Forward.com

The Virtues of the UnaffiliatedIt’s all about the unaffiliated. Ask anyone who runs a Jewish not-for-profit, and she’ll tell you: Success is measured in terms of how many “unaffiliated” Jews you get to “affiliate” — whether with Jewishness, Judaism or, at the very least, the latest program, trend or synagogue-outreach initiative. Organizations that don’t focus on the unaffiliated have a lot of trouble getting funded; those that do, even if they do so in highly debatable ways, often find generous supporters.
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People Of the Chapbook: Jewish Poets as Jewish TeachersNot many people know it, but Jewish poetry is alive and well.
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Thinking Green: It’s Not Just a Virtue — It’s Your Jewish DutyThe rhetoric of Jewish environmentalism has long been kind and gentle. Like much of American environmentalist talk, it accentuates the positive: what we can do, how you can help. This is Left-Wing Activism 101: Fight despair, and don’t alienate anyone. And it’s abetted, in both secular and Jewish contexts, by the propensity of tree-hugging liberals to be, well, tree-hugging liberals — nice people who, when not urging recycling and conservation, are also practicing nonviolent communication and advocating for pacifist politics.
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