Jack Wertheimer on the New American Judaism – Part III

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2019

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Throughout our podcast series with eminent Jewish historian Jack Wertheimer, we have spoken about a Judaism of “peak moments.” This is the kind of Judaism most American Jews practice; connecting to their faith at a small number of important dates and life transitions: the High Holy Days, b’nai mitzvah, weddings, funerals. In this week’s podcast—the third and final episode in our series—our conversation focuses on the place where so many of these peak moments take place: the synagogue.

The liturgy and choreography of synagogue services—especially in the liberal denominations—are undergoing important changes. From hosting musical “rock shabbat” services to creating a more informal atmosphere in the sanctuary, shuls are working hard to engage congregants on a more regular basis. And the Orthodox are doing their part to reach out to the unengaged through a massive network of outreach organizations that draw in the non-Orthodox, even as they remain fastidiously observant of Jewish law.

Wertheimer and Tikvah's Jonathan Silver discuss where these efforts have been successful and where they have failed, the goals of Orthodox outreach, and how committed Jews can do their part to secure the Jewish future.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble, as well as the original Broadway cast recording of Fiddler on the Roof and "Above the Ocean" by Evan MacDonald.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jack Wertheimers, the New American Judaism is a truly significant book, illuminating the terrain
0:14.6	of Jewish life in America. In the first of our three-part series, we looked at general
0:20.2	trends of American Jewish life
0:22.1	and how those trends relate to the larger religious culture in the United States.
0:27.0	We also looked at the breathtaking diversity of the most religiously observant among Jewish Americans,
0:32.8	the Orthodox.
0:34.0	In the second of our three-part series, we looked at the state of the denominations and tried to
0:38.8	understand these categories of lived Jewish life as the congregants themselves understand them.
0:44.3	Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Silver. Now in our third and final conversation,
0:50.8	Jack Wertheimer joins me to discuss his analysis of the changes occurring in and the future
0:56.2	directions of Judaism in America. If you enjoy this conversation, you can subscribe to the
1:01.8	Tikva podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify. I hope you leave us a five-star review
1:07.6	to help us grow this community of ideas. I welcome your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes at podcast at tikfafund.org.
1:17.5	And of course, if you want to learn more about our work at Tikva, you can visit our website,
1:21.7	tikfafund.org, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
1:25.6	Here now is my conversation with Jack Wertheimer.
1:29.4	Jack Wertheimer, welcome back to the Tikva podcast. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be back.
1:33.9	We're going to start by looking at some of the responses that Jewish institutions in America have taken to address the difficulties we discussed previously.
1:43.4	The first thing that you describe are reforms in prayer that are happening in synagogues
1:47.9	across the different denominations.
1:49.5	Why don't you just tell us what's happening there?
1:51.0	I'll be happy to do so.
	...

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