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05/16/2008: "'Elitist' leadership alienating U.S. Jews, says prominent sociologist"

The perception that the American Jewish leadership is "elitist, parochial, self-serving and resistant to innovation," is fueling a decline in Jewish communal participation in the U.S., a leading sociologist said this week.

In a policy paper prepared ahead of the President's Conference, "Facing Tomorrow," Professor Chaim Waxman asserted that a sense of "too much overlap, duplication, and non-cooperation" among organizations in the American Jewish establishment is also disillusioning, especially among the younger generation, in regards to Jewish organizational life.

"There is a sense among some that the older established organizations are incapable of making the changes necessary to accomplish what some non-establishment organizations have been able to achieve," he wrote. Waxman also pointed to the perception that the American Jewish establishment seems closed to those "who are not members of the "'old boys club,' the circle of wealthy, old men who are at the helms of most major Jewish organizations." He stressed, however, that these perceptions were just some of the many factors contributing to a decline in communal participation and a general "disillusionment" with the organized Jewish community.

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/984209.html