Missing ‘The Conversation’

It’s been almost four years since the last Jewish Week-sponsored annual retreat, leaving a void in serious communal dialogue. Just when we need it most.

The program book for the last Conversation, an event that had virtually no program.

At the initial Conversation, which took place in Aspen, CO in 2005, the three people called to the Torah at a morning prayer service happened to be leaders of the Orthodox, Conservative and Reform movements, respectively. After the service, two of them came over to me and said they were moved by that meaningful transdenominational moment, adding, only half-kiddingly, “and if you write about it, our jobs could be in jeopardy.”

That comment underscored a primary goal and challenge of The Conversation, a two-day retreat designed to foster deep discussion and debate, sometimes uncomfortable but always respectful, in a trustful environment among participants from different backgrounds, beliefs and experiences. 

Between 2005 and 2019, The Jewish Week sponsored 16 in-person retreats attended by almost 900 people – a wide range of thoughtful, accomplished North American Jews willing to meet, network and share their dreams and concerns about the future of Jewish life. They were between the ages of 18 and 90, and included business women and men, students, clergy, artists, teachers, activists, lay leaders, Jewish organizational professionals, journalists, entertainers and more. 

As founding chair of the project, I may well be biased in believing that The Conversation served a unique and vital role as a model for how to begin to foster healing in our community, knitting together its severed strands through encounters among people who shared a common concern for the Jewish enterprise – and sometimes little else.

But I am not alone in my assessment. Based on comments and evaluations each year from the participants, a large majority expressed enthusiasm for the program, citing in particular the sense of trust and bonding that was created, and the all-too-rare opportunity to meet and engage with people they otherwise would not have met. 

“The Conversation is what I’m trying to do in my work,” said Rabbi David Ingber, founder of Romemu congregation in New York City, “deepening intimacy with others, finding the humanity we share, especially with others we have differences with.”

Jenny Medina, a New York Times reporter, said: “It was a great experience … I would give a lot now to have an honest and non-combative discussion about Israel.”

“I found it fantastic, energizing, and a real cross-pollination of talent,” recalled author, journalist and lay leader Abigail Pogrebin.

For Josh Weinstein, The Conversation had a major impact on his career. He attended as a businessman in 2015, and found the experience “so inspiring it changed my life. Every conversation was a unique perspective on how to live a Jewish life.”

As a direct result, he says, he changed professions and became CEO of his local JCC in Rochester, NY.

There were critics, too, of course. (This was, after all, a Jewish event.) Some felt the discussions, which were chosen by the participants themselves, did not allow enough time for deep dives and follow-ups. Others expressed frustration that the retreat was a “one-off” experience, since participants are invited to attend only once. “It was like summer camp,” one woman said. “Instant bonding, great vibe, then we all go home, back to our real lives.”

The Conversation, sponsored by The Jewish Week and funded by foundations and alumni, did offer a one-day reunion each year, a kind of mini-Conversation, open to all who had attended. It allowed them to revisit those they had met and to meet people from other cohorts. But for the most part it was up to the participants to stay in touch, and there are many instances of friendships, programs and projects born from connections made at The Conversation. A prime example: Repair The World, the national Jewish non-profit that mobilizes young adults to volunteer for social service causes, traces its beginning to a discussion between its two future founders at The Conversation.

A confluence of factors over the last several years, primarily the impact of Covid and The Jewish Week’s financial reversals, resulted in the suspension of The Conversation, now under the aegis of 70 Faces Media. But the program’s years of success during a time when political and religious differences among American Jews have grown increasingly bitter, if not toxic, warrants deeper reflection.  

Can The Conversation be a case study for a renewed and broadened model of civil discussion and debate for our increasingly fractured community?

A Jewish Conference With No Speakers?

The small group of us who conceived of the project in 2004 was made up of Jewish lay and professional veterans of dozens of organizational conferences and events. We felt that too many of those programs tended to be frontal, lecture-oriented, over-programmed, and/or did not allow for sufficient feedback from attendees. Often, the most interesting discussions we experienced at such events took place in the halls or at meals or in other informal settings. We wanted to create a whole conference that fostered that relaxed feeling. We searched for an alternative format that would cut out the traditional pattern of panels, plenaries and guest speakers, and create an equal playing field among all participants. 

