July / August 2005:

ESSAY: rebooting the ipod generation
Reboot, a group of young Jewish thinkers and activists, surveyed Generation Y and helped us better understand the way young people see religion. But what if the findings bode ill for the Jewish future? by Bradford R. Pilcher


I don’t own an iPod, though not for lack of desire. I’ve simply never gotten around to buying one and nobody has gotten around to giving me one. [Editor's note: Mr. Pilcher has since obtained an iPod. We know not how.] I would love to have one. How could you not want such a wonderful device?

Also, I have no TiVo, though I admit it is a useful invention. Perhaps these are the reasons I was so alarmed by OMG!: How Generation Y is Redefining Faith in the iPod Era.

This report, put out by Reboot, a group of young Jewish activists and thinkers, seemed to fill everybody else with a profound sense of hope. That was the buzz word at the report’s Brookings Institution unveiling. Nevertheless, I see mostly grey clouds, not silver linings (and certainly not blue skies), in the 48-page report and the 39-page statistical findings. The report’s introduction sees “a remarkable opportunity” in “a generation who are seekers far more than they are drifters.” That may be true, but there’s also a train wreck already halfway off the tracks.

The problem lies not in what the report answers, but in what it doesn’t seem to ask. How can “the most diverse generation ... characterized by open mindedness and tolerance” exist admist some of the worst sectarian strife and political polarization?

On the surface, the report would seem to say Generation Y (loosely defined as 18-25 year-olds) is just not political and, besides, that kind of exclusive tribalism is so last generation. But this too-cool-for-shul explanation rings hollow, and since the report generalizes from a wide swath of religious and ethnic identities, it doesn’t really speak to the specific state of Jewish Generation Y.

Take politics. Despite the report’s conclusion that “this generation is distinct in its disengagement from political life,” the data shows a considerable politicization of young Jews. When asked what’s important in their lives, Jews ranked politics higher than anybody else (higher even than religion). They discuss politics far more than their peers (by double-digit margins), and they’re drastically more likely to vote.

That’s great news, of course, but it also means young Jews are more susceptible than their peers to the growing polarization of American political and cultural life. That is an incredibly frightening trend when you take into account a continuing decline of Jewish affiliation. What happens when all the Jewish conservatives go to war with all the Jewish liberals?

And they will go to war.

Those young people who maintain strong religious identities, in the words of author and political-theorist Bill Galston, “think of themselves very self-consciously as counter-cultural. They see themselves on a mission to oppose and, if possible, to reform a culture that they see as having gone off the rails because it affirms choice and denies God.”

For the less religious, an equally disturbing finding showed mass apathy. In the words of the report, “Less religious youth are less strongly identified with anything at all.” It’s not exactly shocking then that good, well-meaning conservatives and devout believers are somewhat perturbed by the political and cultural ambivalence outlined in stark detail in this report?

I don’t care who started the culture wars, or who’s winning them, because it’s not about conservatives versus liberals. It’s not even about Republicans and Democrats, much as we in the press like to paint such black-and-white landscapes.

The growing polarization of America (and by extension of Jewish America) and the hot flames of the culture war are about our collective bewilderment, about a generation with the freedom to choose anything and the audacity to choose little or nothing. It’s about believers and believers in very little.

As long as that aversion to setting parameters and sticking to them continues it’s unlikely the progressive left will find a decisive voice against fundamentalism. It’s just as unlikely that the traditionalists on the right will come to respect the diversity of the left. We’ll tear each other apart, and at a time of crisis in Jewish continuity it’s a battle we can’t afford to join.

So what do we do about it? I don’t know, but I have a few ideas worthy of discussion. The aggregate genius of Reboot and similar Jewish groups almost certainly has a few more ideas to offer.

Whatever the solution, I know it lies not in the discussion itself but in the consensus that can and must arise out of that discussion. In other words, we have to find for ourselves a new set of parameters, limit ourselves, and give new life to the old adage, “Less is more.”

Those parameters need not be narrow. The Reboot report concludes with this admonition: “Building an approach that offers a range of offerings incorporating a mix of content and formats will be most effective ... cast the net of renewal as widely as possible.” That’s fine; that’s better than fine, but in the process we cannot fall into the trap of casting the net so wide we lose our distinctive identities in the process.

Not all things are Jewish. Matisyahu (the Hasidic reggae superstar) may be, but Jewish yoga classes may not. As progressives, we have to be willing to say that. As conservatives we have to be willing to listen. As Jews, we have to be willing to stick together.