Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry

by Scott A. Shay

Book Overview

Ten practical and achievable mini-manifestos that can reinvigorate American Jewry. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1932687858
• ISBN13: 9781932687859
• Release Date: December 2006
• Publisher: Devora Publishing
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

A must read!

Finally a book that offers solutions instead of just 'kvetching'! Scott Shay expertly researches and suggests practical solutions to the challenges facing the American Jewish community today. A MUST read for communal leadership as well as parents and grandparents. --Staci Light

A very important book; a must read

Scott's book makes very important suggestions on what needs to be done to re-energize the Jewish Community. His book is thoughtful and analytical and he has given a great deal of thought not only to identifying what the problems are but also has offered solutions for these problems and issues. This is a must read for anyone concerned about the future of the American Jewish Community.

If not now, when?

Scott Shay's timely manifesto is food for thought that leaves the reader with an appetite for action. Shay does not demand consensus but presents an achievable proposal for creating a common denominator that would mean a stronger future for American Jews... let's get to it!

American Jewry, The Improved Version

This is an ambitious, well-researched, and practical, 'how to' book on revitalizing the shrinking and divided American Jewish population. Refreshingly, it is authored by an enthusiastic lay leader in the Jewish community whose background is in finance. A must-read for anyone with a personal or professional stake in Jewish survival.

Prescription for Revitalizing American Jewry

Scott A. Shay has presented a timely, well thought-out and meaningful program to address the portentious demagraphic decline facing American Jewry in the coming decades. The book can be segmented into three parts. First, the author details the seemingly inevitable decline of American Jewry in both absolute terms (i.e., the numbers of Americans identifying themselves as Jews is shrinking at an alarming rate) and in proportionate terms (i.e., as fast as the absolute number of Jews in the United States is dropping, the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Jews is falling even faster). Second, the author asks and answers the very important question: why does it matter if American Jewry disappears into the melting pot of the USA? And third (and what takes up most of the book), the author presents his series of "planks" to halt (and, hopefully, reverse)this demographic decline. The planks range from enhancing the "Birthright Israel" program to adopting a type of mandatory funding for Jewish education. While the planks in themselves offer many interesting ideas and deserve to be studied for implementation, they do something far more important than set up a system of policy prescriptions: they serve as touchstones for putting this (in this reviewer's opinion anyway) highly important issue on the American Jewish community's agenda for social action and public discourse. If nothing else, Mr. Shay should be commended for writing a book that sounds the clarion call for action. Mr. Shay has thrown down the gauntlet; let's hope it gets picked up.