Wondering

On Being Jewish in America Today

What does it mean to be Jewish in America today?

That’s the question we’re all asking ourselves, right?

Maybe not consciously. Maybe not all day, every day. Maybe not in quite those terms.

But it seems to me, for American Jews, this is the question of the hour.

What does it mean to be Jewish, here and now?

This is hardly a new question, of course. For the vast majority of America’s Jews who live outside the structures of a Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community – in which Judaism pervades nearly every detail of daily life, down to which shoe you put on first and which to tie first (the right and left, respectively, per the Talmud) – Jewish life has long involved a kind of inner negotiation.

Which rituals feel meaningful? How much observance is necessary? How much is sufficient?

What do we owe to our ancestors, to the generations who sacrificed just so there could be Judaism in 2025 at all? And what do we owe to our kids, who are looking to us to understand what being Jewish means?

Take my father, for example. He served as president of the synagogue we belonged to, and he was a member or chair of numerous committees. Active member of the Jewish community, right? Only my family didn’t do a ton of actual attending of services at the synagogue. And I can remember him lamenting the fact that we’d become “the kind of Jews who only go to temple on the High Holidays.”

Feeling like you’re not doing Judaism quite right is itself a time-honored Jewish tradition.

In the last few years, though, this question of how to build a fuller and more authentic connection to Judaism has taken on new urgency.

The barbarous attacks on Israel on October 7th and the tidal wave of antisemitism that followed have impacted all of us, in many cases directly. Our relatives are imperiled, our synagogues are threatened. And this has awakened in so many of us a renewed desire to strengthen our own Judaism, and to strengthen the Jewish community worldwide. Remember, that community represents just 0.2% of the world’s population. So we’re not wrong to feel we have an outsized role to play in its survival.

So this brings us back to the question, the now urgent question: What does it mean to be Jewish in America today?

Well, when you consider the Jews of America as a group, the answer seems to be… A lot of things!

American Jewish life is notorious for its variations in degrees of observance, in rituals embraced and neglected, in traditional rules adhered to and forsaken, or something in between. As to the something in-between – I don’t keep kosher, technically, but I’d also like to think that I don’t not keep kosher. Yes, I mix meat and dairy whenever I feel like having a cheeseburger. But I don’t eat pork or shellfish. Does that count for something? If you’re asking me it does! And then there are the categories of non-religious Jewish life: cultural, political, ethical. To some, Judaism is bagels and Ezra Klein; to others, it’s unwavering support of Israel; to still others, being Jewish means never under any circumstances crossing a picket line.

Categories overlap and interact, practices fall away and accrue over time. That inner negotiation I mentioned earlier can play out so differently in different people’s heads.

And to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with this! I certainly don't think there's a right or wrong way to be Jewish, or that one expression of Judaism should be privileged over any other.

But from the perspective of trying to determine how Judaism should look in one’s own life, or trying to connect with a broader Jewish community, the fact that "being Jewish" might mean so many different things can be a little bewildering.

Being Jewish in America today is hard – not least because it allows for so much variation.

How do you navigate everything Judaism could be to arrive at what it should be, for you?

So once again: What does it mean to be Jewish in America today?

Well, one feature I'd point to, and one I'll be returning to often in this newsletter, is the fact of the question itself. I'd argue it's a healthy question to have. Curiosity is a good thing. Wondering is a good thing.

As my rabbi put it when I was discussing the launch of this newsletter with him, "A good question is worth a whole lot more than an answer. A good question persists."

And persistence – that's about as Jewish a quality as one could name.

So that's where we begin, with a good question, and one for which I hope you’ll share your own answer:

What does it mean to be Jewish in America today?