Jewish Engagement Archives - Jim Joseph Foundation

Understanding the Aspirations of Jewish Families Today and the Parenting Challenges They Face

This report, Understanding the Aspirations of Jewish Families Today and the Parenting Challenges They Face, explores the experiences, aspirations, and challenges faced by Jewish families with young children in the United States. Amid shifting social, economic, and cultural landscapes, these families navigate diverse identities and circumstances, often striving to balance Jewish values with inclusive practices that reflect their multifaceted lives. Commissioned by Crown Family Philanthropies, the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, and the Jim Joseph Foundation, this study was conducted by Rosov Consulting to provide insights into the needs and aspirations of contemporary Jewish families and the roles Jewish institutions currently play and might play in supporting their Jewish lives.

The study aimed to understand the experiences of Jewish families with diverse backgrounds, identities, and structures, alongside those that align more closely with traditional Jewish family norms. It also prioritized the inclusion of less-engaged Jewish families—those that are minimally involved in Jewish communities or Jewish institutions and would like to be more. All participants were raising children younger than eight years old and providing them with Jewish experiences. The study reveals that Jewish families today are shaped by several social trends, including increased cultural diversity, economic precarity, geographic mobility, and political polarization. In response, the parents in the study articulate several core aspirations for their children: building a strong sense of Jewish identity, cultivating empathy and respect for diverse backgrounds, and fostering positive engagement with the broader world.

Jewish Families Today presents findings from 40 focus groups and 40 one-on-one interviews with select focus group participants, detailing key features of many families and showing that they are 1) Increasingly diverse; 2) Divided in their commitment to multiple aspirations for their children; 3) Geographically dispersed; 4) Comfortable with a DIY approach but still wanting guidance; and 5) Desperate for their children to experience a community. These features are reflected in core aspects of their lives:

Parental Priorities and Aspirations:

Many Jewish parents share several core priorities and aspirations in raising their children as they try to build strong, inclusive Jewish identities while fostering empathy and respect for diversity.
Raising children with a strong sense of self, compassion, and moral responsibility is essential.
Community is a critical component in their children’s Jewish identity and parents aim to instill a connection to something larger than the self (this is especially true for families far removed from extended family networks).
Many parents emphasize cultivating homes that are culturally rich, Jewishly meaningful and tolerant and inclusive of multiple heritages, faiths, and ethnicities, reflecting the diversity within their families and communities.

Bumps, Obstacles, and Difficult Contexts:

Significant barriers limit families’ ability to engage fully in Jewish life, including financial costs, such as synagogue memberships and Jewish school tuition, and geographic distance from Jewish centers or family networks.
Political polarization, both within Jewish communities and the broader public, is a challenge. Families with marginalized identities—interfaith, LGBTQ+, or multiracial—often feel sidelined within traditional Jewish institutions.
As a result, some families choose to disengage from formal Jewish spaces, focusing instead on cultivating Jewish practices and connections at home.

How Families Make It Work:

Jewish families exhibit resilience and resourcefulness in fostering Jewish life. Parenting practices can be characterized as seeking to repair, replicate, or innovate.
Parents find online resources essential to support their children’s Jewish education and to celebrate Jewish traditions at home.
For some, informal peer networks and small, grassroots, community-led gatherings provide a supportive environment.
Parents tailor Jewish practices to meet their family’s unique cultural mix, blending traditions and finding meaning in practices that reinforce both Jewish values and a broad sense of inclusion.

Israel: Ever More Complicated:

The topic of Israel has grown more complicated for many Jewish families. While many parents want their children to appreciate Israel’s historical and cultural significance, they often feel caught between polarized viewpoints in Jewish and general communities.
Parents desire a balanced approach to Israel, allowing for nuance and critical thought. They worry about their children encountering polarized discourse that reduces a complex reality to stark oppositions.
Parents want spaces where questioning and open discussion is allowed so they can explore Israel’s role in Jewish identity without feeling pressured into a particular stance. This topic, more than ever, influences where families choose to engage and reflects broader challenges in maintaining community cohesion.

