Went to the Minneapolis Jewish Federation’s first Revolution event last night. It was truly an experience. It was inspiring to see such passion in my fellow Jews to create a new kind of Jewish community that has relevant activities for people of all ages, specifically those of us in our 20’s and 30’s so we always feel like we belong. Sam Glassenberg gave a fantastic presentation on how the key to creating such a community could perhaps lie in changing how we think about solving the problem, and how maybe it doesn’t need solving at all.
He used the example of J-Date to further illustrate this point. J-Date is the most successful online dating service in the world, and I had no idea how far their empire actually reached until the event last night. The concept here is simple: Jews don’t want to be alone so give them a means to satisfy their need in finding the other half, a husband or a wife. An online dating service isn’t exactly a complex method of attack in solving the issues of a Jewish single, but at the time of J-Date’s inception in the late 1990’s it was such a new idea that it attracted quite a following. Now, over 750,000 people are users on the website every year because they know it works, and everyone uses it.
We as members of the Revolution in Minneapolis can apply the same kind of thinking to our problem of Jewish community/ continuity now. Perhaps the answer is to fix nothing, but rather develop a product that is so good that everyone will want to use it. There isn’t a whole lot of programming for Jews in their 20’s or 30’s, and when there is it isn’t necessarily relevant. However, maybe if we work together in developing innovative events that are geared toward the younger generation we can create a similar kind of following just like in the J-Date example. Create something so original, and so appealing that people have to be a part of it. I have no doubt that we can do this, especially after listening to our discussion yesterday. I’m very excited for the future of our Minneapolis Jewish community, and also to be a part of the Revolution. Who knows what the future will hold?
Menu
