jpr / news           Winter 2000

JPR targets governance, Jewish schooling and care for the elderly

The fourth annual seminar for the Jewish voluntary sector at the end of November reported back on the latest developments in JPR’s four-year project, Long-Term Planning for British Jewry. Chaired by Rosalind Preston OBE, JPR Board Member, it was attended by a wide range of key community professionals and lay leaders, including representatives of many of the institutions funding the project.

From left: JPR Chairman Peter L. Levy OBE, David J. Lewis and Rosalind preston OBE

In his introduction, Professor Barry Kosmin, JPR Executive Director, explained that JPR’s role as project manager was to get the best minds available to apply themselves to this path-breaking study. No other ethnic or religious group was doing similar work. He stressed the need for the Jewish community to transmit a sense of social responsibility to the next generation.

Governance in the Jewish voluntary sector

Margaret Harris, Professor of Voluntary Sector Organisation at the Aston Business School, and Colin Rochester of the School of Business, Roehampton Institute, University of Surrey, presented the preliminary findings of the research on governance in the Jewish voluntary sector, which will be published in early 2001. This study consists of in-depth interviews with the chairpersons of a range of Jewish voluntary organizations, as well as focus groups with chief executives. It looks at the way decisions are made at board level and the key issues facing Jewish lay leadership today.

Colin Rochester and Professor Margaret Harris

Some of the findings held little surprise for the audience: two-thirds of the chairpersons interviewed were male, most were middle aged or older, and worked in business or the professions. Few of the boards studied had an equal gender balance.

When reviewing the motivation of chairpersons and board members, family influence and tradition were found to be important factors in their sense of commitment. One chairman described his involvement with the voluntary organization as ‘a useful thing to do for the community’.

Comparisons with the wider voluntary sector

In Margaret Harris’ view, the Jewish community is very fortunate in the extraordinary commitment of its chairpersons. Politicians would love to see such active citizenship in the population at large, she said, but unfortunately it reflects only a tiny minority of the Jewish community. Negative factors at work in the Jewish voluntary sector include: the enormous competition for leaders within a decreasing pool; over-high expectations from the community about the standards of service that organizations should provide; a decline in the number of philanthropists who have historically sustained the Jewish community and growing competition with non-Jewish causes.

Suggestions for good practice

Many practical ideas, which should be adopted by boards, emerged from this research, such as:

• the need to maintain a good balance between continuity and turnover of board membership.
• a more planned approach to recruitment.
• individual portfolios within boards.
• planned chair succession.
• the inclusion of women and younger people.

Provision for older people and formal day-school education

Dr Oliver Valins, JPR Research Fellow, reported on some preliminary findings of a year-long examination of formal day-school education and services for older people, which will be published in two separate JPR reports during 2001.

From left: Dr Oliver Valins, Rosalind Preston OBE and Dr Jacqueline Goldberg

Services for older people

A national data collection exercise reveals that 2465 older people are currently residing in Jewish voluntary homes in the UK. The average age of these residents has increased dramatically in recent years and is currently 87.9 years. There is a wide gulf between the costs of care in London and the regions, reflecting increased property and staff costs in the South East. Also noteworthy is the fact that only 4% of the staff of residential and nursing homes is Jewish, or 2.6% if the strictly Orthodox homes are not included.

Formal day-school education

JPR research will provide the Jewish community for the first time with a synthesis of key standardised indicators of performance within Jewish day-schools. Pupils at state sector Jewish schools outperform the national average in reading, writing and maths at ages 7 and 11. Overall, pupils at Jewish schools obtain higher grades at both GCSE and A levels than the national average, but not so high as pupils at independent schools.

Dr Valins stressed that state sector Jewish schools attract few children from deprived backgrounds, which may be a key factor in the performance results. While Jewish schools are full to capacity in many parts of London, in some of the regions they are forced to take in non-Jewish pupils to make up the numbers.

The research also examined issues relating to: the provision of places, human resources, finances, communication, information and special needs.

Financing of Jewish schools remains a problem, acording to Dr Valins, with state sector schools at the mercy of their local education authority. The provision of education to children with special needs was also particularly problematic.

Outline of the National Market Survey

Professor Stanley Waterman, Visiting Fellow at JPR, explained that the National Market Survey, which should be completed by the end of 2001, was directed at the Jewish public in contrast to the agency focus of the other projects. It needed ‘very careful planning to ensure we provide answers for as many of the policy issues as we can identify’.