Understanding the Aspirations of Jewish Families Today and the Parenting Challenges They Face, Rosov Consulting, January 2025

Read the review of relevant research literature that preceded the study. Read the news coverage in eJewish Philanthropy

photo courtesy of Keshet

Responding to the Fallout From October 7th: From Crisis to Opportunity

Since the events of October 7th, 2023, Jewish educators have found themselves at the center of an unprecedented challenge, guiding learners through a landscape shaped by intense emotions and complex questions. The research findings show that Jewish educators are experiencing considerable emotional strain, with many expressing anxiety and despair as they navigate teaching in the post-October 7th environment. Educators also report their learners experiencing similar negative emotions including confusion, anger, and isolation in response to the unfolding events. Many feel unprepared for addressing the crisis within their existing frameworks, revealing gaps in training and resources to navigate these challenging topics.

This moment, while difficult, offers a unique opportunity for rethinking how Jewish education responds to crisis and challenge whether involving Israel, or other areas of life that involve emotional challenge and/or the need to address diversity of opinion and behavior. In such moments, individuals must respond to the world around them, and Jewish educators should see themselves as a resource and guide for doing so. Our focus here is the post-October 7th crisis, and the way Jewish educators are responding.

The power of the events playing out is such that educators realize they need to respond. Events include the war in Israel, the ideological prism through which the war is covered in the media and accompanying public discourse amplified by the 2024 Presidential election, the increased diplomatic isolation of Israel, and the sharp rise of antisemitism. The post-October 7th events are existential in nature, causing many Jews to assess their relationship to the Jewish People, to the society around them and to Israel.

As with any crisis or challenge there are diverse Jewish reactions as to how to understand and respond. Drawing on the survey data we show there are currently three approaches among Jewish educators to Israel.

Solidarity: A focus on nurturing a love for Israel, meaning positive emotional bonds.
Criticism: A mirror image of the solidarity approach with the emphasis on enabling criticism of Israel as
legitimate Jewish expression.
Complexity: A third approach, which works to strike a balance arguing that to educate a love of Israel, requires learners not only to form positive emotional bonds but also to formulate their opinion and ability to discuss with others Israel in all its social and political complexity.

The tendency of most educators is to embrace one of the solidarity, complexity or criticism approaches, which we argue is not productive for forging a constructive response to the post October 7th crisis, or any other emotional crisis or challenge. Either solidarity or criticism when taken alone cannot enable education to strengthen emotional bonds between Jews who hold different opinions in the face of crisis. Alternatively, complexity cannot stand as a goal unto itself, as the creation of positive bonds between Jews and Israel is a core goal of Jewish education.

Currently the dominant approach to Israel in Jewish education only emphasizes “solidarity,” educating for love of Israel. The result is that many Jewish educators are unprepared for responding to intensely negative events that require consideration of a complex social, moral and political reality and divisive Jewish communal environment. Many Jewish educators are expressing feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, unsure of how to tackle the negative intensity of their personal emotions and those of their learners.

We call for an integrative approach that emphasizes forging positive emotional bonds between Jews while recognizing the need to enable learners to grapple with both complexity and criticism. Our call is for educators to lead the integration of Israel into Jewish life as a positive force for Jewish belonging and identification. In a moment of crisis, can Jewish educators bring learning and engagement with Israel to serve as a source of constructive bonding between Jews, rather than a catalyst for division?

For this purpose, we draw on the research data to advocate for an integrative model of Jewish education in which Israel in integrated into all areas of the discipline. In so doing educators facilitate (1) Jewish bonding and (2) complex thinking. Educators nurture their learners’ consciousness of belonging to the Jewish People and enable each to develop a robust self-understanding of their desired Jewish life in relationship to other Jews, Israel and the society in which they live.

The Fallout from October 7th: From Crisis to Opportunity, Ezra Kopelowitz Ph.D., Shlomi Ravid Ph.D., Iris Posklinsky Ph.D.,
Jonathan Golden Ph.D. and Jake Gillis M.A., The Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education & Research Success Technologies, November 2024

View a presentation on the report’s key findings. View A Call for Action: Jewish Education on Israel – Post-October 7th.

Responding to this Historical Moment: Jewish Educators, Clergy, Engagement Professionals, and the War in Israel

This report delves into the experiences of Jewish professionals in the wake of October 7th, highlighting their feelings of isolation and confusion. Faced with events of historical magnitude, there is across the board recognition of the need to respond, coupled with uncertainty about the best course of action. Post-October 7th, during the survey period, these professionals were seeking clarity, facts, safety, and hope, while grappling with fundamental questions about the unfolding events and their implications.

