Next Generation Judaism: How College Students and Hillel Can Help Reinvent Jewish Organizations

Winner of the 2016 National Jewish Book Award in the category of Education and Jewish Identity

The Jewish world is changing before our eyes. The traditional notions of what it means to be a Jew, what Jewish organizations look like and what Jewish leadership means are no longer working, leaving many Jewish organizations in a struggle for survival. Many Jewish leaders are afraid that this will only get worse as the millennials―the “my way, right away, why pay” generation―begin to enter adulthood.

But college campuses are incubators of new and vibrant expressions of Jewish life. With motivation and entrepreneurial spirit, and without the limitations of cynicism or institutional history, students are inventing and reinventing Jewish community, Jewish prayer, Jewish service and Jewish learning, and Hillel is right there with them. Each chapter of this book explores innovations developed on the University of Pennsylvania campus and shows how they can be applied to synagogues, Federations and JCCs to help them reinvent themselves so that they are better able to meet the changing needs of American Jews.

This is an essential resource for lay leaders, rabbis, cantors and anyone who wants to build a brighter Jewish future for all Jews and the institutions that support them.