The essays in this collection are the result of an essay contest sent to Jewish students and young professionals around the world asking them for their thoughts on the future of Judaism. We wanted to hear what problems they saw, what inspired them, and what they envisioned for the future. After all, today we face societal challenges both close-to-home and global. Judaism itself is changing as more Jews assimilate into the larger world. We wanted to hear what Judaism meant to our generation. How do Jews view themselves, their Jewish identity, and their responsibility to the world? How do they interact with our traditions and Jewish institutions? What parts of Judaism are meaningful and what parts do people grapple with? In an increasingly diverse Jewish community, what do people consider to be the essence of Judaism? Most of all, we wanted to give young people the opportunity to display leadership in written thought, an opportunity often reserved for established elders.

Submissions from young Jews around the world tackled these questions head on, bringing their perspectives on Judaism through the lenses of their family histories, their nationalities, and their work. Some wrote about their neighborhood’s response to COVID as people banded together in the hardest of times. One essay writer talked about the parallels between Judaism and social work while another discussed how reproductive rights should be seen moving forward in Jewish life. We have published the top four essays, as judged by a panel of Jewish educators and leaders, on this website, and have awarded prizes to the top two writers. You will also find excerpts from a number of other highly deserving submissions on this website.

The first and second place essays, by Isaac Treuhertz and Dan Pelberg, dive deep into questions of community and spirituality in the coming decade. Isaac discusses “bottom-up” Judaism, a model which updates long-standing traditions of communal independence for the modern age. Carefully articulating problems with the highly centralized British Jewish communal system, Isaac asks us to do better. Dan is concerned with the personal: in discussing “divine experimentation,” Dan wakes us from our spiritual slumber. Why are we so often set in our ways, unwilling to try on a new tradition or shed an old one? Dan pushes the reader to think that such experimentation might be the key to renewing our relationship with our Jewish selves. In the other awarded essays, Jonathan Stanley writes about Judaism as “a framework of hope that can help us muster the strength to move forward with courage and humility,” and Monica Sager explores the ways in which meditation can be used to steady the mind and fill the soul.

We are so grateful that a simple idea for an essay contest brought out so many wonderful ideas, and we are thankful to Hadar's microgrant program for funding the idea. The world is scary, but the young adults who submitted essays to us during a pandemic and in the midst of many pressing obligations gave us hope that the best is yet to come for Jewish communal leadership. We hope you feel the same way after reading their thoughts.

The Winners

Excerpts from Notable Submissions

"My Judaism comes from my grandfather Sol, a Holocaust survivor who passed away before I was old enough to ask him what that meant. And yet, my whole Jewish life has been deeply rooted in his legacy. So deeply, in fact, that it feels as entrenched as the woven tree roots in the earth behind my neighbor's house that my father had to dig out with his car. Roots like that are life-sustaining, but they are also defensive...

"My grandfather learned to live in that calcified root state, first because he had to, then because he wanted to, and later because he knew no other way. And so my Jewishness is prone to coagulation. But now that I've shaken its limbs awake they pulse constantly, reminding me that it is not my choice to do things Jewishly."

– Hannah Arwe

"Italy has people singing from their balconies, how else would you expect a Jewish community to put their own mark on the world? My Jewish community is choosing who will deliver the drash as kids play football in the now-empty roads. A faint sound of piano wafts down the street like the smell of challah from my own home. They say that a Jewish story is a parashah with a lesson at the end. It’s time to build one with your Jewish neighbors. Be like my neighborhood. Be together, but apart."

– Rachel Bernstein

"I don’t mean to single out our people as perpetrating a great human failing. Nor do I mean to credit any world religion with the crude, corporal tragedies befalling humankind. I mean only to emphasize that Jews are of the world. This world. And they always have been. The disciples of our religion today, those who read Torah weekly, follow the cyclical customs of our calendar, light candles on Shabbat, exclaim the story of the exodus, or celebrate their secular Jewish heritage, are scattered across the globe. Again, Jewish people advise leaders in powerful empires and again, they live marginalized in impoverished nations. Again, our communities make decisions based on faith, family, tradition, and history, and again, we are pawns to the powerful - those who benefit when we are decimated or made into villains, compelled to fight our ruler’s wars.

"Our darkest stories, both the tragedies we’ve experienced and the violent systems we sustain, are difficult to face. We are selective in our retellings, scorning our deplorable individuals while uplifting the accomplishments and perseverance of our communities. Our foes too, white supremacy and fascism, wield our name like a weapon. They arm themselves with our grief and cloak their hatred in myths of subversive control. Many of these stories, those we tell ourselves, those we leave out, and those assigned to us by others, are distressing and sad. But we know better than most that sad stories are cleansing. That to function, they need to be told, repeated, caressed, interrogated, and refined. Jewish people today need to beat sad stories on the head. Name every complexity, draw every through-line, question conclusions, and start over. Crucially, these stories need to be continued by something else. An encounter with the infinite, a reconciling with joy. Another story. Maybe spoken, maybe sung."

– Jacob Cantor

"Study with application is what has made the Jewish people a nation of survivors... Tikkun Olam is the lesson of that history. Understanding Jewish history leads us to commit to Tikkun Olam."

– Daniel Crasnow

"COVID-19 has bestowed upon us a pandemic, but the realists believe in miracles and know that this will not be permanent. Jewish realists have also utilized opportunity. Facebook groups have been formed in order to create an online community for Jewish people because we understand our strength as a whole. These groups unite Jewish people of all demographics, regardless of Jewish affiliation. Judaism was founded upon the establishment of community and the idea that a Jew is a Jew.

"Pirkei Avot, Chapter One- Mishna 14 asks the questions, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” This mishna refers to a person’s spiritual goals. Individuals have the obligation to rise in spiritual elevation for themselves, but we must not forget to help elevate our Jewish neighbors. We must spiritually perfect ourselves, but we must not forget about our community. We all work together to create a spiritually just world. As a Jewish social worker, I continuously strive for a better world."

– Emily Glazer

"As a little kid I used to say a made up prayer every single night before I fell asleep. If I were to write that prayer today, I know the words would be different. It would include something about protecting not only Jews in Israel and the United States, but also in Europe and other global Jewish communities around the world. Yet, I can’t change the prayer because that was how I created the prayer and that original prayer that I have always said is what is meaningful.

"As we accept the reality that not everyone’s beliefs fit into a perfect box, in the 2020s we, as a Jewish society, are going to rely less and less on traditional labels such as Conservative or Progressive or Masorti and more on feelings and emotions. Some people worry about the end of Judaism. They fear that Jewish life will cease to exist if we make changes. But I don’t think we are making changes that will end Judaism. I think we are making changes that bring Judaism closer to our hearts, which in turn, connects us more to tradition, to our religion. In this new decade, progressive Judaism will not be about following rules and laws. It will be about connection and meaning. Sometimes meaning will come from making changes and other times meaning will happen when we stick to original practices."

– Madison Jackson

"Overall, it should be noted how complex this topic is, with the knowledge and understanding that this issue impacts so many Jewish couples around the world. Among the religious Jewish community, the societal pressure to immediately start having Jewish children after marriage is constantly looming over the head of young Jewish couples."

– Jillian Shapiro