only for an “elite” of non-Orthodox Jews. I also am concerned that even when a committed and joyful Judaism is established, its spiritual focus is removed from what I regard as the nonnegotiable corporeal element of Judaism — the Jewish people and the State of Israel. Thus, I fail to recognize it as fully “authentic” even when I see its adherents championing an ethos of obligation that leads them to active engagement in social justice and joyful and meaningful worship.

While Jewish tradition itself asserts that a “she’ei’rit ha-pleitah,” “saving remnant,” has marked every generation, and my historical study informs me that one of the most creative Jewish communities — that of the Iberian Peninsula in the late Middle Ages — was relatively small in number, the prospect of a shrinking number of committed Jews informed by the full rhythms and content of Jewish peoplehood and history concerns me. What do you think this lack of socialization into a “thick Jewish culture” and the “authority and ‘ taken-for-grantedness’ of Jewish peoplehood” on the part of most Jews in your generation means for the future?

I look forward to your response.

B’ydidut, David •••

David, Perfect timing for us to have this conversation, as we stand at the close of a year that was defined as much by the flotilla disaster in June as it was by Peter Beinart’s pointed piece in the New York Review of Books just weeks earlier criticizing the Jewish communal establishment’s engagement on Israel and Zionism. The crisis-driven agenda of the established Jewish community is tragically missing the mark, Beinart warns, and the result could be detrimental to both American Jewry and the State of Israel. David, you express concern about the disconnect many young Jews feel from “the non-negotiable corporeal element of Judaism — the Jewish people and the State of Israel.” I understand the concern, but personally feel heartened by the willingness in this generation to challenge old paradigms of engagement while working to claim new ways of being in relationship with Judaism and Israel. The generational resistance to the standard operating procedure on Israel is equally operative on questions of Jewish religious and spiritual attachment.

I, too, am concerned that a new generation of
Jews will see themselves isolated from Israel and
one another. But it is precisely the status quo,
which is alienating young people from Israel and
Judaism in droves, that will ensure that outcome.
I have no doubt that a Zionism, indeed a Judaism,
that is intellectually honest and morally consis-
tent will win back the hearts and minds of those
who now flee the Jewish communal structure.

•••
Dear Sharon,
Our conversation began with a significant “con-
cern” that the modern situation attenuated tra-
ditional Jewish notions of religious obligation
and communal commitments among vast num-
bers of Jews. Yet, despite the “individualism”
and “thin Jewish culture” among so many that
marks our age, congregations and organizations
of renewal and meaning have surely flourished
in the contemporary setting. Persons commit-
ted to the Jewish future can only applaud these
groupings and these trends.