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Engaging the Next Generation in Jewish Life

The top priority of our Strategic Plan, Jewish Boston Connected, is to connect the next generation and their families to a vibrant Jewish life. It recognizes and embraces one of the most important and reliable findings on Jewish engagement: an adult Jew who has had consistent, positive Jewish experiences as a child, teenager and young adult is much more likely to connect Jewishly later in life.

To achieve our goals, the Plan calls for initiatives that engage the next generation through both formal and informal education and a rich variety of participation and engagement programs.

Our Strategic Goals

1. Build a more open, sensitive and welcoming community where all who want to participate in Jewish life can easily find relevant, compelling ways of joining and more accessible information to support their ongoing participation.

2. Create a continuum of involvement from “cradle to cradle,” providing opportunities for families with young children, school-age children, teenagers, college students and young adults to have meaningful Jewish experiences with the potential for long-term impact.

3. Make Boston a hub for creative, dynamic Jewish social entrepreneurs by seeding innovation and encouraging the use of technology.
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FACT...

Most young Jews are developing identities that cut across traditional religious and cultural boundaries. The most oft-quoted example – 50% of all new marriages involving a Jew in Greater Boston are interfaith marriages – is a demographic shift so basic that it requires significant rethinking of every aspect of Jewish communal life. How we engage and respond to interfaith families will have a far-reaching impact on the Jewish community from now on.

As we begin to implement the plan, our 2009 priorities are


- Expanding programs for families with young children - Piloting new types of supplementary education

- Sending more children to Jewish summer camps

- Making day schools more accessible to children with special needs

- Growing our Taglit-Birthright Israel Campus programs

- Providing new grants and venture support for young adults

- Creating JewishBoston.com, a new online resource