Hope, Not Fear: A Path to Jewish Renaissance » (First Edition)

Edgar M. Bronfman is a leading philanthropist and chairman of the Board of Governors of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life. He is the former CEO of the Seagram Company Ltd. and the former president of the World Jewish Congress. He has been recognized for his leadership by organizations, universities, and governments around the world. In 1999, President Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ highest civilian honor.

Beth Zasloff is an alumna of the Bronfman Youth Fellowships, and her collaboration with Edgar M. Bronfman has been a dynamic intergenerational partnership. She has taught writing at New York University, Johns Hopkins University, and in New York City public schools. She has a B.A. in English from Yale University and an M.A. in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University.

Advance Praise for Hope, Not Fear

“Edgar M. Bronfman’s new, provocative volume is a Jewish leader’s personal quest for new answers to timeless questions; it will certainly challenge many readers concerned with Judaism’s future.”
—Elie Wiesel

“Bronfman and Zasloff forcefully show the precariousness of grounding Jewish identity in fear of anti-Semitism and intermarriage; they offer instead an invaluable road map to energizing the range and resonance of Judaism in all of our lives.”
—Abigail Pogrebin, author of Stars of David

“Serves as an uplifting introduction to the people, institutions, issues, and ideas that promise to reshape the North American Jewish community of the twenty-first century.”
—Jonathan D. Sarna, Ph.D., Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University, and author of American Judaism

“This is a brave, honest, painful, and joyous book. Both those who are well versed in Jewish tradition and those who know not an aleph from a bet will find themselves provoked and challenged.”
—Professor Deborah E. Lipstadt, Ph.D., Director of the Rabbi Donald A. Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, Emory University, and author of History on Trial

“A wise book by a Jewish leader who loves Jews and Judaism alike….This thoughtful, insightful meditation…fills one with a sense of hope about the Jewish future.”
—Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, author of A Code of Jewish Ethics and Jewish Literacy

Publishers Weekly

Bronfman, a philanthropist, former World Jewish Congress president and former Seagram CEO, bemoans the dry, joyless Judaism of his youth, which he in turn transmitted to his own children. The Holocaust and fear of anti-Semitism are no longer enough to drive Jewish identity and participation, he argues, along with writer Zasloff; only a more open, more celebratory and hopeful communal life will draw and retain young Jews. This community must be pluralistic, unreservedly welcoming intermarried Jews and their spouses, gay Jews and others outside the traditional Jewish mold. (Among the scores of mostly young leaders the authors quote is the first Asian-American rabbi.). Few of these ideas are new, and, occasionally, Bronfman oversimplifies, as when he reduces the complex issue of intermarriage to the need for an open "tent," mirroring the hospitality of the biblical Abraham and Sarah. Still, Bronfman has spoken to and learned from a highly diverse group of American Jewish religious and cultural leaders outside the mainstream to fashion a fairly coherent view of what a more vibrant Jewish future might looks like. (Sept.)

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How This Book Was Written

Introduction 1

Pt. I The Spirit of a Jewish Renaissance 13

Ch. 1 A Golden Age for North American Jewry? 15

Ch. 2 Abraham and Sarah's Tent: Rethinking Intermarriage 24

Ch. 3 A New Judaism for a New Generation: Engaging the Disengaged 45

Ch. 4 Respect, Not Tolerance: Embracing Jewish Diversity and Difference 77

Pt. II Making Renaissance Happen 99

Ch. 5 "Go and Learn": Our Plan of Action 101

Ch. 6 Hillel, Birthright Israel, and Jewish Camping: Bringing Jewish Life to Large Numbers of Jewish Youth 108

Ch. 7 Jewish Leaders: Passing the Torch to a New Generation 144

Ch. 8 Jewish Communal Life: Updating Our Institutions 157

Ch. 9 The Jewish Home 180

Jewish Renaissance Initiatives 201

Interviews Cited 211

Notes 215