Editors Cross Over, New Growth at Zeek

18Jan2007 Filed under: JVoices, Media Author: Cole Krawitz

A few weeks ago, Mik Moore over on jspot wrote about the editorial changes at Tikkun, as Michael Lerner shifts the magazine to highlight Tikkun’s new focus on interfaith issues and coalition-building. The shift has also meant the resignation of Tikkun’s two main editors, Joel Schalit and Jo Ellen Green Kaiser.

Well, wouldn’t you know just week laters, we find that Schalit and Green Kaiser weren’t wandering for long. In fact, the two are still teamed up as they join the editorial staff of Zeek Magazine. As Zeek turns five, editor-in-chief Jay Michaelson calls this new phartnership “a huge milestone” in the magazine’s life. The Forward also reports:

In discussing Zeek and her attraction to it, Green Kaiser described what she sees as a paradigm shift taking place within Judaism. â€œThe religion itself is changing,â€? she said. â€œIt may be changing in a way thatâ€™s as radical as the shift from temple worship to rabbinical Judaism. The work I have been doing at Tikkun and what I want to keep doing at Zeek is to try and trace that shift.â€?

I fully agree with Green Kaiser that we are in an era of incredible shifts and changes in Jewish life, one that I often hear people claim will be as big as the shift in years’ past away from temple Judaism to Rabbinic Judaism. So I am excited that Green Kaiser will continue to investigate this in a new home at Zeek.

I also know that many of us are, and will continue to be part of thinking about and discovering what these new shape(s) of Jewishness will look like in the years to come. I for one look forward to joining in these efforts.

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3 Responses to “Editors Cross Over, New Growth at Zeek”

dobzewitz
January 25th, 2007 at 6:47 pm

Schalit is/was a contributor to Punk Planet and author of “Jerusalem Calling” about discovering the punk scene in Israel. He’s a gem.

But the shift from Temple Judaism to Rabbinnic is still happening, isn’t it? No, not Jews on the far right who worship the rebuilding of a Temple. Its those in the center and the left, for whom a Capital Campaign for beautiful structures holds more importance than the scriptures they house and the strictures we’re told to espouse.

Granted, I don’t see people flocking to Temples as much as they maybe once did, but nor do I really see people flocking to Torah. Thoughts?
Cole
January 26th, 2007 at 10:07 pm

Interesting about Schalit. I’d love to hear more about that.

I imagine it’s, like many things, a both/and. I wonder also where you live regionally. I don’t hear or see much in terms of capital campaigns for synagogues anymore, and I myself am part of, and hear more about, communities small and large that are not invested in the structure of a pulpit rabbi who leads a community, but rather a broader vision of leadership, education and community accountability. I do actually see people studying Torah–it’s just not necessarily at synagogue or the JCC.

But I also imagine, as many things do, this varies depending upon where one lives. Living in NY in the U.S., my perspective is skewed–I live in the largest concentration of U.S. Jews, so the range of practices and ways in which I see communities shifting and changing is very different from when I was growing up in CT. I think this is somewhat true for other major cities, like Philadelphia and Chicago, but I’d be interested to hear how others experience this in their communities.
Rabbinic judaism Digest
January 31st, 2007 at 9:45 pm

[...] “>Editors Cross Over, New Growth at Zeek I fully agree with Green Kaiser that we are in an era of incredible shifts and changes in Jewish life, one that I often hear people claim will be as big as the shift in years past away from temple Judaism to Rabbinic Judaism. …More Information:judaism new rabbinic testament history intellectural judaism rabbinic root four judaism rabbinic stage judaism paul rabbinic Post source [...]