The mandate of the survey is to help agencies providing services to the Jewish population dialogue with their potential clients, so as to make decisions for long-term investment and improvements in a rational manner. The main areas of concern are education, housing and care for older people. The survey will attempt to uncover responses both to questions of user satisfaction and potential clientele.

Overview of the ‘jigsaw puzzle’ of JPR’s Long-Term Planning project Dr Jacqueline Goldberg, JPR Director of Research, gave an overview of how all the different strands of the Long-Term Planning project fit together. She explained how each individual piece of research will feed into and culminate in the JPR Strategic Planning Document in two years time, which will look forward over a period of ten years.

JPR Chairman, Peter L Levy OBE, concluded the seminar by thanking the funders of this innovative research project. He said that JPR, as an independent body, was ideally placed to bring people together to plan for the communal future. The presence of so many chief executives and chairpersons of the major Jewish organizations indicated the desire to have clear, comprehensive data. Although the Jewish community was relatively small, it could still provide a model for other ethnic and religious groups. ‘Whatever our religious affiliation,’ Mr Levy stressed, ‘we can sit down and talk together across a broad spectrum about common issues that concern us all.’

From left: Ashley Mitchell, Chairman of the Otto Schiff Housing Association, Jeremy Oppenheim, Chief Executive of Jewish Care,and Melvin Carlowe OBE, JPR Board Member, at JPR's forth annual seminar for the Jewish voluntary sector.

Five key challenges for boards

The researchers highlighted major challenges that had emerged, which should be addressed by boards:

• the problem of recruitment (particularly of younger members)
• the pressure imposed on board members
• funding
• the divisions and communal politics within the Jewish community
• the existence of more and less popular causes

Five areas for change in the Jewish voluntary sector

Margaret Harris and Colin Rochester pinpointed five key areas where changes should be made. They called for:

• greater co-operation between organizations
• an end to internal divisions
• a greater sense of collective responsibility
• an acknowledgement of demographic realities
• a realisation that human resources are spread too thinly among too many organizations.

JPR hosts discussion on the report on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain

Just a week after the national launch and publication of the Runnymede Trust’s report on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain entitled Community of Communities and Citizens, JPR held a panel discussion on its significance for the UK today.

The report is the work of a 23-member Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, which was established by the Runnymede Trust in 1998 and chaired by Lord Bikhu Parekh. It calls for sweeping political, cultural and educational changes which will enable the UK to ‘celebrate diversity’ on all levels.

The 400-page report was released eight months after the publication of the report of the Commission on the Representation of the Interests of the British Jewish Community, established by JPR. The JPR publication, A Community of Communities, is prominently cited in the Parekh Report as advocating that British Jews ‘should accept the description of ethnic group, which will give them a greater sense of belonging and security in both their Jewish and British identities.’

Moreover, write the authors of the Parekh Report, many British Jews are concerned with ‘how to maintain Jewish distinctiveness in British society. Their desire for cultural recognition in a pluralist society offers probably more potential for shared goals with Asian and black people than the shared history of racist oppression.’

From right: Lord Parekh, Sarah Spencer and Antony Lerman, members of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain

The panel discussion was chaired by former JPR executive director Antony Lerman, director of European programmes for Yad Hanadiv and a member of the Commission on Multi-Ethnic Britain. Speakers included commission chairman Lord Parekh, emeritus professor of political theory at the University of Hull, and Sarah Spencer, director of citizenship and governance at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Lord Parekh told the 200-strong audience that the involvement of the British Jewish community in race relations had been unique. ‘Jews have helped clear the path for other minorities in this country,’ he said.

Responding to widespread press criticism of the report, Lord Parekh stressed that it sought to make significant strides in race relations in recognition of the changing political, social and ethnic nature of the UK. According to Parekh, the time is right for a re-examination of Britain’s character as a multi-cultural society. He cited one of the core recommendations, which calls for a new Human Rights Commission that will help ‘build a community of citizens and communities, a pluralist human rights agenda, and help the country retell our national story’.

‘The report is about the character of Britain as seen through the lense of minorities,’ said Lord Parekh. ‘There was a sense that the distinction between ethnicity and race should be broken—one of the primary concerns of the report was to break that link.’

JPR Board member Larry Levine asked the panel what was being done to ensure that the timely and important work of the Commission is not forgotten. ‘Our response is to stand up and fight for it,’ replied Lord Parekh, ‘and to make sure that those who feel it is valuable take the initiative to move things forward’.

