Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Becoming Passe

A comment on my last post and an observation by a friend last shabbat coincided to get me thinking about another aspect of the Independent Minyan problem.

In a comment, BZ noted that there is a major gap between those who finished college before the Indy phenomenon hit full stride and thereafter. Many people who graduated in the late '90s and early '00s moved to NY, DC and other centers expecting not to find the kind of religious community they wanted. When they got there, they either were part of starting up an exciting new minyan or found a nascent community that was far more fulfilling than they had expected. This was the population that enabled the phenomenon to grow and to spread to new communities, and many were both excited about their discovery and committed to helping it grow.

But things change fast in our world. 10 years ago most college students had no idea what was happening beyond the boundaries of campus, whereas today's students, with so much information in easy access, are much more in tune with developments in the larger community. And these minyanim are now so well established that new graduates are barely conscious of a world without them. In part that means they feel less of an obligation – these minyanim don't need their contributions to survive, and are no longer the dawn of a new age. It also means that they feel less of a sense of ownership, since they are joining a group that they did not shape, and thus are less committed to its success.

Then this past Shabbat, my friend Uri, a long-time Hadar member, attended a new, start-up Friday night minyan which met at Shaare Zedek, a local Conservative shul. He described the culture of the group to be quite similar to Hadar's, yet he guessed that he recognized less than a quarter of the (mostly young) faces. There are undoubtedly multiple reasons for this (it's not senility – he's younger than I): some may have been people who get to shul more often on Friday night than shabbat morning, or people just checking out a new thing. But mostly it seems to be people in their early 20s who are interested in participatory, musical, lay-led davening and yet have never or rarely been to Hadar and are not going to Kol Zimrah (I would love to get a KZ person's take on this). I don't have the answers to why they don't come to Hadar, nor do I know where (if anywhere) they are going shabbat morning. But I do know this: Hadar is feeling demographically limited from two sides. Many of the new people who get involved are mid to late 20s people whose friends have been involved for years. But it is starting to seem like for the new crop of 23-year-olds, Hadar is just not the hot new thing. It's the thing that is established, not the thing they have the opportunity to shape. I haven't gathered data about other Indy minyanim, but I wouldn't be surprised if the same issues are surfacing elsewhere.

It may be totally fine that a new generation is doing their own thing. But I think that we assumed that if we built it, they would come – that each successive wave of new grads would gravitate towards our minyanim and the unique culture they were creating. If we were just riding a wave borne of being the hot new thing, then we have to ask how we respond to that and what it means for the future of these minyanim that we value so highly.

14 comments:

  1. Sounds as if Hadar is now a regular community by which I mean well established (and funded) and regarded with as much (or little) enthusiasm as other religious communities, whether shuls or minyanim. In my mind, religious communities go in waves and what you are picking up on is perhaps the to some perhaps surprising notion that this includes Hadar.

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  2. The assumption goes well beyond Hadar. I think that many of those who have built up these Indy Minyanim thought of them more as a kind of paradigm shift than just another wave in the sea of religious communities.

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  3. "I think that many of those who have built up these Indy Minyanim thought of them more as a kind of paradigm shift than just another wave in the sea of religious communities." I am sure you're right. But haven't the founders of every organization in the (Jewish) world thought that about what they were doing? Doesn't mean they're right. (I'm not saying they're wrong in this case, just that saying it over and over again don't necessarily make it so.)

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  4. It would help a lot if Hadar people weren't so freaking unfriendly, you know. If you weren't at college with Hadar people and you come to davening as a new face on the UWS scene, you know how many people will say hello to you? None, that's how many. No-one says so much as a shabbat shalom. New people come once, they come twice, they see a kehillah of snooty people who can't be bothered to talk to them, and they go elsewhere.

    Harsh? Perhaps. True? Definitely.

    Not saying that's the only factor, but it's a pretty common theme amongst people who would like to daven at Hadar but just can't hack it.

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  5. a long-time Hadar member

    If he's a Hadar member, he's the only one. :)

    some may have been people who get to shul more often on Friday night than shabbat morning

    This would be my top guess as to why they're not at Hadar -- there are lots of people with an active Shabbat life on Friday night who just don't do Shabbat morning. (And there's also the reverse - Hadar people who don't go anywhere for davening on Friday nights. In addition to the difference in styles, this was always a major cause of non-overlap between Hadar and Kol Zimrah, though there has always been plenty of overlap too.)

    But mostly it seems to be people in their early 20s who are interested in participatory, musical, lay-led davening and yet have never or rarely been to Hadar

    I would question drawing too strong a link between a longtime Hadar participant's not recognizing them and their not going to Hadar. I say this because Hadar is a big enough place that there are many people with whom I davened at Hadar for years whom I never met. I think the number of people I knew at Hadar hit a high-water mark around 2004, after which people started moving away at a faster rate than I met new people. So if there were 200 people at a given Hadar service and I knew 50 of them, I primarily noticed the 50 people I knew and not the 150 people I didn't know. Out of those 150 people, I might recognize some of them by sight (e.g. if they led davening, or sat near me, or were distinctive-looking), but not all of them. So it's possible that they do go to Hadar and he just hasn't met them yet (though it's also possible that they don't).

    and are not going to Kol Zimrah (I would love to get a KZ person's take on this).

    I'm out of the KZ loop now (having moved out of NYC), so I don't know who's going to KZ these days, nor do I know the people at this new minyan, but it's possible that some of the people at the new minyan don't go places with instruments on Shabbat. It's also possible that some of them do go to KZ, though they obviously can't go to both on weeks (such as this one) when they're both meeting.

