How are today’s economic woes reshaping American Jewish life?

A new era of belt-tightening is threatening a number of bold initiatives fueled by the great rise of Jewish wealth in the ’80s and the ’90s. Compounding the problem is the fact that while different sectors of the American Jewish community are busy explaining to all who will listen why their particular area of Jewish service has to be preserved at all costs, no one has put forth serious ideas about how to cut the Jewish communal budget by one-third when Jewish foundations, even excluding the Bernard Madoff losses, are approximately one-third poorer than they were this time last year. Over the next few years we will see which organizations in Jewish life have kept strong balance sheets, budgeted prudently, and built broad-scale support, and which have not. At a time when individual needs are rising and communal means are falling, the Jewish community will have to engage in a kind of organizational triage. My guess is that many Jewish educational institutions, several Jewish museums, ...  more