The report underscores the inherent difficulties in facilitating conversations about challenging issues; including, but not limited to, those related to Israel. These challenges existed prior to October 7th and in the immediate aftermath were on full display. Issues fundamental to living life in contemporary society at this particular moment in time were raised. For example, in the age of social media as a primary source of information, “what should we believe?” The jarring experience of feeling oneself as part of a persecuted minority, “why do they hate us?”

These experiences and questions lead to a desire to speak and process. Some of the survey respondents provide purposeful responses to the war, which demonstrate how these large existential issues can integrate into a Jewish professional’s repertoire in a manner that overrides narrow disciplinary or context-specific approaches to Jewish education and community. The focus is on responding to this moment and
seeing one’s membership in the Jewish People as an asset for tackling life’s big issues.

“Responding to this Historical Moment: Jewish Educators, Clergy, Engagement Professionals, and the War in Israel,” Ezra Kopelowitz, Ph.D., Hadar Franco Gilron, Ph.D., Jake Gillis, M.ED, Research Success Technologies LTD. & The Center for Jewish Peoplehood Education, February 2024

Read the full piece in eJewish Philanthropy.

Beyond the Count: Perspectives and Lived Experiences of Jews of Color

This research presents an intersectional account of American Jewish life by exploring the ways in which the ethnic, racial, and cultural identities of Jews of Color (JoC) influence and infuse their Jewish experiences. Beyond the Count was commissioned to inform the work of the Jews of Color Initiative (JoCI), a national effort focused on building and advancing the professional, organizational, and communal field for JoC. This study provides valuable insights to help Jewish communities and organizations reckon more directly and effectively with the racial diversity of American Jewry.

In this research, “Jews of Color” is understood as an imperfect, but useful umbrella term that encompasses a wide range of identities and meanings. Those who self-identified as JoC in this study used the term in a multiplicity of ways: as a racial grouping (e.g. Black, Asian, and multiracial Jews); to indicate national heritage (e.g. Egyptian, Iranian, and Ethiopian Jews); to describe regional and geographic connections (e.g. Latina/o/x, Mizrahi, Sephardic Jews); and to specify sub-categories (e.g. transracially adopted Jews and Jewish Women of Color).

This study, which was housed at Stanford University, collected the largest ever dataset of self-identified JoC to date. Survey data from 1,118 respondents present a broad portrait of respondents’ demographic characteristics, backgrounds, and experiences. Sixty-one in-depth interviews provide texture and bring respondents’ own words to the forefront.

“Beyond the Count: Perspectives and Lived Experiences of Jews of Color,” commissioned by the Jews of Color Initiative, Tobin Belzer, PhD, Tory Brundage, PhC, Vincent Calvetti, MA, Gage Gorsky, PhD, Ari Y. Kelman, PhD, Dalya Perez, PhD, August 2021

COVID and Jewish Engagement Research

Among the many ways that the pandemic profoundly changed Jewish engagement, the High Holidays of 2020 stands out as a particularly fascinating case study. It was a kind of controlled experiment; essentially no one was able to celebrate or observe the holidays in the ways they were used to, so everyone was doing something somewhat different than usual.

Institutions of all kinds innovated to adapt to the restrictions, and new ways of engaging emerged and spread more broadly than could have been previously imagined. In an effort to understand the ways in which people’s engagement with the High Holidays changed during this past year, and what it might reveal about Jewish engagement more broadly, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Jim Joseph Foundation and Aviv Foundation funded research through the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund (JCRIF) to illuminate new patterns of participation and motivations. In the winter of 2020-2021, Benenson Strategy Group surveyed 1,414 American Jews nationwide about their experiences of the High Holidays and the ways that those experiences compared to previous years.

The research explored not only what people did in 2020, but also compared it to what they had been doing before and explored what they might do in the future. The results provide important insights that have meaningful design implications not only for the upcoming High Holidays, but also for engagement efforts much more broadly.

A major insight is the difference in behavior and attitudes between “Regular High Holy Day Observers” (those who typically observe both Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) and “Infrequent High Holy Day Observers” (those who participate sporadically or only in one of the
holidays). Remarkably, approximately half of the Infrequent Observers participated in High Holy Days during the pandemic, when it would have been very easy to opt out. Their robust participation leads us to explore both their motivations for participating and how their
participation this year may impact their future decisions and behavior as well.

COVID and Jewish Engagement, Benenson Strategy Group, January 2021

Access the data files to COVID and Jewish Engagement from the Berman Jewish Databank.

