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August 22, 2003/Av 24 5763, Vol. 55, No. 52
Groups seek Jewish young adults
LEISAH NAMM
Managing Editor
Arizona Adventurers, an all-volunteer Jewish outdoor club, is one of several local organizations that offers programming for young adults. Pictured during a recent trip to the Grand Canyon are, front row from left, Don Kushner and Danyela Rosman and, back row, Rich Frankel, Lauren Buhrow, Stuart Sokolsky, Elia Simon, Linda Enger and Arizona Adventurers Coordinator Lionel Hummel.
Photo courtesy of Arizona Adventurers
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Wanted: Jewish young adults to participate in happy hours, hikes, leadership development, net-working, singles events, community service projects, etc. No experience necessary.
So far they haven't gone to this extreme, but several local Jewish organizations are seeking to inspire unaffiliated young adults to participate in Jewish community life.
First they need to find them.
"One of the biggest challenges we face as an organized Jewish community is figuring out how to relate to the younger generation," says Stephen Hoffman, president of United Jewish Com-munities, the umbrella organization representing North American Jewish federations. "How we connect to them Jewishly is a big challenge."
Locally, several organizations and individuals attempt to tackle this challenge. Many are trying to reach these young adults - those in their mid-20s to early 40s - but statistics show a very low affiliation rate in this age group.
According to the 2002 Greater Phoenix Jewish Community Study, there are 5,900 single and married Jewish households under age 40 with no children. And yet, the largest single e-mail list of any group trying to reach this population has about 1,800 addresses.
On a national level, organized Jewish communities reach out to this age group in a variety of ways, said Hoffman, during a recent visit to Phoenix. Some focus on social programs, others on promoting Jewish dating. Still others focus more on young couples, seeking to
engage them in the work of the federation. "The newer trends are to add meaningful, informal Jewish education to the programming," he added. "There are different things we can offer young people today and there are different ways of reaching them. We're experimenting; we're not there. But the important thing is knowing where you have to focus."
Local organizations reach out to the young adult community in a variety of ways.
Getting connected
Community leaders agree that finding unaffiliated Jews is their biggest challenge.
"Phoenix has all of the ingredients to make a thriving, exciting Jewish community for young adults," says Rabbi Ariel Shoshan, program director of Aish Hatorah Scottsdale, a project of the Phoenix Community Kollel. The weather, temperament and business environment make it an attractive place to live and many young Jews are moving here, he says.
But "people are just not excited about their Judaism," he explains. "They don't feel that Judaism is a central point in their life." Aish Hatorah hopes to promote Jewish identity through education and by creating positive feelings about being Jewish. One of the group's projects is renovating the Aish Hatorah center in Scottsdale into a "Starbucks-style" learning center for young adults, to inspire spiritual growth in an environment of style, music, food and drink. Besides classes, the group also started Aish Sundays, which focuses mainly on social events with a few minutes of Torah discussion.
The low affiliation rate in Judaism is a crisis, says Rabbi Erica Burech of Temple Beth Israel in Scottsdale. "Why are people unaffiliated? What kind of negative experience did they have?" Last October, she started Cheshbone Nefesh (Soul Check) Shabbat, a "camp-style service with a lot of singing and a lot of meditative moments" designed to provide a spiritual experience for young adults and to help make them feel part of the Jewish community. "In Arizona, a lot of people are transplants and they're looking for family and looking for a way to connect," she says.
After the service, participants meet at a private home for a Shabbat party; each person pays $10 toward dinner.
"There's a core group of people and there's a lot of people who have just moved into the area and that are looking to establish themselves with a community," Burech says. "I would say the majority of (participants) are unaffiliated."
Two years ago, a group of young adults who are members of Beth El Congregation formed Raw Kaballah, another monthly Shabbat service catering to the young adult market. Beth El hosted Raw Kaballah for the first year and the second year co-hosted it with Temple Chai.
Raw Kaballah is a community-based program that produces a "kabblalat Shabbat service that pulls in the energy and the ruach (spirit) and connects and reconnects young Jewish adults to their heritage," says executive director Jeffrey Frankel. Frankel also is the director of Beth El Young Adults, which is open to all Jewish young adults and hosts a variety of social events, including a young families chavurah.
Besides the service, Raw Kaballah holds other events such as happy hours, game nights and a monthly volunteer program at the Westside Food Bank.
The Friday night service draws about 125-150 regulars, Frankel says, and about 125 others who occasionally come.
During its first two years, the program was funded by grants, but those grants didn't come through this year, Frankel says. "Unfortunately, between the wartime economy (and) donations (from) different grantors being decreased this time around, everybody was hit hard." The group is holding its first fund-raiser, a bowling marathon on Sept. 6, to help fund the upcoming year.
Tight finances have hit some of the groups, such as Chevra, very hard. Chevra is a group of the Hillel Jewish Student Center at Arizona State University - geared toward graduate students and young single Jewish adults - that is currently on hiatus due to budget cuts.
