Engaging Jewish young adults

 

LEXI LANDSMAN

YOUNG adults are increasingly disengaging from traditional forms of Judaism, prompting the need for new approaches to Jewish identity, said Network director Elyse Chiert at a session at Limmud-Oz.¬†”I think young adults today are not engaging with the traditional forms of Judaism. Religion, Zionism — these are a little outdated and I think new forms of identity and engaging needs to happen,” she said.

Chiert said the key to engaging with young adults was listening to their needs and responding in accessible ways.¬†”The community needs to change, listen, adapt and think. The Jewish Communal Appeal is really listening to what young adults want and giving Network [a Jewish, young-adult organisation] a platform to do that.”¬†Chiert was one of five panellists, which included Benji Holzman, Jonathan Seidler and Brandon Srot, who addressed the issue of “Jewish Identity in an Age of Unlimited Choices” at a Limmud-Oz session, which was moderated by Mark Lewkovitz.

The panellists raised issues regarding the difficulties of meeting a Jewish partner, how to strengthen the quality of Jewish experience and factors causing young people to disengage from the community.¬†Holzman, who is the former federal director of education for Habonim Dror Australia, offered an alternative model to the issues, suggesting that the focus and indicators of a young adult’s views on their Jewish identity needs to change.

“I believe that a lot of young adult programming today is organised around the idea that our primary concern is the perpetuation of the Jewish people … I think our primary concern should be to encourage the young adult [Jewish] community to engage with their Jewishness and to spread that to others.”

Srot, who is the executive director of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students, said that the disengagement of young adults between the ages of 18 and 22 was a result of what he called the “four S syndrome”: studying, saving to travel or invest, socialising and surveying.¬†Seidler, a media student, spoke about the role of media in uniting disparate groups and expressed his personal frustration at having limited access to publishing opportunities.