By Paul Golin
A condensed version of this article appeared in the New Jersey Jewish News
September, 2009
The High Holidays, with blasts of the shofar, repentance and fasting, stand as the days when most synagogues in America are filled to capacity, and even marginally-affiliated families are drawn back to the Jewish community. Look around at those in attendance. Chances are you’ll see an even split between men and women, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. But does this parity mask a “gender imbalance” in American Jewish life?
A growing body of statistics suggests that boys and men relate differently to Judaism than girls and women. While that seems a perfectly logical statement, broad generalizations tend to verge on uselessness. Yes, men are less “spiritual” than women—except for all the deeply spiritual men we know. Still, communal policy reacts to trends, and the trend we’re hearing about lately is the withdrawal of men from the ritual practice of (non-Orthodox) Judaism.
Having already developed a number of programs for specifically underserved populations in the Jewish community, we at the Jewish Outreach Institute (JOI) are now developing programming to serve men in intermarriages/interpartnerships. In doing so, we’re keeping in mind a number of guiding principles that may be useful to others who are also seeking to engage more men.
Our first guiding principle, neatly summarized by the title of Edgar Bronfman’s recent book, is: “Hope, Not Fear.” We do not believe, nor can we be worried, that Jewish men are on the verge of “disappearing” as some have hyperbolically suggested. One recent report on the subject contends, “The decline of male interest in Jews and Judaism is a crisis, and needs to be recognized and responded to as such.”
We feel the word “crisis” should be reserved for special occasions. Germany 1933? Crisis. Suez 1973? Crisis (for about a week). A 13% differential between boys who agree that “Bar/Bat Mitzvah was graduation from Jewish school” (47%) compared to girls (34%)? Not a crisis.
If we are going to share what we love about being Jewish with currently-unengaged boys and men—who can choose to do and be whatever they want in the free and open American marketplace of ideas—it must come from our genuine joy and pride, and offer real meaning and value. When we’re solely driven by our “Ever-Dying People” complex, or the urgency to grow the annual campaign or increase our synagogue’s membership, it turns people off. Today in America is the best time to be alive and Jewish than at any other time in 2,000 years! Doomsayers see this as the pinnacle and can only look down, but we say there are still heights to climb.
The alarmist approach can be seen in the context of a larger “crisis,” the so-called “continuity crisis,” initiated by the 1990 National Jewish Population Study finding that 52% of Jews who’d married in the prior five years had intermarried. In this crisis, still ongoing after two decades, it’s not just men but all of American Jewry that is disappearing. (Which begs the question, does it really matter if the men go first?)
The failed reaction to the continuity crisis was to try to change the trend rather than accept and work within it. Countless millions of dollars were spent on programs that were subtly or overtly intended to bring down the intermarriage rate. But the trend continued, because many of the factors causing it were well beyond our control, including population spread and the decline in anti-Semitism. Likewise, many of the trends impacting the way men relate to Judaism are beyond our control, like societal pressures and secularization.
The shift toward less affiliation for men is happening in most religions in America. A survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that nearly 20 percent of men say they have no religious affiliation, compared to 13 percent of women. Sometimes the hardest thing for Jews to contemplate is that we’re just like everybody else. As with intermarriage, the “withdrawal” of men from religious life is an American phenomenon, not a Jewish-only problem. The organized Jewish community telling Jewish men they should become more religious probably won’t impact the trend any more than telling single Jews they shouldn’t intermarry.
Instead, we need to provide many more options for men to engage with the Jewish community and identify personal meaning in the traditions. Gender-specific programming may be one way to determine what men want and need from the Jewish community. JOI has had success with women’s programming, including our Mothers Circle for women of other religious backgrounds raising Jewish children. While not all the lessons will be transferrable, the Mothers Circle is effective not only because it is a “safe space” for moms but more importantly, the participants are there to address clearly articulated, shared challenges that they would not feel as comfortable discussing in a mixed environment.
For unaffiliated men, it won’t be enough to replicate the men’s programming that already exists for the affiliated. Unaffiliated men play in secular softball leagues with both Jews and non-Jews; they don’t want or need an all-Jewish softball league. They share drinks at bars and restaurants; Kiddush clubs only attract men who have already entered/been dragged to synagogue. Outreach to men needs to go where men are, and where they’re “at.”
JOI will be piloting two program models in Bergen County, New Jersey this fall, one for Jewish men with partners of other religious backgrounds to strategize how to create a Jewish household when they themselves are not deeply engaged, and another for intermarried/interpartnered men of other religious backgrounds to answer their Jewish children’s questions. Both will be held in secular venues and offered free to participants thanks to the support of a Berrie Innovation Grant. A few other organizations are taking similar first steps but much more thought an innovation is needed, and more importantly, we need to listen and learn from men themselves.
Though nobody ever mistook Yom Kippur for “fun,” if you do the High Holidays right you emerge with a clean slate and sense of optimism for the year ahead. This coming year, as we continue to support the incredible gains made by women in Jewish religious life, and as we continue to break through glass ceilings where they still exist, let’s also open up the spectrum of opportunities for unaffiliated men to find meaning in participation in Jewish communal life.
The Jewish Outreach Institute is honored and thrilled to announce that we are the recipients of a 
JOI recently launched 
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