Is Jews in the Woods a Casualty of its Own Success?
Emily Fishman and Abigail Friedman were distraught. The two students had just returned from the spring 2007 gathering of Jews in the Woods (JiTW), the biannual student-organized Shabbaton known for its pluralistic, spiritual environment. After serving as the chief organizers of the event, the Brandeis sophomore and Columbia senior had expected to recruit a new pair of volunteers to organize a gathering for the fall. They were shocked when none of the 130 students present volunteered. Together, they composed an e-mail to the group’s listserv. “This one isn’t going to be easy,” they wrote. “It’s a concern that goes to the root of what JiTW is, what it should be, and what road this community is headed down…There no longer seems to be a pool of JiTWniks with the interest, experience, and right kind of energy to step up…and lead this group forward.”
Unlike many student groups, Jews in the Woods has no elected positions or hierarchy, no board of directors, and no permanent membership. Says Margie Klein, a Yale graduate involved with Jews in the Woods since its founding in 1997, “A huge percentage of the people who attend feel like they are part of the decision-making process. There is no formal leader, but the flexible structure engenders enormous creativity and collaboration.”
In recent months, it has become clear these same traits may actually be endangering its survival. For the first time since 2003, there will be no Jews in the Woods gathering this semester. This incident brings to surface many underlying questions. For years, the group has insisted on seeing itself as a gathering of friends instead of a formal organization. As it grows, this self-definition becomes harder to maintain. Is this a wake-up call that, after ten years of existence, the structure of the community needs to change? Does it signify the end of a unique but transient community? Or, is this lapse simply due to the inherently erratic nature of a student-run organization?
These issues are a matter of contention among Jews in the Woods members. Because of changes in the community itself, the beloved non-hierarchical structure may no longer be applicable or effective.
A DiY Shabbos
On the cold March evening in 2003 when Zach Teutsch arrived at his first Jews in the Woods Shabbaton, he had a revelation.
For months, friends had been urging the Brown University junior to attend the gathering. He finally caved, piling in to an ancient Toyota Camry with two friends and a pile of supplies. The drive to the retreat center in the Berkshires was treacherous. Freezing rain turned the roads to ice and obscured street signs and traffic signals. Turns were missed. Nerves were frayed.
They arrived late and hurried inside. Teutsch remembers that moment as a sort of spiritual watershed. “I could see in a deep way that I was home,” he says. “This was it.” Inspired by what he found, Teutsch threw himself into the community, volunteering to be a lead organizer of the next three retreats. “Everything which we needed for Shabbat from the siddurim [prayer books] to the salatim [salads] came from someone who was there. We made our own food, and we made our own experience,” he says.
This do-it-yourself spirit was for years an essential part of the Jews in the Woods experience. Every person attending the gathering contributed something. Some were in charge of food, others found the space to hold the gathering, and many planned activities for the weekend, such as prayer sessions and learning groups. Teutsch explains, “JiTW was the first community I was ever in where we needed to bring of ourselves (physically) to make it happen. Our car was loaded with books. Other years I had the kavod of bringing the Torah.”
Today, leaders of the group report increasing difficulty in convincing attendees to participate in the event’s preparation. This can be attributed, at least in part, to Jews in the Woods’ growth. In recent years, the community has nearly tripled in size. Once a group of friends getting off campus to reconnect while celebrating Shabbat, Jews in the Woods has evolved into a large-scale gathering. “It became perceived as an institution, not a personal thing,” says Joseph Gindi, a 2003 graduate of Wesleyan University. “As it became [more] institutionalized, it became a thing that someone else was taking care of…people thought about it as something that just existed.”
Let it Die
Now, many Jews in the Woods members are asking themselves the same question that recent Brandeis graduate Julie Arnowitz asks: “Do you put band-aids on this democratic, transparent community or do you create an entirely new vision?” Some believe that Jews in the Woods would benefit from adopting an organizational structure in order to accommodate the changes that have occurred within the community. “Even if it is an organization, people will still experience the joyous occasion and the radical combination of community and a thirst for a better world. It would improve things logistically and tighten aspects of the community,” says Zach Teutsch.
However, most members seem to think that if Jews in the Woods develops into an organization, the spiritual essence of the community might be at risk. They think that having a permanent leadership and a set process of making decisions contradicts what Jews in the Woods stands for – an anti-hierarchal and spontaneous community devoted to learning about and celebrating Judaism in a uninhibited setting. “Jews in the Woods is fun, exciting, and experimental. It was a collection of people who were really into what they were doing. There would be less enthusiasm [if we were there] just because it was happening and not because people wanted it to happen,” says Alan Belsky, a SUNY Binghamton graduate who was involved with Jews in the Woods from 2005-2007.
“The cool thing about Jews in the Woods is that it has the capacity to die,” says Gindi. He thinks that the end of Jews in the Woods would be no great tragedy. “We wind up with all of these moldy institutions in the Jewish World. Networks maintain themselves. Even if it dies, it still has the robustness about it.”
Jay Michaelson, chief editor of the Jewish journal Zeek, believes that the fact that there is no fall gathering this semester is actually a positive occurrence. “This is not a failure but a success,” he says. “People create Jews in the Woods together. So many Jewish organizations outlive their youthfulness. It is refreshing that if this community it not vital for its members anymore, then it ceases to occur.”
The future of Jews in the Woods is unclear. Perhaps it is going on a hiatus and will return in its present form, maybe the structure of the community will undergo a metamorphosis, or perhaps it may cease to exist altogether. But, just as the community itself is defined by a joie de vive attitude, members confront questions involving Jews in the Woods’ future without much worry. “Either people will say wow, this should really be happening again or it will end,” says Gindi. “Both of these are okay outcomes. If people are not invested anymore, it doesn’t have to live.”