In our research, we discovered “Open Space Technology,” an intimidating phrase for a simple technique that allows for exactly the kind of programming we sought. Namely, virtually none. 

Instead, it provided a method for deep dialogue by letting each participant either offer up a topic – by posting it on the wall – or choose from the various topics posted by others. Soon, we imagined, the room would fill with voices coming from the simultaneous breakout sessions, not unlike the sound of chavruta study groups in a yeshiva beit midrash. And so it came to be.

Those breakouts (often seven, eight or nine at the same time) were the core of the two-day experience, supplemented by other opportunities that encouraged conversation, like mealtimes, organized walks on the grounds and speed networking. An evening Beit Cafe had brave participants offering up their talents, including musical performances, comedy, and story sharing, in the spirit of camaraderie. (A lasting image for me was a chasidic rabbi juggling oranges.)

Getting to know each other: Speed networking was one method of assuring all participants would meet. Name tags had only names, no professional IDs. (Photo: Leni Reiss)

The Conversation would not have happened without the guidance and creativity of a handful of dedicated volunteers for whom it was a labor of love. Two who were there from the beginning, and attended every retreat, were Rae Janvey, a New York-based leadership mentor and coach to Jewish foundations and lay and professional leaders, and Leni Reiss, former editor of the Jewish newspaper in Phoenix, where she has served as a lay leader of numerous organizations. Robert Bank, the president and CEO of American Jewish World Service, joined the team after serving as facilitator at one of the early retreats. And steering it all with consummate grace and skill was project manager Rachel Saifer, our one paid (part-time) employee, who planned and helped direct every retreat and reunion.

A major concern in raising sufficient funds to offer invitees a cost-free experience at a pleasant retreat center was that foundations and potential donors would first want to know The Conversation’s expected outcomes. But we had none, intentionally. Our only agenda was to spark thoughtful dialogue, and we felt our role was to bring together the right mix of creative people – a new cohort each year – establish a safe environment for them, step back and, with minimal facilitation, let the participants talk about whatever they wanted to under the broad theme of “Being Jewish in America in the 21st Century.”

Fortunately, several major foundations, including Avi Chai, The Covenant Foundation, The Michael Steinhardt Family Foundation and Schusterman Family Philanthropies, believed us when we told them, in effect, we don’t know what will happen but in the end, there will be connections made – some identifiable, most not – that will be good for the Jewish people.  

As Rae Janvey has noted, “the novel idea behind The Conversation is that you can’t control it, and you never know what will happen. It’s based on a deep trust in the participants. That was the magic.”

Leni Reiss said the most dramatic moment for her in the program each year was at the outset, when the participants were first asked to come into the circle, pick up a sheet of paper and Magic Marker on the floor, and write down a topic to post on the wall. “There were always those tense 30 seconds or so when I wondered if anyone was going to get up,” she said. “But then some brave soul would, and a few seconds later, others would follow. And I could breathe again.”

From Near Catastrophe To Steady Success

In launching The Conversation in 2005, we succeeded in raising the funds required, but made countless mistakes in planning. We scheduled the retreat for September in Aspen. A lovely setting, but very costly, especially because people had to take two flights – to Denver, and then to Aspen. Though our goal was to host a cross-section of the community, lay and professional, and ensure that they got to know each other in the course of 48 hours, we invited and accepted too many people, and too many were major “machers,” a number of them leading rabbis and heads of Jewish organizations.

In addition, our facilitator was an Open Space purist who held to the “rule” that “whenever it starts, it starts,” and our folks, operating on “Jewish time,” were still shmoozing over coffee when we were supposed to start the first morning session. We managed to work out a compromise. 

The biggest problem, though, was beyond our control. On the Sunday morning of the conference, hours before it was set to open, a major and unusually early-in-the-season snowstorm hit the Denver region. Flights out of Denver International Airport were canceled. Fifteen of the 90 people we expected were stranded at the Denver airport. 

Scrambling, we hired two vans for the 160-mile trek but the highway turned into a parking lot, and the 15 would-be participants were stuck for hours. At one point, one of the van drivers told us he was running out of gas and feared they would all freeze to death. During this ordeal, which coincided with the opening session of The Conversation, the folks in the two vans certainly were getting to know each other. They were having conversations of their own, some of them on Jewish life, as we’d suggested via phone contact, and others expressing dismay, perhaps providing the only “heat” in the vans. 