This is an abridged version of a lecture given in July by Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Mr Hoenlein invited a group of British Jewish communal leaders convened by JPR to consider whether the Conference of Presidents could provide a model for Jewish leadership in the 21st century. The lecture was chaired by David Blackburn, member of the JPR Commission on Representation of the Interests of the British Jewish Community.

The implications of JPR’s Community of Communities report are broader than just the lessons for the UK. Its assumptions and conclusions are universally applicable.

I think that this is a critical time to assess where the Jewish community worldwide is headed. I believe this is a watershed era in Jewish life. As we enter the 21st century, decisions will have to be made that will affect Jewish life for decades to come.

The responsibility is a great one. Our tradition tells us that we must not judge a generation in its time, or even by its children, but by its grandchildren. Only then do you see the decisions you have made come to fruition. This means we have to look at our needs for the longer term.

In addition, the movement toward globalization will continue to force changes within the Jewish community, starting with a reassessment of the way we have traditionally done business. It is more than just economics that have gone global. Politics have been globalized as well. We can no longer separate the domestic agenda from the international agenda.

We also have to take seriously the changing attitudes of the younger generation to see how we can keep them involved. In assessing their needs, the community we shape cannot be based on the rules of the past. We must adopt a new approach to the future.

Leadership crisis

I believe we face a crisis in leadership today. We are not producing professionals who will be able to run organizations, who will be competent both Jewishly and professionally, and who will have the commitment and ability to confront the challenges of the new century. Nor are we producing lay people that will attract others, or provide the kind of guidance and inspiration to the organizations with which we are all associated.

A critical starting point is to come to terms with the existence of the European Union—and to recognize both the opportunities, as well as the challenges that it presents. For the first time you now have a central address to lobby as a united European community. That means you have the ability to create common agendas for your Jewish interests in a body that will rival the United States and Russia as a centre for world power.

The Conference of Presidents

None other than John Foster Dulles, who was then Secretary State and no friend of the Jews, formed the Conference of Presidents in 1954. Dulles turned to Nahum Goldmann and other Jewish leaders and said, in effect, ‘The Jews have to get their act together.’ As a result they created what they called the ‘Presidents Club’, which comprised six or seven presidents of leading Jewish organizations, which, by 1959, grew to 14. In that year the Conference of Presidents was formally established as an umbrella for the American Jewish community on international concerns.

In terms of remit, the Conference does not deal with domestic issues. We are concerned with the international and national agenda of the American Jewish community as it impacts around the world. We are the official body that represents the Jewish community to the President, the Congress, other national bodies and world leaders who speak to us on a regular basis.

In many respects the Conference is unique, stemming from the unique structure of American democracy. As de Tocqueville observed, it is a system that exists in a spirit of voluntarism—it invites citizen participation and makes lobbying a positive, not pejorative concept. It invites people to have a say—and to be involved in issues in a way that other systems cannot.

The Conference is made up of 54 organizations of varying sizes. However, it has no bylaws. Its flexibility has enabled it to succeed where other umbrella organizations, by and large, are disappearing from the American Jewish scene. The Synagogue Council of America and other groups have gone through tremendous changes, or disappeared—all because it is the very nature of an umbrella organization to have members who compete with one another. To be sure, every organization is made up of competing interests. The key, however, is creating a process by which constructive competition can take place. This is even more critical for a central body empowered to act as a voice that speaks for the unity of the community.

Consensus

A hallmark of the Conference of Presidents is consensus. While there are vast differences within it—from the Zionist Organization of America, to Peace Now, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist groups—the fact is, 99 percent of the time we are able to find common ground. Ultimately that may mean that the extremes are not happy, but it is critical.

Establishing common ground is more important today than ever before, especially when so much attention is paid to what divides us. As Jews, we need to remember that what unites us far outweighs what divides us—that we have one faith and one fate.

The way to deal with opposition and difference is not to stifle it. There are always legitimate differences within a community—especially when it comes to principles on which people feel they cannot compromise. But there must be an atmosphere of respect, or what the Conference has instituted as a ‘zero tolerance of intolerance’—a written code of civil conduct instituted in 1991 binding all Conference member organizations to a policy of derech eretz.

History shows us that the divisions in our community do not just cause damage to those involved. They extract a price paid by the entire community. Therefore bringing together a structure that recognizes all differences—ethnic, political, ideological, that exist in our community, actually enables us to build on our diversity and become stronger. Member organizations have to recognize that it is precisely by being a part of a central entity that their individual roles are enhanced.

