Reaching Out To Young Secular Jews

Via The Friendly Atheist, good news from campus:

The number of secular student organizations on college campuses is on the rise, with a 42 percent increase from last year, according to the Secular Student Association.

This is great news.  For many of these students, this isn’t so easy:

Despite the growing number of secular student groups, atheism is still considered taboo, Johnson said. It is not uncommon for atheists to face discrimination from their family or friends and hostility from the community in which they grew up, he said.

Marc Mason, a junior international relations and communication and rhetorical studies major, adopted atheism when he was 14 years old. Before that, he was Orthodox Christian, as is his mother. And before Mason told his family about his religious beliefs, he imagined they could have had a negative reaction to the news, he said.

It was a while before he gathered the courage to tell his family that he would no longer practice Christianity, or any religion, for that matter, he said. When he finally did tell them, he did not face as much hostility as he expected, he said.

“It’s a big reaction from them at first, especially because the norm today is to say that you’re religious,” Mason said.

Aside from the most religious families, such reactions are rare among Jews.  I’m frequently asked to speak to young non-believing Jews whose parents feel that they will identify with me.  My story is increasingly similar to theirs.

I am a secular humanist but I am also a Jew.  I was raised a Jew, complete with Jewish culture and an outspoken Jewish atheist grandfather whose influence I feel to this day.  I have a rabbinical degree, though some people have flat out told me that as a secular humanist and atheist I can’t be a rabbi.

To its great credit, National Hillel, which maintains relationships with dozens of national Jewish organizations, has a partnership with the Society for Humanistic Judaism.  As a former Hillel director (thirteen years in the field) I wonder how many campus Hillels would be willing to reach out to these secular student associations to explore secular Judaism.  They will find these organizations filled with Jewish kids.

In contrast to Christians and Muslims for whom these identities are religious, Jews have a heritage that extends well beyond faith.  The vast majority of my rabbinical colleagues will disagree with me on this.  That doesn’t make them right.  The sorry state of their synagogues should remind them of that.

The fact is that today’s Jewish youth have moved faster and farther away from religious beliefs and practice than any previous generation.  All the Birthright trips (good!) and Chabad missionary activities (bad) aren’t going to change this.

Our children are more secular and less religious than ever before.    Like everyone else, they still need a sense of community and belonging.  A revitalized secular Judaism can provide this for them.  Either that or the Jewish community can just kiss them goodbye forever.