A Crisis of Affiliation
Thursday, 24 November 2011
This post by Deborah Blausten, passionately committed to both community and Reform Judaism, first appeared on Cartoon Kippah.
While Deborah deliberately didn't name either synagogue or movement in the original piece, it is shared here with her permission as being particularly written to a Reform audience.
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'We are writing as you are now in our 'over 21 membership' section and so unfortunately you are no longer covered in your family’s synagogue membership’So begins the letter that arrived on my doorstep last week, and has precipitated a crisis of affiliation that I’d been rather hoping to avoid.
I think there are three logical responses to this letter, the first two are fairly predictable, the third is one that I’d like to present as a challenge...
Option 1- Join I hold great affection for the community I grew up in, and indeed as much as I have found a home in the more nomadic world of independent minyanim, when asked which community I’m from, there is no doubt what my response would be. For my very fairly priced young adult shul membership I receive High Holy Day tickets, synagogue letters, membership of the 20s-30s group and of course, most importantly, burial fees… BUT… Are High Holy Day tickets, burial fees and letters in the post really what my affiliation to a community is about? High Holy Day tickets are free for young adults across the movement, young adult education events are all open and I can count the number of shul services in my home shul that I've been to in the past year on one hand. Not being a member isn't going to remove my sense of belonging because community exists beyond formal occasion and mechanism.
Option 2- Don’t Join Most of my Jewish experiences are occurring away from my home community, my friends are mainly in the 'unafilliated' category, and aren't losing sleep over it. There are other communities that meet my Jewish needs in a much fuller way and I know better than to let my life be driven by precedent. BUT… I believe in 'old-school' synagogue community, a view that is perhaps controversial amongst some of my friends. My Judaism goes hand in hand with an ideology that places me within a denomination, and proudly so, and I want to affiliate to that denomination.
Option 3- Find a New Model Does affiliating to a denomination mean that I have to join a shul? The listed benefits of shul membership; synagogue mailings, burial fees and high holy day tickets are not the greatest motivators, nor are they things that I understand to define communal Jewish experience, and the things that do define that experience, I don't need to reach into my pocket to acquire.
A big part of this desire to affiliate to a denomination is borne out of having grown up in a denominational youth movement, having enjoyed the feeling that as a member of that movement, I was a welcome part of any community within their umbrella. It also comes from having spent a long time thinking about what it is that my Jewish life currently 'needs' (if I can put it so crudely) from being part of something bigger.
I don't just want to take the educational opportunities provided by synagogues and rabbis for granted, I don't feel an automatic sense of entitlement that comes from being in the highly sought after 'young adult' category, I want to demonstrate my investment in community, but 'community' means something very different to me, something that is much more about individuals and experiences than it is about defined spaces.
My hesitation in joining a shul is not a result of a fear of pinning my colours to a mast... consider them thoroughly pinned! Rather, it is a result of questioning whether the traditional model of synagogue membership is best suited to me and the Jewish life that I want to lead. I’m a firm believer in synagogue community, in multi-generational, multi-layered interactions, in the value of being in regular contact with the same group of individuals in the same space, but that space is not where I find myself now.
What I want is a passport to explore communities, to learn from teachers wherever they are found, but not to do it anonymously, to do it instead as an active and interested party who has a right (along with my peer community) to be invested in and the ability to give back. I don’t want to be an another part of the missing generation, and I don't want to abandon synagogue community, but I want more, because I believe there is more out there, and because our communities have much to learn from one another and our young adults much to learn and give back from being encouraged to explore.
(Note: the author gave in and joined her family’s shul, burial fees won out...)
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