Non­fic­tion

Renais­sance: A Strate­gic Plan for Trans­form­ing Judaism

  • From the Publisher
May 22, 2014

Address­ing the chal­lenges that face mod­ern Judaism, par­tic­u­lar­ly in North Amer­i­ca, Jim Stein pro­pos­es an over­ar­ch­ing strat­e­gy and nine tac­tics to revi­tal­ize today’s Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty and ini­ti­ate a rebirth of Judaism that will reen­gage large num­bers of dis­af­fect­ed Jews.

Through his var­i­ous roles on both local and nation­al lev­els, Stein has grown in his pas­sion to encour­age a reawak­en­ing among fel­low Jews and to reopen the con­ver­sa­tion of Judaism with those sleep­walk­ing” Jews who strug­gle with the log­ic of tra­di­tion­al cus­toms that seem out­dat­ed and irrel­e­vant. The mis­sion of Renais­sance is help­ing unaf­fil­i­at­ed, detached, and periph­er­al Jews to find the spir­i­tu­al ground­ing, mean­ing, and con­nec­tion they seek in their fre­net­ic lives through cre­ative expres­sions of fun­da­men­tal Jew­ish wis­dom and val­ues, and in so doing become part of an evolv­ing, inclu­sive, non-denom­i­na­tion­al Jew­ish community.”

Offer­ing a down-to-earth dia­logue that builds on the rich foun­da­tions of Judaism and refo­cus­es on its fun­da­men­tal val­ues and age-old wis­dom, Renais­sance reminds read­ers of the crit­i­cal impor­tance of ask­ing ques­tions and of debat­ing the unknown.

Discussion Questions