JPRO Network Blog

We hope you are enjoying reading the latest issue of the Journal of Jewish Communal Service, “All in the Family:  Diversity in the Jewish Community.”  As an outgrowth of conversations with our colleagues at the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University, following a compelling conference on the Changing Jewish Family, we were excited by the topic and eager to engage expert scholars and practitioners in exploring the many ways Jewish families are changing, why this was happening, the impact of the changes, obstacles to acceptance and related concerns.  We could not know, as we began to consider potential subjects and assemble an astute Editorial Committee that so many of these matters would garner the community’s attention and become more readily assimilated in such short time.  The rapidity and constancy of change has become a societal norm that impacts the Jewish community as it does society in general.  In spring, 2012, there were two states in the U.S. that recognized same-sex marriage.  With the overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013, more than 20 states now recognize same-sex marriages and that number continues to increase.  Just a few years ago, many community agencies and institutions found it “impossible” to meet the needs of individuals and families with disabilities.  Today, synagogues, camps and numerous major institutions of Jewish life have inclusion policies.  And, with the release of the Pew Research Center’s Portrait of Jewish Americans in the fall of 2013, we have real data delineating the diversity of our community.  You can obtain a copy of this latest issue of the Journal here.