American Jews grumbling about Jewish culture?

Here’s a piece I wrote during this summer for Jewish Renaissance magazine. It’s a write-up about a ‘town hall meeting’ which took place at the 14th St Y in the East Village back in May this year. It was quite pretentious, but quite fascinating at the same time – involving a panel of ten diverse Jewish artists, critics and funders pontificating about “Now What? The Future of New Jewish Culture”.

It was particularly interesting listening to the discussion as a non-American – about all the supposed elements of ‘crisis’ that are hitting Jewish culture here – and I highlighted this angle in the piece, questioning if (us) Jews just like kvetching  and wringing our hands for the sake of it, rather than because there really is something to worry about!