How is Jewish identity and practice changing in America?

What can this tell us about what is happening in our own Jewish community?

Presentation and Panel Discussion

Presenter:      

Greg Smith, Director of U.S. Religion Surveys, Religion & Public Life Project, Pew Research Center (Washington DC)

Panel:             

Dr. Frank Bialystok, Centre for Canadian Studies at University College, University of Toronto             

Bernie Farber, former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Senior Vice President with Gemini Power Corp

Rabbi Aaron Levy, Founder and Executive Director of Makom: Creative Downtown Judaism

Moderator:    

Janice Stein, Director, Munk School of Global Affairs (University of Toronto)     

Remarks:

Rabbi Tina Grimberg, Congregation Darchei Noam  

Background

Last fall the widely-respected US-based Pew Research Center released the results of a comprehensive survey of American Jews, which generated considerable attention in Canada as well as in the USA. The survey addresses many themes, but chief among them is how Jewish identity and practice are changing among Americans, and the results may also be relevant to what is happening in the Canadian Jewish community. This will be the focus of the Seventh Annual Elka Klein Memorial Lecture, to take place at Darchei Noam on June 23rd.

The event will include a presentation on the American survey results by Greg Smith, one of the senior Pew researchers responsible for the study. This will be followed by a panel of Canadian experts who will discuss how the American findings may or may not be relevant to the Canadian Jewish community (in the absence of any comparable survey of Canadian Jews). The panel will be moderated by Janice Stein (Director, Munk School of Global Affairs), and will include our member Frank Bialystok (University of Toronto), Bernie Farber (former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress) and Aaron Levy (Founder and Executive Director of Makom: Creative Downtown Judaism).

The Elka Klein Memorial Lecture is held each year as a living memorial to honour a former member of the Darchei Noam community.  Elka Klein was educated at Yale and Harvard, and was at the time of her death in 2005 an Assistant Professor of Jewish studies at the University of Cincinnati. Her primary research focus was in how medieval Jewish communities related to the larger society in business and culture. Elka’s broad interest in Jewish identity grew out of an evolving understanding of her own identity as a Canadian-American Jew.

Doors open at 7pm, and the program begins at 7:30pm. 

This event is free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Tema Smith in the DN office (416-638-4783 x. 27)