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Want Jewish continuity? Put Jews together in a room (or a camp or a basketball court or a tour bus)
['Judah Ari Gross']
eJewishPhilanthropy
Face time isn’t just an app on your phone — it’s a recipe for forging Jewish identity.
So let’s send them to Jewish summer camp; have them compete against other Jewish teens in Maccabi Games; and take them around and teach them about Israel and its people, instead of just competing.
In her opinion piece, Keren R. McGinity argues for ensuring that the people who will be spending the most time with Jewish children — their parents — are equally capable of imparting Jewish identity.
In generations past, American Jews felt obligated to be involved in Jewish communal life — for positive reasons and, in some cases, because antisemitism kept Jews out of other spaces — and while this still exists to a certain extent, it is easier than ever for American Jews to disaffiliate entirely.
If Jewish funders and the organizations they support care about Jewish continuity, their focus must be on engagement — going out there and getting more Jews into more rooms with more Jews.