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In a wonderful complement to last week’s episode, Daniel Libenson — creator of jUChicago and The Institute for the Next Jewish Future — discusses the religious challenges facing Judaism in contemporary America and what might need to happen in the future. We explore these issues through the lens of his work with Hillel and his other institutional creations, and how he is using “design thinking” to provide creative ways to engage secular Jews in their historical faith.

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Why are American Jews more liberal than their socio-economic non-Jewish counterparts?
Why are they more politically liberal than Jews in other countries? And what explains the rightward, then leftward, drift of Jews from the 1970s to present? Prof. Ken Wald provides an interesting historical explanation to these three puzzles. A great complimentary episode to last week’s discussion.

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Carmel Chiswick (University of Illinois, Chicago and the George Washington University) discusses the economics of American Judaism, showing how higher wage rates and the “cost of time” shaped the way that Jewish immigrants practiced their faith. We look primarily at the German and Russian/East German Jewish immigration of the 19th century and how the socio-economic circumstances of those groups shaped the Reform and Conservative Jewish movements. Our conversation also covers the issues of immigration, education, and assimilation, ending with a discussion of what America Judaism looks like today, what it is likely to become, and how it is influencing Judaism worldwide.

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