For the Conference, operating on a principle of consensus means not having votes. If a vote is necessary, we have already failed. Votes, by their very nature, are divisive. They pit those who are for, versus those who are against. By contrast, creating consensus means enabling people to come to the point where they can say, ‘This is a position that we can all agree on, and go out and advocate for.’ It is a position, which, while not making everybody happy, at least becomes a common ground on which we can build.

We are now reviewing our members, in order to meet our definition as a conference of ‘major’ American Jewish organizations. Some are carry-overs from 50 – 60 years ago and no longer meet that definition. We are dealing with it, and it is a very painful process for those organizations, but it is necessary.

At the same time we have expanded our remit in the international arena. In September during the United Nations General Assembly, the Conference hosted 20 or 25 heads of state in a single week. Recently we have hosted the King of Morocco, the King of Jordan, the President of Azerbaijan, and many others. We do not give them an elaborate reception. The only thing we give them is a platform. They come because Jews are important. And they believe that American Jews are important.

British Jewry’s task

European Jewry tends to have an inferiority complex. I know you are facing diminishing numbers, but the fact is you are part of a much larger whole. Moreover, as far as the international scene is concerned, there is no separation in the minds of others when they talk about the Jewish world. In politics it is the perception of power that is more important than the reality of power. If the world says you are important, you are important. It is your responsibility to decide what to do with it.

But do not tell me you do not have the ability to do it. You do. It is not just American Jewry that counts. We cannot do it alone, especially now, with the emergence of the EU. You are going to have to assume more responsibility. The question is: are you prepared for it? Are you ready to have the structures that will enable you to take on that challenge? Are you going to be mature enough not to be ashamed when people talk about ‘Jewish power’?

If we Jews would come to terms with and recognize our collective strength and ability, we would not waste our time fighting each other. We would not deplete the resources we have. We would know that we can make a difference and channel our resources wisely.

If we are prepared to accept these realities, then we can begin to look at the strengths our community holds—and recognize the values of pluralism and diversity. We are then able to recognize the multiple sources of strength, recognizing that not everybody has to look, act or think the same. Only then can we understand that unity is not the same as homogeneity. What unity does require, however, is mutual respect.

I believe our communities have to have a smorgasbord approach to Jewish life. We have to open every communal avenue to make it attractive on every level: educational, artistic, philanthropic and cultural. We need to pay attention to whatever will bring people to our community. Once people are attracted back, they will find their way to the religious community and other expressions of Jewish life. They will have made their identity with the community.

Maximizing communal resources

The ability to come together allows us to maximize the resources we have in the community. As the dollars shrink, it becomes more and more important that we do not look to the solutions of the past—namely, building big bureaucracies. The Conference of Presidents’ budget is less than $1 million. And our staff is only five or six people.

It is not numbers that make a difference. It is what you do with the people you have. Too often our bureaucracies have become unresponsive. Everybody is busy reporting to somebody else, rather than getting things done. ‘Lean is mean’ is a principle that is increasingly in demand in business, and it should equally apply to the Jewish community. We have to hold organizations to account, to see to it that their resources are used to their maximum, that we get the best professionals we can, and that we train another generation of professionals.

As an American, I believe that a system should be democratic. Unfortunately, democracy is too often an excuse for avoiding responsibility. Too frequently it becomes a rationale for not making decisions—a process that ties up the structures of our community.

We have to create an atmosphere of respect. We have to bring back the kind of leaders—both professional and lay—who can give direction and status to the community. At the same time we have to educate them so that they are Jewishly knowledgeable. We have to have professional leadership programmes. Most of all, we need to value the principles and benefits of achdut (unity).

Socrates was once asked why he was not sad, and he said, ‘There is nothing, the loss of which, will make me sad.’ Jews cling to the opposite ethos. Jews care. It is what makes us unique. Sometimes it is a burden. It is often much easier not to care. But the future will pay a price for it. Today we are given a unique opportunity. The challenges we face are not new—divisiveness, external enemies and internal problems have always faced the Jewish people at different times. But they do demand new solutions.

To paraphrase the Pirke Avot, ‘The challenge is great. Ours may not be to complete the task. But neither may we desist from it.’ Indeed, our collective Jewish future depends on it.

