Vanishing Men

Rabbi Joel Fleekop

Yom Kippur - Monday, October 2, 2006

Having a DVR at home, I tend to not watch very many commercials. But even fast forwarding through the commercial breaks, I couldn’t help but notice the recent preponderance of campaign ads. They are everywhere, filling the breaks between political pundits on the news stations, snaps of the football on ESPN, and the canned laughter of network sitcoms. In 30 second stretches, I am learning why I should vote for a political candidate, or this being California, why I should or shouldn’t support a certain ballot measure.

The only station that hasn’t been inundated with political commercials is MTV. With limited resources, politicians and lobbyists are betting that those watching NEXT and The Real World are unlikely to vote. And studies show they are right.

Despite the best efforts of get-out the vote campaigns like Rock the Vote, less then 50% of American 18-29 year olds participated in the 2004 election. With November 7th being a non-presidential election, even fewer are expected to show up at the polls. In the last mid-term election only 22% of young adults voted.

Of course young adults aren’t the only ones staying away from the polls. Voter turnout is also low amongst minorities, immigrants, and the poor. The de-facto disenfranchisement of these groups, whether through their own choices or a conspiracy of factors, has hurt our democracy and changed the game of politics.

With less then 40% of voters participating in midterm elections, and less then 60% in presidential contests, many politicians have decided to spend their time and money getting their base to the polls. And, as we have seen in the last few elections, the best way to do that is to focus on divisive issues.

As Norman Orstein explains in a New York Times op-ed published August 10th, “the unhappy effects of low turnout are clear; ever-greater polarization in the country and in Washington, which in turn has led to ever-more rancor and ever-less legislative progress.” Ornstein proposes mandatory voting as a solution to our government’s gridlock. While that is unlikely to happen, Ornstein makes a strong argument that the American democracy would function better if more of its citizens let their voices be heard in the voting booth.

Like democracies, Judaism is strongest when the entire community participates. Judaism is an exoteric tradition, one that depends on all of us to preserve its traditions and teachings.

And so it is that Deuteronomy 31, verse 12 charges Israel’s leaders with the responsibility of sharing the words and commandments of Torah with the whole community, men, women, and children.

Similarly, the verses of Torah we read this morning, verses that present the choice between life and good, or death and evil, are addressed to the community in its entirety. Moses speaks these important words to the men as well as the women and children – to the chieftains, elders, and officers, as well as the community’s wood choppers and water drawers.

These ancient calls to involve the entire community in the learning and observance of Torah have served as inspiration for Reform Judaism in its efforts to create a truly inclusive community.

Within the past half century women have been welcomed into aspects of synagogue life that only a few decades ago where the exclusive domain of men. As committee chairs, synagogue presidents, and most notably, as rabbis and cantors, women help guide the present and shape the future of Reform Judaism.

In recent years our movement, and I am proud to say, our congregation have also extended a warm welcome to gays and lesbians, Jews of color, and interfaith families.

But as we have worked to open the synagogue doors, as well as the doors to the board room and the rabbi’s office to all the groups that make up the American Jewish community, something unexpected has happened.

Men, who used to be the only one with keys to open up those doors, have begun to disappear.

As Rabbi Jeff Salkin noted in a 1998 Reform Judaism Maganize article, “The great unspoken crisis facing modern Judaism is the disengagement of its men. While no one mourns the exclusive male minyan, men increasingly see Judaism as being the province of women. Men are distancing themselves in ever growing numbers from synagogue life –as worshippers, as students of Torah, and as trustees and committee members.”

Salkin’s assertion is supported by statistics. Women make up roughly 60-70% of the attendance at the Reform Movement’s summer learning kallot, 65% of attendance at NFTY youth events, and in recent years 70% of first year rabbinic classes.

I wish I could say Shir Hadash was immune to this trend, but that has not been my experience. Men are under-represented in most of our adult education classes, and completely absent from many of our committee meetings. While the congregation this morning is roughly 50% male, that is often not the case at Shabbat services. And an even greater gender disparity exists with regards to participation in Shir Hadash social events.

Both anecdotal and statistical proofs suggest that men are disengaging from synagogue life at an alarming rate. That is not to say that men no longer play a prominent within the Reform movement and our synagogue community. The President of the Union for Reform Judaism is Rabbi Eric Yoffie. The President Elect of Shir Hadash is Jay Friedman. And our community is proud to boast an active men’s club that is well integrated into the fabric of the congregation.

But as Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman argues, “if you look at the major activity generating, energy driven parts of our synagogue and religious lives, if you look carefully at the most hands-on people who are running Jewish institutional life today, you are going to see fewer and fewer men.”

There is no shortage of explanations for why this is happening.

Since, as the saying goes, money makes the world go round, finances very likely play a role in male disengagement. Involvement in synagogue leadership requires a significant commitment of time and often personal financial expenditures. With discretionary time and money seemingly disappearing before our eyes, some speculate that the cost of synagogue involvement is simply too high for many men.

