l'Dor v'Dor

(to Generation and Generation)

I spent last Shabbat in Olympia, in order to attend the downtown Saturday-afternoon tribute to an old teacher of mine who passed away. My hosts, Sherri and Neal, are actively involved with the traditional shul there, which emerged from the original Olympia synagogue as it became less of a big tent for the community and more an institutional party-line expression of Reconstructionist orthodoxy. Over lunch, Sherri and Neal described to me an all-too-familiar story: As the community grows, factions emerge to demand more denominationally narrow synagogue offerings. A traditional faction emerges and eventually splits off to form its own synagogue. Within this newly-liberated traditional faction there immediately appear two sub-factions -- one wanting to reach out to families, and one wanting to establish and protect a nostalgic setting. The synagogue as dynamic (and messy) playpen vs. the synagogue as lovely (and staid) museum piece. Now these factions are duking it out and meanwhile membership has plateaued.

I was visited by two insights from this tragedy. One is that synagogue life is dominated by generational politics. Every generation has certain distinguishing experiences, and consumer culture encourages us to seek, and demand, an environment that validates our own experiences. Consequently, the factions that fight over differing visions of what a synagogue should offer very often represent generational divides.

The second is that most of "Generation X" and nearly all of "Generation Y/Why" are absent from the clash. It is between the Boomers and those who came before them. I suspect that what has happened is that the pre-Boomer generations built an institutional infrastructure, within which the Boomers were raised as children later to reject it as young adults and build their own counter-culture. In the '80s and '90s, the demands of family life convinced the Boomers largely to return home, as it were. Then those old institutions, where the pre-Boomers had been entertaining themselves in relative peace and quiet, were flooded by waves of outsiders with a strong sense of birthright to be part of the inside, but also a couple decades' experience of doing things their own way. Voila! Generational struggle.

Meanwhile, Generation X, whose defining experience arguably is that the Boomers spoiled everything, has no desire to get involved in what looks like a fight between the Boomers and their parents. And Generation Y, having been raised by the Boomers amidst their ambivalence over returning to the old institutional life, doesn't feel half as entitled to -- nor half as interested in -- making that return. Which all begs the question: Where will Generations X and Y go to pursue an organized Jewish community life that suits them, while the synagogues scene is internally dominated by a power struggle between Boomers and pre-Boomers? The most obvious quick answer is, Israel and the Internet, but I think the question deserves deeper consideration.

The story of Sherri's and Neal's synagogue also reminded me of an old insight, from the last time I watched my own synagogue go through these travails. It is that matters of generational politics are actually much more resolvable than we are accustomed to presume. Creative multi-generational solutions are quite attainable. We tend not to attain them because we tend not to look for them in the first place. With the young-adult generations being relatively undetermined at present, with regard to organized Jewish community and what it's good for, yet eager to be challenged to leadership, I see a golden opportunity to propose the challenge of imagining functional multi-generational models.

For instance, if families with chidren would be involved in community functions, whether it be synagogue services or JCC classes or whatever, if only there were childcare or youth programming available at the same venue (this is a common issue of generational contention in synagogues, largely because the Boomers did not demand many accommodations when they first started their families, preferring to try to roll their own on the outside, so the synagogues grew accustomed to not having to deal with the problem so much), then why not challenge the younger Gen Xers and Gen Yers who don't have children yet to find creative and rewarding approaches to generating such accommodations, with the long-term payoff being that these will be in place for them when they do have children? Likewise, why not challenge the younger generations to build educational forums for us to learn from the elders in our communities while they're still with us?

Generational concerns provide potential content for the relatively blank slate of younger generations itching to take ownership of Jewish community. There are plenty of other, more selfish, possibilities; but it seems to me that the decision has not yet been made. There are options still potentially on the table that could spell great promise for our future.