Ilan Wagner directs Makom in North America, the Jewish Agency’s effort to enhance Israel identity in local communities.
September 4, 2008
The Jewish Federation of Central New Jersey is taking a hard look at Israel’s place in local communal life.
Concerned especially about youth and their connection to the Jewish state, the federation has entered into talks with Makom — literally, “place” — a project of the Jewish Agency for Israel that examines the teaching and experiencing of Israel in the Diaspora.
The 13 federations already partnered with Makom have embarked on a multi-year process to determine what combination of cultural, educational, and travel activities will help strengthen individual and community connections with Israel.
“One of our focuses is bringing the community together and heightening the sense of Jewish identity,” said Linda Poleyeff, the director of education at the federation. “That would include bringing Israel to the forefront. We feel that Makom fits right into this.”
While Makom acts as a consultant and networking agent, it is up to the local organizations to develop their own initiatives.
But nothing is certain just yet. “It’s not official that we’re going to be implementing Makom, but we’re moving in that direction,” Poleyeff said, adding that it’s up to the member synagogues and organizations to commit to the program.
On Aug. 26, Poleyeff, federation executive director Stanley Stone, rabbis and other leaders of the community met with Makom representatives, including Ilan Wagner, the director of its North American branch and the senior representative of JAFI’s North American Department of Education.
Those in attendance included representatives of Temple Sholom of Fanwood, the Jewish Educational Center of Elizabeth, the YM-YWHA of Union County, Temple Har Shalom of Warren, the JCC of Central NJ, Temple Emanu-El of Westfield, and Congregation Beth Israel of Scotch Plains.
The effort is part of the federation’s strategic plan to update its infrastructure and implement new initiatives in order to expand community outreach, reinforce its role as a community convener, and make itself more relevant to community needs, officials said.
Wagner said the federation’s strategic approach meshes well with Makom, which he called a “change strategy.”
By starting off with a “mapping process” that gathers data on where the Jewish state stands in each community, Makom walks institutions through developing a vision for Israel’s place in Jewish life and identifying who needs to be involved in making change happen.
‘Wrestling and hugging’
One problem area that emerged through the conversation with local leaders was the place of Israel in the Jewish identity of members of younger generations.
“There really is on the one hand a very strong commitment to Israel among certain parts of the population,” Wagner said, “and I think that the federation leadership is very foresighted to say, ‘Well, despite the fact that it seems so strong and robust, when we look into it, we see that we’re not doing the same kind of thing with younger people. They don’t see Israel the same way, and we need to be able to come up with a way to deal with that.’”
Concerns about engaging the youth are not unique to the Central NJ area, and similar challenges elsewhere have inspired a “wrestling and hugging” approach to Israel. Makom encourages open debate about tough issues — the sort of debate that Israelis engage in frequently but which has often been downplayed within the American-Jewish establishment.
“We often find that the people — the teachers or the youth workers or the rabbis or the JCC directors or whoever it might be — often don’t have the comfort level to deal with Israel in a way which we think it needs to be dealt with to be relevant for young people,” Wagner said.
Rabbi Joel Abraham of Temple Sholom, among other attendees, was eager to begin working with Makom.
“For us it seems pretty much win-win,” said Abraham, who added that his small congregation has no Israel committee and few resources to further the objectives set by Makom. “But I’m in a different place than other congregations who may already have Israel advocacy groups.” He noted that Rabbi Eliyahu Teitz, the associate dean of the Orthodox JEC network, had mentioned that many of his students go to live in Israel after they graduate.
Despite the fact that the different organizations have varying levels of Israel programming, Poleyeff said she felt that the point was that much more could be done.
Teitz was also enthusiastic about working with the Makom team.
“Experiencing Israel in person is the best way to create enduring connections to the people, land, and State of Israel,” Teitz wrote in an e-mail. “Absent such a visit, bringing Israel to us at our homes is the next best alternative. Makom seems to be exactly such a program.”
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