Read New research on High Holiday participation illuminates critical themes for future design, by Lisa Colton, Tobin Marcus, and Felicia Herman in eJewish Philanthropy

“A Beautiful Story of the Human Experience”: Two JoC Researchers Dive into the Community and Find Meaning in Multiplicity

This research recap was originally posted by the Jews of Color Initiative.

As a Jew of Color, have you ever felt you needed to affirm your Jewish identity or convince other people that you are, indeed, Jewish? Unfortunately, most JoCs have. A new research study, directed by two scholars who are themselves Jews of Color, is tackling these very issues, shining light on an under-researched phenomenon in our community.

The researchers, Philip Pettis, a doctoral candidate at Vanderbilt University, and Dr. Elizabeth Webster, an independent scholar, are speaking with Jews of Color of different racial groups, age, gender, and method of arriving at a Jewish identity (such as birth or conversion).

Pettis and Webster are focused on understanding how Jews of Color experience identity not only through internal understandings of oneself but in relation to other people. The social scientific term for this is reflected appraisals. “You can develop an identity yourself, or you can develop an identity in response to others’ perceptions of you,” Pettis said in defining the term.

Reflected appraisals are not something only Jews of Color experience; as social beings, many use this process to make sense of who they are and how they relate to others. But there are unique experiences for Jews of Color, particularly when faced with such dominating assumptions about who Jews are and what Jews look like.

Pettis said that the identity work of Jews of Color is further complicated by the fact that Jewishness is overall a highly contested category. “There is constant contestation over what it means to be a Jew, not just Jews of Color but among Jews more broadly,” he said, referencing debates over intermarriage or who should be “let in” to the community. He argued that this complicated social context may place even more pressure on Jews of Color to affirm their Jewish identity.

Pettis and Webster have documented some of the ways Jews of Color work to affirm their Jewishness, including the use of Jewish symbols, and the way they encourage others to view Jewish peoplehood. Their research shows that Jews of Color may have heightened drive to use Jewish symbols, such as a Magen David (Star of David), to visually denote that they are Jews in a society that assumes Jews look like white Ashkenazim. Another way Jews of Color in their study are challenging dominant assumptions about who Jews are is through “recasting the Jewish narrative,” reminding others that Jews of Color are far from unusual at the global level.

Perhaps another way that JoC identity is influenced by perceptions of others can be found in the terminology we use to describe the community. Pettis and Webster also have found among their participants—and indeed in their own experiences—that even the term “Jew of Color” does not resonate with all who are defined by this term.

Pettis, who is self-described as an Afro-Caribbean American Jew shared, “I don’t identity myself as a Jew of Color. I identify myself as a Jew. And ‘Jew of Color’ is something that has been imposed on me as a response to difference.” He said that in the pursuit of this study, the voices of participants pushed him and Webster to constantly revisit the question about how to define the group we often call Jews of Color. “Is it ‘Jews of Color,’ or is it ‘racialized Jews’?” he asked. He explained that in some ways the term Jews of Color re-establishes whiteness as the “normal” way to be Jewish.

Webster argued that the term Jews of Color also comes from the way whiteness is upheld among white Jews. She explained that to maintain standing within whiteness, white Jews affirm barriers between themselves and those who cannot fit into whiteness. Webster explained the train of thought that is used among white Jews: “If you’re not white, then what are you? You’re a Jew of Color.” The more that white Jews have been included in whiteness, the more they have been socially incentivized and rewarded—whether explicitly or implicitly—for holding up barriers between themselves and people of color, including other Jews.

Webster also pointed out that the assumptions of who Jews are and what we look like have created a whole “community that has been shut out.” “We need to have a wider definition of who is a Jew, and that definition cannot be based on saying ‘you don’t look like a Jew’.”

Both Pettis and Webster spoke to the need for a reimagining of who the Jewish people are that is not so tied to political and economic histories which (eventually) cast (white) Jews as white. Webster said that this reimagining is something the collective Jewish community, as a multiracial people, must claim. “We’re in a time and a place now where it’s time to start saying this is who we are. This is what it is to be Jewish. This is who Jewish is. This is what Jewish looks like. We’re just like every other sector of society. We come in all different shapes, sizes, and colors.”

As Pettis and Webster continue their research, they are constantly reminded of the multitude of identities and experiences that can be found in the JoC community. “Not every Jew of Color has the same story,” Pettis said. While JoCs know this firsthand, Pettis is aware that this is a much-needed reminder to others.