Another popular scapegoat is feminization. The increased involvement of women in temple leadership and the recent focus on women’s spirituality, the theory goes, has left men feeling both unnecessary and as though their religious needs are being ignored. As Gary Rosenblatt explains, “spirituality is perceived by many men as soft, or feminine, a quality that goes against the grain of male independence and toughness.”

Of course the changes in our synagogues have not taken place in a vacuum. Churches too have seen a dramatic decrease in male participation. In his book entitled, Why Men Hate Going to Church, David Murrow, a reporter for CBN writes, “church forces men to act like women, to be placid and calm and nice. They are supposed to adopt good listening skills and comfortably talk about relationships. Men aren’t wired that way.”

Though Murrow may be speaking in hyperbole, he correctly observes that the culture of religious institutions has changed, and that these changes may be off-putting to some men.

In addition to finances and feminization, still others see a correlation between Reform Judaism’s return to tradition and the decrease in male involvement. Doug Barden, Executive Director of the National Federation of Temple Brotherhoods writes, “there is widespread ignorance of traditions, rituals, and prayers by both men and women and they, but especially men, are not going to openly display their ignorance by participating in congregational events. Their absence avoids potential embarrassment.”

Personally, I don’t know if men are staying away from services to avoid embarrassment. But I do think men and women see the challenges of renewed traditions differently. Because for so many years women were prevented from learning about large parts of our tradition, learning about Judaism as an adult can be an empowering experience, and so they bravely enroll in basic Judaism and Beginning Hebrew classes. But many men perceive the absence of knowledge as a sign of failure. After all, this is something we should have learned in Hebrew school. And so, as Rabbi Elyse Goldstein observes, men stay away from these valuable, if introductory, learning opportunities.

The reality is that the disengagement of men from synagogue life is probably a combination of all these factors and many others that go unmentioned.

Although there is an abundance of explanations for why men are disengaging, the list of possible solutions is rather short. Because male-flight caught the Reform Movement and, on a larger scale all of American religion by surprise, there is no widely accepted formula for reversing this troubling trend.

But there are examples of things that work.

Rabbi Jeff Marx of Santa Monica has had great success with his all male Torah study group. Having worked along side Rabbi Marx for a summer, I can assure you that the existence of this group is not a return to Orthodoxy or a refutation of egalitarianism and feminism. Rather it is an embracing of one of feminism’s most important lessons, gender matters.

Gender affects the way we relate to the texts of our tradition, a point implicitly acknowledged by the publication this fall of a Reform Women’s Torah Commentary, and of course gender plays an important role in shaping group dynamics.

By recognizing these two realities Rabbi Marx has created a strong and successful Men’s Torah study group. The study group has succeeded in bringing men not only to the study of Torah, but greater involvement throughout the synagogue, serving as a feeder for synagogue leadership and a conduit for participation in social action projects and greater ritual observance.

In addition to the creation of men’s only spaces, another successful approach has been to appeal to men through sports. This fall several churches in New Jersey packed the pews with special football themed services, complete with numbered jerseys and cheerleaders. That is obviously not going to happen at Shir Hadash, but events that put sports on the synagogue calendar have been quite successful.

This summer roughly 100 Shir Hadash members joined together at AT&T Park for Jewish Heritage Night. The Men’s Club has also had success organizing trips to Sharks and San Jose Giants games. Those who attended Jewish Heritage Night did so overwhelmingly as families. But unlike a lot of other Shir Hadash family events, the dads were there.

The game wasn’t a particularly religious event and all prayers for a Giants rally went unanswered. But the night brought Jewish men in contact with their synagogue community and hopefully the relationships that were created or reinforced that night will lead to their attendance at future events.

After all, it is relationships that many see as the key for ending the flight of men from synagogue life.

Rabbi Leonard Zukrow, who recently spent a year studying the disengagement of men, espouses the value of relationships between male members of the congregation. Whether created naturally through participation in study groups and men’s club events or more systematically through mentoring programs linking older and younger men, having male friends and role models in the congregation makes men feel like there is a place for them in the synagogue.

Beyond the approaches I have already mentioned, synagogue around the country have succeeded in re-engaging their male membership with camping trips, men’s spirituality groups, and workshops targeting Jewish fathers.

There are some great ideas out there, but as Doug Barden warns in his book, Fighting the Flight of Men, “one model will not fit all.” Each synagogue needs to develop its own approach for addressing this important issue.

Finding an approach for re-engaging men that is both affective and reflective of the personality and values of Shir Hadash won’t be easy. But if we as a community work on this problem, I know we can succeed.

On November 7th headlines will read, America Goes to the Polls. Of course in reality, only a small fraction of Americans will vote. But for those declared victorious, low voter turnout won’t spoil the celebration. In fact, accurately predicting which groups weren’t going to vote is often part of a campaign’s success. So long as a candidate has one more vote then his or her opponent, regardless of voter turnout, champagne will be popped and a party will ensue.

But Judaism doesn’t work that way. Judaism can’t succeed with large parts of the community not participating. If the wisdom and tradition of our faith are to be passed on to the next generation, and equally important lived by this generation, the flight of men from synagogue life and leadership must come to an end. The success of Congregation Shir Hadash depends on the participation and commitment of all its members, its women, its children, and yes, its men.