Continuity and changes in contemporary Jewry: The lived reality of Jewish life. The perspectives of Sklare Awardees.

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

This year, the Marshall Sklare Award will be represented by two roundtables that will bring together the thoughts, reflections, and proposals of previous awardees willing to share their knowledge and experience with us. The focus of their analysis will be on:
Continuity and changes in contemporary Jewry:
Research agendas and lived reality in current constellations.
The perspectives of the Sklare Awardees.
The complexity of contemporary socio-political scenarios confronts scientific knowledge and research with a gap between its internal development logic and a rapidly changing reality. Contemporary transformations mean the emergence of thematic nuclei, trends, and dynamics that oscillate provocatively between the need for new definitions and the search for meaning in the past. The analysis of the current conjuncture in Israel and the diaspora, nationally, regionally and globally, assumes new problematic chores that occupy the center of theoretical discussion and empirical research. The complex changes in political life, in the configuration of public space, in the validation and legitimization of new narratives and visions, and the overall management of the academic profession decisively modify the focus of our scientific work.
The close correlation between reality and its interpretation leads us to combine the reflection between the concrete and the conceptual, which is why these two round tables are distinct but also interrelated. In the first roundtable, the emphasis will be on lived reality, the experiences, and implications of the events of October and after 7th, both in their singularity and from a comparative perspective. In the second roundtable, the focus will be on the study of lived reality, how it impacts the current and future research agendas, and how other social and cultural dimensions are intertwined with political perspectives.
These and related considerations, as formulated in the guiding questions, were shared with the participants invited to each of the roundtables.

Roundatable 1.

Continuity and changes in contemporary Jewry: The lived reality of Jewish life.
The perspectives of Sklare Awardees.
Moderator: Judit Bokser Liwerant

The first session aims to assess the “lived reality” of the contemporary contexts for Jewish life. This will include several dimensions:

A1) What does a scholar in Jewish Studies mean today, and how does this compare to the immediate and longer past?
A2) What are the communal/individual experiences that mark contemporary Jewish life and kinds of theoretical and methodological categories that describe, define and measure it?
A3) Are there “progressive” and “conservative” approaches which relate differently to contemporary Jewish life, in the academy, synagogue, and other Jewish spaces?
A4) What is the place of Israel in contemporary Jewish life, and how do Jews reconcile their different perceptions of this issue with remaining a united people?
A5) What are the implications of the increasing diversity of the Jewish people, in North America, Latin America, Europe, and Israel?

The participants in this session represent different “lived realities” of contemporary Jewish life both in terms of their divergent residences and foci of research, gender, and seniority of their Sklare award.

Samuel Heilman will address the meaning of lived reality and how the present has changed compared to a lifetime in the American diaspora, arriving there as a refugee with his Holocaust survivor parents, and for the last 4 years as an Israeli living in Jerusalem.
Johnathan Sarna will address the implications of October 7th for the 90% of world Jewry who live in North America or Israel—a transformation that has not been adequately conceptualized. This dramatic event opens up several questions both to Jews and non-Jews , cutting across generations and other sociological characteristics.
Sylvia Fishman will focus on the many fields of Judaic Studies that are deeply affected by the exacerbating tensions between progressive and conservative approaches in the academy. This tension has been enhanced by the current events that tend to polarize perspectives. She questions the ways in which Judaic Studies can work to move beyond this binary to create respectful dialogue and mutually beneficial scholarly interaction.
Ira Sheskin will focus on the changes that the current events demand from community studies., analyzing the direction of the field and the need to complete research that has implications for planning within the Jewish community.
Chaim Waxman will refer to Marshall Sklare as a survivalist who was optimistic about the Jewish future in America, and he asks how he would view the future of American Jewry today, in light of surveys indicating: increases in antisemitism, especially among younger Americans; that most American Jews now feel less secure in the US than they did previously; and increasing numbers of Jews who identify as Jews with no religion. Do surveys in the social sciences have a role in supporting feelings of optimism or pessimism?

Sub Unit

• Social Science

Moderator

• Judit Bokser Liwerant, UNAM

Discussants

• Samuel Heilman, Queens College, and Graduate Center CUNY

• Jonathan Sarna, Brandeis University

• Sylvia Barack Fishman, Brandeis University - Department of Near Eastern & Judaic Studies

• Ira Sheskin, University of Miami

• Chaim Waxman, Rutgers University & Hadassah Academic College

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 08