JoCs are too often expected to explain their identities or existence. “[The study] is a beautiful story of the human experience. People have been marginalized and oftentimes left out of spaces, and because they’ve been left out of spaces, they’re constantly engaging in these taxing fights to be recognized in the community that they consider to be their own,” Pettis asserted.

But perhaps the most important reminders Pettis and Webster shared were those that spoke directly to JoCs.

“It’s okay to be different,” Pettis stated. “It’s okay to have a multiplicity of identities without any of them having to be ‘right.’ It’s okay to be Dominican and Black and Jewish, without those having an order.”

Webster shared similar sentiments, reminding JoCs that, even in the face of unequal standards, they are undoubtedly Jewish. “I would want to convey to all my brothers and sisters who are Jewish who happen to be people of color: it’s okay to just be. You don’t have to be fluent in Hebrew, you don’t have to know all the passages in the Torah, you don’t have to run back into the house to put on your Jewish symbols, you don’t have to speak Yiddish. You can just be Jewish and that’s okay. You’re Jewish no matter what, and it’s okay to just be. And that lifts an incredible burden off a lot of people in our community, I think.”

Pettis made a point of clarifying that they are not trying to undo but rather expand definitions of our people. “We are not pushing back against definitions of Jewishness, but we are hoping to expand them so that people don’t have to feel like ‘I’m not Jewish unless I do this.’ I’m personally very religious so it’s not like I’m saying get rid of all the laws, it’s just opening the space for greater conversation.”

Virtual Engagement Research

Supported by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation and Jim Joseph Foundation, the Benenson Strategy Group surveyed 1,001 American Jews nationwide, ages 18-40, from June 29 – July 15, 2020. The research objectives of this projects were to:

Assess how Jewish young adults are responding to the ongoing pandemic and how they are engaging (or not engaging) with virtual programming from organizations right now.
Understand what kinds of virtual programming Jewish young adults are seeking out right now, and why: what appeals to them about certain programs and/or organizations, what kind of needs they fill, and what it is about a program that makes it worthwhile or meaningful.
Identify how organizations can enhance and expand virtual Jewish programming to best meet the needs of young Jews today.

Virtual Engagement Research, Benenson Strategy Group, August 2020

Access the data files to Virtual Engagement Research from the Berman Jewish Databank

Read Emotion Before Content: Evidence Based Recommendations for Designing Virtual Jewish Engagement, by Rella Kaplowitz, Stacie Cherner, and Lisa Narodick Colton, in eJewish Philanthropy

Unlocking the Future of Jewish Engagement

Research on the American Jewish population in recent years has measured everything from educational attainment to religious composition, attitudes toward the elderly, views on Israel, geographic dispersal, and political persuasion. Yet, studies to date have not deeply explored the nation’s Jewish young adult population.

Increasingly, young American Jews are being recognized as an independent group within the larger American Jewish community—one that engages with being Jewish in ways that differ from previous generations. Approaches to research, however, have not been updated to reflect that this cohort engages with being Jewish differently. As a result, young American Jews’ attitudes and behaviors are not adequately reflected in research that is based on more long-standing metrics related to ritual and religion. Just what these young people make of their Jewish upbringing and values, and how they self-identify, requires further exploration.

Seeking to fill these gaps and to provide a comprehensive and multi-faceted view of Jewish young adults, a consortium of Jewish philanthropies commissioned Atlantic 57 to conduct a rigorous study of Jewish young adults across the United States. For the purposes of this research, young adults were included in the study if they self-identified as Jewish in any way. By focusing on self-prescribed definitions of being Jewish rather than external measures of such identification, this study allows for a nuanced approach to understanding Jewish engagement. It also challenges definitions of what it means to be Jewish today.

The aim of this research is to provide practitioners and philanthropies with rich context on what being Jewish means to these young adults and on how they engage or aspire to engage in Jewish life. This research does not aim to assess the effectiveness of specific programs on Jewish engagement or to make a value judgment about right and wrong ways to be Jewish.

This research was funded by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, Genesis Philanthropy Group, Jim Joseph Foundation, and Maimonides Fund.

Unlocking the Future of Jewish Engagement, Atlantic 57, March 2020

Access the data files to Unlocking the Future of Jewish Engagement from the Berman Jewish Databank.