Late for the Jewish Future - A Post from the JFNA General Assembly

(Updated - now contains video of PunkTorah's presentation...)

I admit it - I was late for the Jewish future. Luckily, they had the good sense to take the other 400 people in the room and start without me.

The Jewish Futures Conference, sponsored by the Covenant Foundation, BJENY-SAJES, JESNA/Lippman Kanfer Institute and others, began with breakfast (which I missed), coffee (which was thankfully still available), and featured some of the freshest ideas which will be shaping the Jewish future.

Among those ideas were two videos, submitted by Punk Torah's Patrick Aleph and Michael Sabani (video of their presentation below), and Russel Neiss and Charlie Schwartz from Media Midrash (video below), which were the winners of the Jewish Futures Competition: Visions for Jewish education in the 21st Century.

Presented were some interesting ideas, including challenging the meaning of "actively engaged," and the concept - rendered by the inimitable Patrick Aleph - that "Apple is the fastest-growing religion in the United States." 

Check out PunkTorah's and MediaMidrash's videos below, and watch the #jewishfutures and #nolaga hashtags for more coverage as the session continues...

 

 



Comments

[K. Yovela Hershey]

Wow, what an amazing conference. With fresh ideas like that, our Jewish future will be bright and vibrant. I wish I'd been at that conference, it must have been something.

[Reuven Werber]

Seems kind of strange that a Jewish Futures Conference is so retro that they don't livestram all along the Jewish World to reach hundreds or thousands of Jewish educators.
Seems that some of the "old timers" can do it better!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cSedcgcdpY

[Chris M]

I dont know K. Yovela Hershey if I can agree. I personally wish the best for the community of Jews in America but all this intermarriage (can you say Chelsea Clinton?) I fear you might be being overly optimistic for the future.