A seminar for professionals and presenters in the cultural sector, which was introduced by Jerome Chanes, Director of Cultural Services of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture in America, discussed the experience of the NFJC in promoting Jewish creativity.

Jerome Chanes pointed out that Jewish culture had only belatedly found its way on to the communal agenda in the US. In his view, an issue can only secure a place on the main agenda if there is a consensus within the community that it affects Jewish security and continuity. Why should Jewish culture not be considered a survival issue?

What is Jewish culture?

For Jerome Chanes, the concept of ‘Jewish culture’ was problematic; are Jewish concerns implicit as well as explicit? Is there a ‘Jewish style’ that makes culture Jewish? The word ‘culture’ was also challenging because it has multiple meanings.

He described culture as amorphous, subversive, inclusive and exclusive, concrete and abstract at the same time. Participation in Jewish culture has important implications in strengthening Jewish identity, especially amongst younger people, yet very little data exist about the relationship between Jewish identity and culture.

He explained that the main concern of the NFJC was not whether the person creating culture was Jewish, but rather whether their work reflected the Jewish experience.

During the discussion, author Howard Jacobson said he envied the cultural life in America; he went as far as saying that it seemed to him Jewish culture was all there was in the US – ‘Other than John Updike, no gentile appears to be writing there’. He saw a very different picture in the UK, where Jews still felt on the periphery.

JPR Patron Frank Green asked if we were struggling to create cultural events merely to fight off extinction. Jerome Chanes felt the answer lay in the positive reasons for a Jew to be Jewish. ‘Surely, the motivation for promoting Jewish culture must be to enhance Jewish life, rather than the negative concerns about extinction or antisemitism’.

In the autumn, JPR held two seminars to explore responses to the recommendations made in A Community of Communities, the report published in March 2000 by the JPR Commission on Representation of the Interests of the British Jewish Community.

Leadership development

Stephen Chelms, a member of the Commission and managing partner of the Central Consultancy Group, led a seminar on the topic of communal leadership, which featured in the second of three recommendations made by the report. (The Commission called for the introduction of a high-quality training and development programme for professional and lay leaders.)

During the seminar, various definitions of leadership were explored. ‘The role of a leader is to listen, to advise and to act,’ said Arieh Handler, president of the Mizrachi Federation—a definition amplified by editor and Jewish Women’s Network activist Annie Wigman: ‘A leader needs to galvanize people as a force for change’. For Melanie Danan, policy director for the Interlink Foundation, an umbrella organization serving the needs of the strictly Orthodox community, ‘There needs to be a focus on vision. A leader needs to be someone who has a global grasp and who takes on all points of view while making a decisive stance.’

After exploring individual leadership goals and discussing classical Jewish texts on leadership, the seminar examined leadership training.

In Arieh Handler’s view, current leaders were not ‘as effective as they could be. There tends to be too many people who decide, there is little consultation—especially when it comes to creating something strategic.’ Neville Sassienie, past chair of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, warned that ‘there are so many modern skills and leadership training in the economic sector that we are starving ourselves by not taking advantage of them.’

Stephen Chelms concluded that any assessment of the need for leadership training needed to begin with an analysis of past training initiatives in the UK, focusing on such areas as aims, content, curriculum, participants, programme evaluation, implementation and placement.

The image of Israel

The second seminar following on from the Community of Communities report was linked to the recommendation calling for ‘an independent mass media and resource office’. It was held in response to feedback received by JPR concerning the perceived public relations void arising from the collapse of the British-Israel Public Affairs Committee (BIPAC) in 1999. Co-hosted by the British-Israel Chamber of Commerce, the discussion was held shortly before the widespread eruption of violence during the second Palestinian intifada, and the subsequent suspension of the peace process. In the light of these events, many of the concerns voiced by participants at the seminar – especially by those from the business sector – appear prescient in retrospect.

For Tony Warwick, director of the Britech Foundation, ‘the greatest obstacle to ongoing investment in Israel is the perception that, at best, Israel, is not a safe place to do business, and at worst, that it is a war zone.’

Counteracting that image are the overall relations between the British government and Israel, which Lord Haskel, JPR Deputy Chairman and former Labour Trade and Industry spokesman in the House of Lords, characterized as ‘very friendly.’ He said that Israel is seen as an ‘important source of high-technology and investment.... a country with whom the UK can carry out trade’.

