First there was the Conservative movement’s October biennial conference, billed as the “conversation of the century” and opened up to presenters from outside the movement.
Then came the November General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, which featured a global “marketplace of dialogue and debate” led by young Israelis and Americans from outside the federation world.
Now comes the biennial conference of the Union for Reform Judaism, scheduled Dec. 11-15 in San Diego, which for the first time will be open to participants who are not members of Reform congregations. Learning sessions, in past years run almost exclusively by Reform staff, will be led in many cases by presenters from outside the movement. And one evening, performers from the conference — from musicians to comedians — will go out to venues in the surrounding neighborhood to share Reform Judaism’s good cheer with greater San Diego.
Reform leaders say they’re not trying to be trendy; they want to bring the conference in line with the movement’s philosophy.
“We have opened the biennial as a symbol of where we are as the Reform movement,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the union’s president, said in an interview in his New York office. “Openness is our practice. It is not just a technique, a thing to do. It is who we are.”
For Jacobs, the biennial will be the first he is running. The last one, held near Washington and featuring President Barack Obama as a speaker, was the movement’s largest conference ever and marked the transition from the leadership of Rabbi Eric Yoffie, Jacobs’ predecessor.
This year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to address the conference — a first for a sitting Israeli prime minister, though he’ll probably deliver the address via video rather than in person. Other speakers include Religious Action Center director Anat Hoffman, Brandeis University professor Jonathan Sarna and food writer Mark Bittman.
For the Reform movement, the question isn’t so much whether the four-day conference is a success but whether Reform Judaism can tackle the growing disaffiliation and disengagement in its ranks.
The recent Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews found that while Reform remains the largest American Jewish denomination, with 35 percent of American Jews, it ranks lowest of the three major movements on some key metrics of Jewish engagement.
Reform Jews are the most likely of the denominations to leave the Jewish fold. According to Pew, 28 percent of Jews born Reform no longer consider themselves Jewish by religion, compared to 17 percent of Conservative and 11 percent of Orthodox. Half of married Reform Jews have a non-Jewish spouse. Just 43 percent of Reform Jews say being Jewish is very important to them, and only 16 percent say religion is very important in their lives.
At 1.7 children per couple, the birth rate of Reform Jews is the lowest of the three major U.S. Jewish denominations and well below the replacement rate. Fewer than half of those children are enrolled in any kind of formal Jewish educational or youth program. The median age of Reform Jews is 54.
Like its counterpart in the Conservative movement, the Union for Reform Judaism is under pressure to demonstrate to its 900 member congregations that they are getting their money’s worth for the dues they pay.
It is in this context, Jacobs said, that he was brought on as president to re-examine everything the movement does.
Next summer, the movement will open two new summer camps — a science and technology overnight camp near Boston, and a day camp near Philadelphia.
Since May 2012, a pilot group of more than a dozen synagogues has been working to overhaul the movement’s approach to bar and bat mitzvahs as part of a program called the B’nai Mitzvah Revolution. The effort, the movement says, is intended “to reduce the staggering rates of post–b’nai mitzvah dropout.”