The state of the U.S. economy isn’t just a political election issue. It can be a religious and even a spiritual matter as well.
It apparently was much on the minds of many of the 380 people who attended the Union for Reform Judaism’s Great Lakes Council biennial convention held at Milwaukee’s Pfister Hotel on Nov. 6-9.
And it definitely was and is on the mind of the man who can be considered the leader of the Reform movement’s some 1.25 million U.S. members — Rabbi Eric Yoffie, URJ president since 1996.
In a conversation with The Chronicle at the hotel on Nov. 7, Yoffie said he attended meetings like this both to speak about and to listen to the concerns of Reform Jews throughout the country. And the economy is “very much right now on people’s minds,” he said.
This is partly out of concern for how movement institutions, especially synagogues, will be able to operate. “There’s not a lot of fat in a congregation’s budget,” Yoffie said, and some are “struggling to make ends meet.”
But beyond that is concern for people affected by the situation and “how, in a time of economic stress, do synagogues, rabbis and others reach out to provide comfort and solace” to people worried about losing their jobs, to elderly people living on investments that have plunged in value, etc., he said.
Yoffie said that in the address he was scheduled to deliver on Nov. 8, he would discuss themes and issues that he has discussed at similar Reform movement meetings throughout the country. They include:
• How the economy is placing stresses on family life, “making it difficult for parents to spend time with their children,” Yoffie said.
• How the synagogue can be “an essential element in providing a response to those pressures,” he said, “especially by providing community.”
“We have a loss of place in American life,” he said. “We don’t have roots any more, no more Jewish neighborhoods,” like his native community in Worcester, Mass.
“The task of the synagogue is to provide a place where a Jew says, ‘I belong.’ The synagogue offers community in a country that is particularly hungry for community.”
• How one way synagogues can help to strengthen families is by finding “a distinctive Reform way to observe Shabbat.”
“For us, Shabbat should be a time not to think about all the things we shouldn’t do, but the things we should be doing,” which include “connect with our families and deepen our spirituality,” Yoffie said.
• How the synagogue is “the vehicle to express our views about the broader community and our commitment to tikkun olam [repair of the world through social action],” he said.
“Our tradition demands of us both that we look out for ourselves and for the community around us,” he said. Moreover, “the best way we advance our interests and values is not to be focused on ourselves exclusively.”
For example, Yoffie said he discusses what he believes are effective and ineffective ways to combat anti-Semitism. To focus solely and intensively on anti-Semitic incidents and statements and fears in the hope that will generate support for us “does not work as well as people expect,” Yoffie said.
“First, it sends a message that we’re eternal victims,” Yoffie said. “People get tired of that. Our own children get tired of that. They don’t feel like victims.”
“Ultimately, we advance our interests by forming coalitions” with other communities, he said.
“If we want Christians to be concerned about us, we need to be concerned about them and support the right of Christians to worship anywhere in the world. If we want Muslims to be supportive of our concerns about radicalism and extremism, we need to be concerned about Islamophobia.”
Such coalition-building and dialogue does not mean that groups have to agree about everything or that there are no conditions or ground rules, Yoffie said.
When he spoke to the Islamic Society of North America in 2007, Yoffie said that organization had accepted “certain basic conditions,” like endorsing a “two-state solution” (i.e., a Jewish state of Israel and a Palestinian state) and “absolute rejection” of terrorism against Jews and Israelis.
But “you cannot expect to agree on all points” with such partners. “If you agree on everything, you have no need for dialogue,” he said.
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