For Diaspora Jews, however, the picture is more complex. ‘The dominant attitude of British Jews towards Israel is apathy,’ said Angela Margolis, executive director of the British Council of Shaare Zedek Medical Center. ‘Whereas earlier generations had strong emotional and ideological attachments to Israel and saw a country in need of economic assistance, today visitors come back with the perception that Israel is a wealthy country. That makes fundraising all the more difficult.’

For the 12 seminar members, these problems were exacerbated by the general image of Israel in the media. ‘I believe that the climate of public opinion is generally favourable to Israel,’ said David Lewis CBE, chairman of Isrotel. One of the founders of BIPAC, Mr Lewis also observed that business investment and tourism to Israel suffered more at the hands of terrorism than of social-political divisions within Israel, or Jewish communal divisions within the UK.

Most seminar participants voiced a need for an effective UK-based PR campaign for Israel that could serve the philanthropic, political information and business sectors.

Assimilationist models of immigration hold that immigrants learn the ways of their new society, its language, laws, and social mores and so become part of that society. In return for ‘good social behaviour’, immigrants are ‘admitted’ as members. However, immigrants not only learn from the society they join but also contribute to it and, in so doing, change it. They need to learn the dominant language and adapt skills to survive. Established citizens, having fewer such pressures, may concentrate on aspects of the immigrant culture such as music or cuisine, which are often perceived as innocuous. Time and toleration tend to ameliorate hostility to newcomers so that their benefits to society are recognized with fewer pressures to make them conform. At this stage, a society might be prepared to adopt a multiculturalist model for immigrant absorption.

By political self-definition, Israel is a Jewish state, but its determining social characteristic is in its being an immigrant society whose composition is in flux. It must be one of the most highly politicized democracies in the world. Politics used to be about security, the economy, health and welfare, housing, planning and settlements. But it is also about culture and Israeli politics has always been about replacing worn-out Jewish identities with new Israeli ones.

Developing new cultural institutions has always been part of a process of elite self-definition and the construction of new taste hierarchies. Culture, being highly possessive, frequently becomes a source of conflict. A peculiarity of financial support for arts and culture in Israel is that the granting authorities automatically favour organizations previously supported, putting new cultural institutions at a disadvantage. The bodies receiving major funding are theatres, orchestras, and museums. In the Israeli context, these have been, and to some extent still are, organizations established by and even for Jews of European origin.

The cultural baggage of Sephardim, Arabs, (and also religious Jews) was not seen as ‘culture’ but treated as ‘tradition’, or folklore. As long as Israel was to be a secular ethnic Jewish state, non-European and religious Jews (and the Arabs) would be disadvantaged. They would have to become part of a modern, western-oriented civil society. As the Sephardim gained access to political power, they became restive at their lack of cultural influence.

Eventually, the exertion of political power and influence spilled over into the cultural realm. Culture in Israel is highly segregated. Europe has heavily influenced the canon in music, literature, and theatre. It was only in dance that ‘Oriental’ forms were regarded as canonic. The result of the newly powerful Sephardi and religious politicians’ attempts to influence the cultural sphere has been frustration, with demands for equal status (at least) for cultural forms outside the established order.

Towards multiculturalism

Though grossly dissatisfied with Ashkenazi cultural dominance, they found it impossible to dislodge. To achieve parity so that Israeli culture would no longer be an offshoot of European cultural tastes and discrimination, their cry has been for multiculturalism. Though challenged, there is a long way to go before control of culture passes into new hands. Hence the frustration. Most of Israel’s new managerial class comprises younger Ashkenazim who, shut out of conventional political power sharing, have become influential outside conventional politics. Affected more by American than by European values, they believe that culture can be consumed not just for altruistic reasons, but for commercial gain.

The exercise of political influence and eruption of commercial philistinism in Israel directly relate to culture in other ways. Alongside a fixation on territorial nationalism, there has been a rise in religious fundamentalism, and attempts to play the ‘ethnic card’ among some of Israel’s Jews. These signal the appearance of newly imagined versions of Jewish cultures that now compete with established (i.e. ‘authentic’) Israeli identities.

Fifty years on, despite very pressing issues of physical survival, Israelis are still trying to discover who they are. The challenge to the Israeli cultural canon is really less about patterns of cultural change than the extent to which ‘established’ members of Israeli society are willing to accept changes initiated by recent immigrants. Of course, this goes beyond Israel and questions the disposition of any society to treat newcomers as equals, not just in the sense of civil equality, but as equals who can contribute positively to culture and social mores in general.

