The Institution Aspect of Community

Up until now, I have been using the term ``community'' in its social-psychological or affective sense, referring to groups of people connected by interpersonal bonds and shared perspectives. But ``Jewish community'' has another set of meanings. It refers not just to people, but also to the complex of organizations that represent, serve, and offer avenues of participation to those people. The ability of these organizations to do their job well is another factor in the vitality and meaningfulness of Jewish life. One kind of community needs the other. Or, as the jargon would have it, the expression of Jewishness is a function of both identity and opportunity, both personal and institutional factors.

Here there is a problem. Our institutional framework and cultures presume high-density Jewish lives. Most of the institutional structure of contemporary American Jewish life evolved at a time when the Jewish population was concentrated in the urban and near-suburban areas of the great American cites. Jewish Centers were at the center of some large number of Jews, who would come to socialize or do recreational or cultural activities there. The social service institutions were accessible to people who needed their help. The American synagogue redefined itself as a large institution, with a staff of functionaries and large memberships who lived nearby and would come to its activities; and the training of the rabbinical seminaries, if it responded at all to the new needs of the pulpit, began to reflect a corresponding vision of the rabbi's role.

But Jews now live scattered all over the landscape. Large and growing numbers are concentrated neither near central cores nor near each other, so this kind of institution structure doesn't work universally any more. Our institutions have not yet acknowledged these facts, but their doing so is crucial to a viable Jewish future.

To put these ideas together: The power of the magnetic core does not exert itself magically. Jews who are choosing some Jewish options for decorative reasons may be brought to find deeper meaning and connection, to help shape and become part of Jewishly authentic communities --- but there have to be institutional frameworks to help this happen and to support and nourish it.