Yesterday on a @jdforward panel we talked about low membership at shuls among millenials and how we still think about institutional engagement in ways that made sense in earlier generations but perhaps don't anymore.

Here's a chart that helps explain why. https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1265621997763153920

Millenials are saddled with debt. We are now in our second once-in-a-lifetime great recession. We started earning less than previous generations. We have experienced less growth. Where there were jobs before this COVID-led recession were in markets where housing is expensive.

Jewish institutions are asking themselves what they can do better because they believe this is a problem they can control or at least mitigate.

Maybe on a micro-level. But the economic reality prohibits a return to the kind of membership that brought these institutions to life.

I live in a social bubble that includes people who are supposed to be the platonic ideal of these organizations.

They have or seek Jewish partners. They have or want to raise Jewish children.

And yet even here people are often priced out.

The question in my eyes is not why are these people failing (there are a lot of conversations that amount to "it's not your fault"), but the reality that we as a generational cohort are not going to be able to sustain these institutions without help.

If millenials are not going to be able to fund Jewish communal life, and worse, many will be priced out of participating in it, what options are left?

Jewish philanthropy comes to mind. But right now, that world is still dominated by funding Israel advocacy.