Higher material living standards—foreign travel, cable and satellite TV, Internet—mean that Israelis have become vicarious immigrants. Without physically deserting Israel, they live in an Americanized world of global reach. They, too, have forsaken the Israeli cultural canon, of vaguely European origins, tinged with Jewishness. The recent adoption of multiculturalism for Israeli society postpones indefinitely adopting a new canon. Multiculturalism elates some while it frustrates others. In this sense, Israel is hardly any different from other societies. What makes Israel so absorbing is that it is still actively receiving immigrants; approximately 15 percent of its population (20 percent of its Jewish population) has arrived in the past decade. This means that attempts of earlier immigrants to shape for themselves a more respectable niche in society, coupled with Israel’s small size, make this national cultural contest very palpable to all.

The JPR Visual Arts Forum, which provides a platform for artists, curators and art critics to discuss ideas and policy initiatives on Jewish culture, met for a second time in 2000 to consider the difficult question of What is Jewish art today? The discussion was introduced by Anthony Julius, author of a forthcoming book Idolizing Pictures. A report on the Forum will be published in the next issue of jpr/news.

JPR is now a partner institution alongside the Universities of Southampton and Reading in the new Arts and Humanities Research Board Parkes Centre for Jewish and non-Jewish Relations, to be based in Southampton. This is one of ten successful applications announced by the AHRB in the first round competition for its new Research Centres Scheme, which aims to support and facilitate research of the highest quality in areas of strategic importance in the arts and humanities.

Professor Barry Kosmin will serve as Associate Director of the new Centre, alongside Director Professor David Cesarani. This new research collaboration, which relates to JPR’s ongoing Civil Society programme, confirms the Institute’s academic profile and consolidates the close relationship built up over the years with the University of Southampton through the journal Patterns of Prejudice and the Parkes Library, where the IJA and JPR archives have been deposited.

JPR Director, Professor Barry Kosmin has co-authored a new book together with Ariela Keysar and Jeffrey Scheckner. Entitled The Next Generation – Jewish Children and Adolescents, the study, published by State University of New York Press, draws on the 1990 US National Jewish Population Survey which Barry directed, and questions the future of the Jewish community’s next generation.

The book probes topics that have crucial policy implications for dealing with the new conditions of the American Jewish community and sheds light on the most important institution in Jewish life, the family. It explores the evolving composition of Jewish families, including single parenthood and intermarriage; analyses the impact of different family structures on the well-being and religious upbringing of children and examines the role of parents in ensuring Jewish continuity.

The book points to some disturbing trends. As a result of intermarriage, only about half of all American Jewish children today live with two Jewish parents. The analysis shows that in families with a Jewish and a non-Jewish parent, only 31 per cent of children are raised Jewish and only 24 per cent of children living in a single-parent household have received any Jewish education.

Barry Kosmin made a presentation based on this study at the United Jewish Communities General Assembly 2000 in Chicago in November.

He has also contributed a paper, Coming of Age in the Conservative Synagogue – The Bar/Bat Mitzvah Class of 5755 to a book entitled Jews in the Center – Conservative Synagogues and their Members. Written by a team of scholars, it offers the most comprehensive study of any movement within American Judaism.

In November, Dr Winston Pickett, JPR Director of External Relations, spoke on The image of Israel in the media in the 7th Annual Muslim-Jewish Lecture Series sponsored by the Maimonides Foundation and the Leo Baeck College. He also delivered two lectures on the Community of Communities report: to the Wembley-Harrow Progressive and the Northwood United Synagogues.

Lena Stanley-Clamp, JPR Director of Public Activities and Administration, gave a presentation on Jewish culture and the missing generation at the Presidents’ Meeting of the European Council of Jewish Communities in Barcelona. An article by Lena, Le judaïsme britannique: une communauté de communautés was published recently in l’Arche, the French monthly and in the Hungarian journal, Szombat.

Lena Stanley-Clamp and Dr Jacqueline Goldberg, JPR Research Director, were invited to participate in a study tour of Berlin organised by the New York-based National Foundation for Jewish Culture. They gave a joint presentation on JPR’s programmes and met with German artists, film-makers and architects.

An article by Dr Oliver Valins, JPR Research Fellow, has recently been published in the geography journal Geoforum, entitled Institutionalised religion: sacred texts and Jewish spatial practice. The article looks at the strictly Orthodox community in Manchester and the possibilities for constructing a communal eruv.