Raw Kaballah is "an umbrella community based on people of that generation wanting to create a community for themselves," says Rabbi Peter Levi, who joined Raw Kaballah as spiritual adviser last year. "It's trying to build community (and a place to) get together in a venue which is really nice and conducive for that generation," as well as providing an alternative for doing something Jewish - "not a happy hour in downtown Scottsdale for Jews."
Six years ago, "there was really nothing catering to young adults in the community in a way to bring them together," says Steven Schwarz, current president of the Young Leadership Division (YLD) of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. At the time the community was "very fragmented" and he, along with Mark Blonstein and Brian Weisberg, wanted to create a theoretical "central address where people could come whether they were affiliated or not." In response, they formed a local chapter of YLD.
It was obviously a void that needed to be filled - their first event attracted more than 150 people in their target market. Since then, YLD's role in the community has changed. "There's been other organizations that have popped up (and) synagogues have gotten more focused on young adults. ... We don't necessarily need to be the 'central address' for everything."
Today's YLD board follows the same principles as the original, Schwarz says. They have large events to bring out the otherwise unaffiliated - such as Mazelpalooza, a party held on Christmas Eve that last year drew approximately 600 people - but the main focus is on leadership development and communicating the needs of both the local Jewish community and the Jewish world.
"It's obviously critical in this community to build leadership," he says. The biggest challenge is "finding people in our age group that will make building a strong community a larger priority considering all the stresses on our time at this age." With 20- and 30-somethings developing their careers, getting married and starting families, it's difficult to find people who have time to help the community grow, he adds.
"The future of this community is based on leadership development," says John Magoulas, YLD federation staff member. "That's why we spend so much time in outreaching and educating and building leadership." YLD also coordinates community service projects.
The ultimate goal of YLD is to "give people a sense of what the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix does and to get them to give philanthropically to support our local agencies and the Jews around the world and in Israel," he says. Although YLD focuses on young adults, the federation itself also offers other avenues of involvement, he notes.
Although organizations provide options for young adults, some individuals have stepped up on their own to meet needs they feel have gone unmet.
Jeff Geller started AZ Jewish Scene about a year ago because "there were no groups dedicated to networking."
Geller, who has been active in the Jewish community since 1996, felt that some of the other groups demanded time and money commitments that could be a turn-off to some. AZ Jewish Scene hosts happy hours and lists other events for Jewish young adults on its Web site. He says he offers "an alternative to the Internet and JDate" and provides "a way to meet people and it's not just for singles."
His database includes about 800 names and he says his main goal is "to get people who are completely outside of the community to at least show up to something." One way he does this is by contacting people on JDate to invite them to various community events.
Feeling a void in the Valley's Jewish community, Mickey Latz created JewishSinglesAZ about four years ago. The former president of the Jewish Association of Singles Services (JASS) was disillusioned when the group broke apart as a community organization in 1999.
"I felt back then and I still feel today that there's a need in the community for Jewish singles to connect and meet with other Jewish singles," he says. "The community as a whole can do a much better job facilitating people who want to marry a Jewish person and help accomplish that goal."
When he started JewishSinglesAZ, he felt "there was a need in the community for a fun organization that was not just a social event." Programs included a chocolate lovers dessert night, a massage night and a seminar on communicating with the opposite sex; events "to capture people who wouldn't go to another event or didn't like going to bars to meet people."
Due to his work schedule, he's been unable to find the time to coordinate regular events, but notes that in other communities he's lived in, a central organization served as a mouthpiece for all the singles groups. This was originally JASS' goal, but without the financial support of any major Jewish organization, it was unable to continue in this matter, he says.
If this coordinated effort could be instituted here, the information could be disseminated to the largest audience possible, he adds.
One of the groups Latz has worked with is JCC Singles, a program of the Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center.
The main goal of JCC Singles is to "create relationships on all levels," from friendship to love, says Sara Pear, VOSJCC singles coordinator and adult services assistant. The group focuses on all age groups of singles, including single parents. It's a fairly new program and the JCC is open to suggestions, she says. They're also developing young couple programs as well.
Working together
With all the various groups focusing on the same population, some leaders have expressed an interest in consolidating their efforts.
"We have always welcomed joint programming with other Jewish groups aimed at 20-40-somethings," says Lionel Hummel, coordinator of Arizona Adventurers, an all-volunteer Jewish outdoor club. Arizona Adventurers' 500-name weekly e-mail announcements strive to include "everything going on of particular interest to Jewish young adults." The group welcomes submissions from other organizations with activities specifically serving the same demographic.
"It strengthens the community when young adults know about all the possibilities arrayed out in front of them," he says.
Raw Kaballah also welcomes other organizations to submit their events to the Raw Kaballah Web site, Frankel says.
Most of the organizations have their own e-mail lists; many names undoubtedly overlap.
"How do we get to everybody?" asks Magoulas. "We have well-rounded programming, we have something for everybody, but how do we get them to know all that we do?"
YLD sends updates to approximately 1,800 e-mail addresses to publicize upcoming YLD events. "We're opening the door for people to get involved," Magoulas says.
"I know that they're out there," Pear says. "I just don't know where they're hiding."
Contact the writer at leisah_namm@jewishaz.com.
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