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Thursday November 15, 2007

Let’s talk about the future — with no agendas

by sarah lefton

What’s on your mind when you think “future of the Jewish community”? Here’s a quick, cranky list of what’s on mine:

• Isn’t it sad that working folks like my fiancé and I definitely can’t afford day school for our (future) children?

• How come kids continue to grow up like I did, with zero basic Torah literacy?

• Why doesn’t someone organize an eruv in San Francisco already?

• Why are Jewish professionals paid so poorly that they can’t afford to live here?

• Will independent minyans continue to thrive and grow, or will we all freak out and join synagogues?

• Why isn’t there local support for Jewish arts projects like my educational cartoon?

Now, let’s say you took me, with my cranky list of concerns, and threw me into a room with 60 other folks and their lists. What would you get?

Chaos? Yelling? Heartburn?

Try a three-day fascinating conversation.

I just returned from “The Conversation: Jewish in America,” an annual agenda-free conference put on by the Jewish Week (roughly New York’s answer to j.). Sixty of the most interesting Jews I’ve ever met — teachers, writers, activists, foundation executives, academics and artists — gathered outside Atlanta from Oct. 14 to 16 for three days of open-ended conversations. We did not work on anything specific — we just talked.

“The Conversation” was the most enjoyable, productive Jewish conference I’ve ever attended. The 60 of us found out what’s on each other’s minds and built the networks that will incite great change into our disparate communities.

Our inspiring facilitator, Yoni Gordis, used a process called Open Space Technology to run the proceedings. He threw a pile of blank paper into the middle of the room and invited us to do a brain dump. Got an issue? Title it and stick it on a poster. Then we — in an exuberant, anarchic process — created a schedule on the fly. No keynotes, no panels — just open conversations.

I landed in a series of thought-provoking and diverse conversations over the course of three days. (I even led one.) Here’s a tiny sampling of what was on offer:

• “I can’t afford to be Jewish”

• “How to leverage technology trends for Jewish

community”

• “What is the future (or lack thereof) of congregational life in America?”

• “Hebrew school: why is it so bad?”

• “Is Israel becoming a partisan wedge issue?”

• “Does Ann Coulter matter?”

• “God”

Open Space Technology isn’t new — it’s been around as a facilitation technique since 1993. But what’s amazing about letting go of agendas is that the conversations that need to happen, happen. The people who have something to add to the discussion add it. When it’s all optional, every hour feels worthwhile, and each connection feels meaningful.

So here is a call to arms: Let’s do this in the Bay Area. Let’s get together in a nice setting, over some good food, and talk about how we’d like to see this community grow, change, solidify and nourish itself.

No agendas. No fundraising. No leadership development. No awards. Just people of all stripes talking about what’s important to them. Not just the executives, the board members, the donors, and the principals. Rather, everyone who is called to join in the conversation should be welcome. Who knows what will come out of it? And who knows what will trickle east from out here on the great fringe of the diaspora?

As a former marketing and outreach director for Camp Tawonga and a longtime local lay leader, I can say that I’m burned out on reading studies, attending outreach conferences, being denied out-of-town grants and begging uninterested donors to listen to my entrepreneurial pitch.

The active Jewish community here is relatively small. I don’t care what the national population study says, because I see the same people at the same events day in and day out. We have the bandwidth to get together and figure things out in the Bay Area. (The great thing about “The Conversation” was that some out-of-town foundations shlepped me to Atlanta to come to my “think local” conclusions.)

As my mentors at Camp Tawonga always say, “Children support the things they help create.” No one knows better what Bay Area Jewish people need than the people themselves. Let’s talk.

Sarah Lefton is a San Francisco writer, blogger and Jewish entrepreneur. Her latest project is G-dcast.com, a currently unfunded weekly Torah cartoon for young adults and teens.

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