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  6. But I think that we assumed that if we built it, they would come – that each successive wave of new grads would gravitate towards our minyanim and the unique culture they were creating.

    I'm not sure we all assumed that, but at least we assumed that if people decided to start something new instead, it would be out of substantive differences. If this minyan has a similar style to Hadar (as the eyewitness account reports), then it sounds like there's not much difference beyond the Friday night vs. Saturday morning thing. But what I've seen about this minyan on the intertubes (which, I admit, is not as reliable as eyewitness testimony) suggests that the culture they're aiming for is somewhat different: it says "If you're looking for the ruach of a Ramah-style Friday night", and I have the sense that few Hadar organizers would use the phrase "Ramah-style" as a good thing (if anything, it would be pejorative; melodies of Conservative origin are not held in high regard at Hadar, unless you count Julia Andelman compositions). (I've never been to Ramah, except for the Hadar Shavuot Retreat, so I have no firsthand experience there either.)

    So what's the deal - are they an independent minyan using space at Shaare Zedek, or are they part of Shaare Zedek? Did this meet in addition to or instead of SZ's regular Friday night services?

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  7. Jen Taylor Friedman writes:
    It would help a lot if Hadar people weren't so freaking unfriendly, you know. If you weren't at college with Hadar people and you come to davening as a new face on the UWS scene, you know how many people will say hello to you? None, that's how many. No-one says so much as a shabbat shalom. New people come once, they come twice, they see a kehillah of snooty people who can't be bothered to talk to them, and they go elsewhere.

    Elie Kaunfer writes about this in Empowered Judaism (which I'll be posting a review of soon):

    "In a small minyan with twenty-five people, there is really no excuse to reach out to the person standing in the corner. But with two hundred people in the room each week, and with the transient population we attracted, there were always a dozen first-timers at Hadar every Shabbat we met. Worse, people who had been coming for six months felt awkward about assuming that those they didn't recognize were 'new.' Given the size of the community, it was a reasonable worry that they might 'welcome' someone who had been coming for two years!"

    This definitely describes how I felt, even after I had been going to Hadar for years. I don't think I'm snooty, just shy around people I don't know.

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  8. Sorry, that was totally my typo! That should read "no excuse NOT to reach out"!

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  9. I read that section yesterday. It - honestly - seemed like a list of justifications: "Yes, we're unfriendly. But we totally have an excuse for all the reasons we seem unfriendly."

    Yes, if someone's shy and not much good at remembering names and faces, it's a reasonable worry that they might 'welcome' someone who had been coming for two years!

    But it's not just about welcoming the newbie, it's about saying "shabbat shalom" in a friendly way. Big difference, and one that Hadar's rather proprietory attitude doesn't accommodate.

    I've heard it suggested that Hadar is simply a minyan composed of shy Harvard types who were Elie's friends in college, and therefore everyone is socially inept, so the minyan is bound to appear unfriendly and that's just how it is - which gives one a way of being dan lekav zechut but doesn't make one any more inclined to daven there, really.

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  10. I'm sorry, but I find Jen's comments rather offensive. As far as I can tell, she's been to Hadar rarely in the past year, and one of those times was to teach at a lunch and learn. I am frankly surprised that, since she clearly knows a number of people in the community, she hasn't raised this as an issue other than on a public blog posting.

    Hadar is not institutionally unfriendly. People do make efforts to meet and greet both new attendees as well as longer-term community members, but it doesn't always work. Some people are shy and don't feel comfortable approaching others they don't know, and others are more outgoing -- this works both for the "regulars" as well as for new people.

    Perhaps it's unfortunate that outgoing people tend to know more people and become integrated into the community faster than others, but that's just the way it works in almost every social situation that isn't a cult.

    Every effort is made to greet each person at least once on a Shabbat morning (by whomever is at the entry as a greeter), and hopefully there is more schmoozing at kiddush.

    I would put a lot more credence in Jen's comments if she didn't live in Riverdale and almost never come to Hadar services.

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  11. i would also like to take issue with jen's comments, since i and a number of my compatriots at hadar have made the conscious effort to engage with people who are alone at kiddush. this kind of sea change has started on the individual level.
    i think the "hadar is unfriendly" narrative has become a sort of reflex, and it should be reinvestigated.

    i think we will miss a lot by looking at this so abstractly. i have empirical knowledge of the situation, and i know the chai/chadesh yamenu minyan (the one at SZ) is not so radically separate from hadar, as two of the founders are regular attendees. also, many of the communities overlap in membership.
    i think the disparity exists in that good egal kabbalos shabbos services have been in desire for a while, and friday night davvening tends to grab more people than saturday morning, especially young people who need to sleep in.

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  12. Anonymous - if you attack Jen's comments on a personal level, we have the right to know who you are.

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  13. josh_schwartz writes:
    i think the disparity exists in that good egal kabbalos shabbos services have been in desire for a while, and friday night davvening tends to grab more people than saturday morning, especially young people who need to sleep in.

    Also, while Hadar does many things well, Friday night is something that Hadar has never quite gotten right (and I say this as someone who has led Hadar Friday night services at least thrice).

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  14. Hadar regular here. I've often heard of the Hadar is unfriendly narrative, so I suppose I am lucky to have had such a vastly different experience. Unaware of contrary stereotypes, I was surprised by how many people approached me and introduced me to other people at my first Hadar service. I was unaware at the time of how many of those people were gabbais, but that is irrelevant. Perhaps I am just posting this as a reminder (to Hadarniks and participants elsewhere) to make sure other newbies have as warm of an experience as I had. It is definitely possible.

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