offer…
Israel education is a persistent dilemma in Jewish education with practices that fail to inspire or make the case that Israel is integral to contemporary American Jewish life. This book offers a new strategy and an educational paradigm shift for the success of Israel education in the Diaspora.
