As a college student, the University had an organization, student run, that arranged for people of national prominence to visit periodically and give a public lecture in our largest auditorium. No admission charge. I got to hear from famous authors, elected officials, a future Nobel Laureate, public activists in the daily headlines. Seats approaching full each time. I do not remember ever being turned away. But with attendance in the thousands, opportunities for interaction rarely happened.
My attraction to and admiration for experts never subsided. In my professional medical world, the greatest masters sometimes worked where I worked. More often, they would assemble at the professional society's annual convention in a distant city. The ballroom at the convention center would fill. In the exhibition hall, they or their fellows would stand with posters of their work, chatting with nobodies like me as we moved from one poster to the next.
My Jewish world also brought me into the same room of highly accomplished people. Rabbis sometimes, authors whose works I had read, visiting scholars, heads of legacy agencies, experts on Israel. If it was reasonable to get there, sometimes requiring a babysitter, I made an effort to hear what they had to convey. And often the moderators took my question. On occasion, I even met with a few in a small group for more private verbal exchanges.
This past week, one of our legacy Jewish organizations invited an individual of major accomplishment to address the local community. The announcement came by email a year ago. I registered, then received a notice that he had to cancel on short notice. I put my name down for notification when will come, then largely forgot about the cancelled event. Unexpectedly, and on short notice, an announcement of his visit appeared on my email. An evening presentation, as the cancelled one had been. I registered immediately, receiving a confirmation. The event went onto the weekly whiteboard schedule which helps keep my wife an me in synch with our fixed appointments.
I arrived with ample time to spare. The registration table's sheet included my name on its computer printout. Somebody put a check-mark next to it and I walked two short corridors to the building's main auditorium. Looking around the room, I recognized the majority of those already there and probably the majority of those who would enter later. Most by name, as well as by face. A few quick greetings, no serious conversations. I took an isolated seat towards the front near the wall farthest from the door, then put my cell phone on buzz.
When I go to events with a keynote speaker, whether professional or Jewish, I usualy seek a seat by myself. Rarely, somebody will come over to me, though we are cordial when that happens. Brief hello, never profound discussion of the subject we came to learn more about from the expert. Sometimes I bring a pad for some jotting of notes or reviewing the day nearing its conclusion. Mostly I look around at the audience. Medical audiences usually strike me as diverse. Young people in training, practitioners like me, senior professors who tend to know each other or serve on the committees that arrange the meetings. People of many complexions, often in ethnic attire. Security staff barely noticeable.
Jewish gatherings strike me as very different, at least the local ones I attend, including this evening's. Roughly an even distribution of men and women. Few kippot. Most strikingly, very homogeneous in age. My age, Baby Boomes. A few Gen X. Millenials and Gen Z countable on my digits. Not that different than on shabbos at any of the synagogues other than Chabad. The people in that auditorium seemed liked minor variances of me. Grandparents, professionals often retired. Engaged in the Jewish community in multiple ways, often with enough commitment to earn a title or at least serve on a committee.
At Seder, we recite a lesson of the Four Sons, young people of different temperaments and levels of sophistication. All present at the table. We do not acknowledge those who should sit at the table but are absent. That is what I saw that evening. Kids, young adults, teens, parents of Hebrew School or Day School kids, men and women of early to mid-career barely present. And when present, serving as designated driver for a parent or grandparent. A few worked for the sponsor.
The evening's distinguished speaker had served as US Ambassador to Israel under a Democratic President, worked on that administration's controversial Iran Nuclear Agreement, negotiated diplomatic relations between Israel and Arab nations for two Presidents, and held a senior appointment in the Pentagon coordinating Israel's protection as his most recent government assignment. When administrations changed to the other party, his expertise shifted to Think Tanks that attempted to guide public opinion. Those who came to hear him, presented as an interview by another highly accomplished political figure rather than a speech with questions later, had already established enduring loyalty to Israel as a place of Jewish sovereignty, though undoubtedly with a variety of perspectives on what the optimal recommendations of the American Jewish community should be.
As Israel comes into the political crosshairs, particularly amid the speaker's political party, with disaffection among younger people, including Jewish ones, it seems the Jews not there were the ones who would have benefited most from the ambassador's perspectives. But they were someplace else that evening.
And those same people seeem someplace else on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings when people of my generation assemble for worship. My own congregation has devoted effort to membership recruitment with some success, though the age distribution of our members has not shifted downwards in a meaningful way. With the public acceptance of American anti-Semitism moving from radical soapbox to people who get elected, with anti-Israel's legitimacy as its justification, those young Jews not present were also the ones relentlessly ridiculed by social media bots and harassed on campus, and sometimes even in the workplace.
Perhaps the absent Gen Z and Millennials take a private stance on their Jewish and Israel attachments with a low profile. But identifying with personal presence has no meaningful back door. In the era of those sitting in that auditorium, we lobbied for repressed Soviet Jews whose children now make Israel strong economically, scientifically, and militarily. It's not that young people won't come. They populate No Kings Rallies and other forms of public protest. Maybe their Hillels gather for Israel Independence Day each spring. But they did not come out to partake of an expert the way Baby Boomers have been seeking out for our adult lifetimes.
This generational divide has been evolving over time, with esteemed leadership in place every minute of that half-century. Like our synagogues, we find ourselves at a branch point. Some congregations will run out of money and fade. Others will fall to the Kaplan-Meier plots of people dying off. Our legacy agencies, the Federations and long-standing advocacy groups, have plenty of money. JFNA funded that evening's program. People whose participation is not only valued but expected seem less of a sure thing, despite Young Leadership initiatives. I did not see carpools or minivans from Hillel. I did not see the last two classes of Federation's Young Leadership alumni in that auditorium. The leadership in place needs to enhance this and maybe keep score, to replace my anecdotal observations with genuine, actionable data.
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