In the end, both vans managed to return to Denver, and only one of the 15 people, Tali Farhadian, an enterprising young woman, made it to the conference by hitchhiking to Aspen the next day. (Having fled as a child from Iran to the U.S. with her parents, she has gone on to prove her grit as an attorney, professor and candidate for District Attorney in New York.) The other 14 invitees were the first people we invited to The Conversation the following year.

With it all – weather crises and rookie mistakes – the initial Conversation was an overall success, and gradually, over the next several years, we made improvements in the process. We changed the venue several times until 2009, when we landed at the Pearlstone Conference Center near Baltimore, a smaller, friendly and reasonably priced kosher facility in a bucolic setting. We broadened our range of attendees while narrowing their numbers, settling on between 40 and 50 new faces a year to improve the chances that they could all meet each other in their 48 hours together.  

A key ingredient we looked for in potential participants was the ability to actively listen to others. (“Jews don’t listen,” a keen observer once noted. “They wait.”) A number of prominent Jewish leaders were never invited out of concern they might seek to dominate the discussions. 

Though we tried, the most difficult segment of the community to attract was charedim, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, with the notable exception of Lubavitch chasidim, who embraced the experience. One head of a charedi yeshiva said he would attend The Conversation if we agreed not to publish his photo or ID blurb in the bios we distributed to participants. He said his job would be in jeopardy if it became known that he attended. Once at the retreat, though, he engaged fully and even brought his golf clubs to take advantage of a nearby golf course.

Another memorable charedi attendee was a rabbi who wore a black hat, suit and beard. He startled all of us when, at the opening program, he proposed a breakout session on “why don’t Orthodox Jews do more to engage LGBT+ people?”  His inclusive attitude, while strictly adhering to Jewish law, made him a favorite of many attendees, one of whom suggested fancifully at the Beit Cafe that the rabbi was “an undercover Reconstructionist” member of the clergy posing as Orthodox.

What Did They Talk About?

While each annual retreat, and reunion, was a unique experience with its own vibe, there were some definite patterns over the years. Variations on the challenge of transmitting Jewish life to future generations were always present, sharpened by the generational divide among the participants. Visions of what paths the Jewish community should take ranged from returning to traditional Judaism to rejecting synagogue and organizational life in search of seeking creative new ways to provide meaning.

Jewish education, anti-Semitism, worrisome demographics, outreach, conversion, the high cost of living a Jewish life, Red and Blue politics, social justice. Topics like these were almost always up for discussion. Curiously, Israel was not, at first. But invariably, on Day Two someone would post “why aren’t we talking about Israel?,” and a large group would convene to talk about why that was, and how North American Jews do or should relate to the Jewish State. 

Only twice, as I recall, did all the participants choose to take part in the same breakout session. One was an animated exchange on the importance and variety of art and culture in Jewish life. The other, held outdoors on a sunny day, was “tell us your favorite Jewish joke,” and it provided a hilarious respite from all the serious dialogues and debates.

More often, the breakouts, always spirited, were serious and at times quite emotional. “I was always amazed at how quickly people bonded,” Rachel Saifer noted. “The sense of trust was there almost immediately.” She vividly recalled attending a breakout with four or five others on the posted topic: “God.” 

“It was memorable because everyone spoke so personally about what God means to them, the role God plays in their lives. Very powerful.”

One of the most poignant sessions I took part in was on coping with death and loss, which included one young woman in our small group revealing, for the first time in public, her feelings on the loss of a child. I came away saddened, of course, but heartened that people felt so comfortable opening up to virtual strangers.

A relaxed setting: The idea was to convene a conference with no pressure to perform, just be yourself. (Photo: Leni Reiss)

David Gregory, the CNN political analyst and author, wrote an essay in the Wall Street Journal about his moving experience at The Conversation. “There was incredible warmth and learning,” he wrote. “Something there that should be preserved.”

If you ask alums of The Conversation what remains with them most, years later, it’s rarely a particular breakout topic or debate. Rather, it’s the essence of the program, what Robert Bank called “that rare safe space where people can speak openly despite their differences – because of their differences. 

“The Conversation gave rise to connections,” he observed, “that would not have been made, voices that would not have been heard, and ideas that were able to grow and bear fruit in known and unknown ways.”  

Perhaps those ideas will include finding a way to keep The Conversation going.