Shmarya Rosenberg, the writer of FailedMessiah–a blog covering the Orthodox world–reposted a column by Gary Rosenblatt, editor of the Jewish Week, calling for support of New Voices. Rosenberg, who was involved in the North American Jewish Students’ Network decades ago, then wrote his own account of how the Jewish Establishment has not paid enough attention to what Jewish students are actually saying:
The Jewish community has been deaf to the opinions, needs and wants of its college and university students for at the very least the past 40 years. …
When Federation and UJA leaders wanted to know what was happening on college campuses, they asked the middle age staffers at Hillel – who invariably reported that campuses were calm and that students were happy. Hillel’s programs were said to be well attended. Things were good. Just give us more money, Hillel would say, and we’ll do even better for you.
The truth was that campuses were bleeding Jews. The assimilation rate was skyrocketing. So was antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
Student-led organizations, from Network to the Jewish Student Press Service, did most the successful work combating this. But we did it in poverty and without the ear of Jewish community leadership. (About the only time we could get Federation leadership to listen to us was when we staged a takeover of its General Assembly.)
The Jewish community eats it young. It is how it is.
The Jewish Student Press Service has to beg for an annual budget that is less than what many Federation staffers make individually. And the Federations will continue to expensive fund studies that try to determine why so few young Jews get involved with the community, and why even fewer give any money.
The Federations will fret about Jewish continuity. They’ll keep funding asinine programs run by friends, cronies, and relatives. And they’ll keep hunting for the next mega donor.
As they do all this the affiliated Jewish community will continue to grow smaller, and Federation leaders will wonder why.
Thanks for the encouragement, FailedMessiah! And the message? Support New Voices and independent Jewish student organizations!
