De-Constructing the Outreach-Inreach Debate

Publication Date: November 1996

Publisher: Melton Center for Jewish Education in the Diaspora

Author(s): Steven M. Cohen

Research Area: Culture and religion

Keywords: American Jews; Jewish Identification; Jewish Outreach

Type: Report

Abstract:

The article deconstructs the debate among the educationists between advocates of near-inreach (who would focus resources on the moderately affiliated in order to enrich and nurture the activist core of involved Jews) and advocates of far-outreach (who would focus resources on the least involved, especially intermarried Jews and their children). It presents certain socio-religious phenomena, like the rightward shift even among liberal Jews that results in a ‘leaner and meaner’ Judaism, the steady rate of highly active Jews, the decline of the public sphere of Judaism as opposed to the private, and the evidence that moderately strict (in terms of religious expectations on their members) religious groups are more successful at maintaining and expanding their high commitment core than lenient ones, to argue that, in line with the near-inreach advocates, the Jewish community needs to set, articulate, and maintain high standards and expectations in terms of communal participation and in terms of some substantive areas, of which the most prominent are ritual observance, Torah learning, and social justice.