By Andrew Adler
Community Editor
The Year of Civil Discourse — a community-wide project aimed at bolstering our skills to engage thoughtfully across differences, while exploring often-complex issues affecting contemporary Jewish life — continues to gain momentum.
Launched last November, the initiative “equips participants with practical skills for listening with curiosity, navigating disagreement respectfully, and building a more connected and resilient Jewish community,” a YOCD mission statement explains.
Consistent with these goals, three area synagogues hosted a series of “Dialogue Circles” as part of their respective Yom Kippur observances. In each Dialogue Circle, a trained facilitator led participants in discussions based on two main prompts and several follow-up questions.
The first prompt related to connections to Israel, with the second touching on the complexity of developing consensus positions in Jewish communities, especially given the diversity of opinions that exist.
“Basically, each person had two minutes to respond to each prompt,” Lisa Shapiro, who was among 11 facilitators and more than 60 participants at The Temple, explained in an interview the following day. After this initial segment came what was called a “question harvest,” in which “people could ask questions of each other.”
Facilitators, Shapiro said, had been instructed “not to respond to the questions, but to just listen AND LATER TO PERHAPS POINT OUT COMMON THEMES AND DIFFERENCES.” She facilitated two sessions, each lasting about 45 minutes. Eight people joined her first group, with six participants in the second.
In all, more than 100 congregants from The Temple, Adath Jeshurun and Keneseth Israel — many of them fasting — took part in the various Dialogue Circles.
“What’s important to know about this program,” Shapiro emphasized, “is that the point is not to build consensus or agreement. The actual intent of the program is to draw out differences.”
Overall, “I think one could say that there’s a polarization between holding true to our values as Jews and being an ally of Israel,” she said. “One thing that was said – and this is my wording — was that sometimes you feel like you’re torn between being a traitor to your people and being a traitor to your own values. But there wasn’t a solution proposed, because that wasn’t the point of the session.”
Indeed, the broad range of discussion, particularly regarding the second prompt, reflected the well-worn yet applicable trope: two Jews, three opinions.
“Someone said that there will never be a single voice,” Shapiro recalled, “because that skews toward authoritarianism — and authoritarianism has never existed in Judaism.”
The next set of YOCD events is slated for Nov. 17-19, when Shalom Hartman Institute President Yehuda Kurtzer visits Louisville. Kurtzer, who also hosts the podcast Identity/Crisis, will speak during a public forum Wednesday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. at Keneseth Israel. He will also participate in a Community Torah Study at The Temple that morning at 9:30 a.m., and at a Teen Program Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 5 p.m.
Registration is required for all these events. Go online at tinyurl.com/54cm2ay7.