‘ON THEIR OWN TERMS’
Connectti offers millennials a chance to connect to their Jewish heritage
On a Friday night in January, about 40 young adults crammed into a midtown apartment.
The group fell silent as their host lit the Shabbat candle, then began to sing prayers together.
“L’chah dodi likrat kalah, p’nei Shabbat n’kab’lah,” the group sang in Hebrew.
“Beloved, come to meet the bride, beloved, come to greet Shabbat.”
Nearly eight months later, the COVID-19 pandemic means that 40 millennials can’t pack into an apartment for Shabbat, but the groundwork laid through Temple Israel’s program for young adults has created a foundation for keeping people together even when a global pandemic forces them to be physically apart.
The program, known as Connectti, is also a model other Reform Jewish communities have considered, to connect millennials with one another and their Jewish roots.
“What we really aim to do is provide the space and opportunities for Jewish millennials in Memphis to reconnect or continue connecting to their Judaism and their Jewish identity,” said Paige Mandelman, 25, community engagement director at Connectti. “I think Jewish millennials, in particular, want to be able to define their Jewish identity on their own terms.”
“What we really aim to do is provide the space and opportunities for Jewish millennials in Memphis to reconnect or continue connecting to their Judaism and their Jewish identity.” Paige Mandelman Community engagement director at Connectti
Connectti dates to 2014, when Rabbi Adam Grossman realized that people in the Teach for America program would come to Memphis and later leave, often without establishing meaningful connections. Soon, the program was branded “Connectti,” the “TI” standing for “Temple Israel,” a synagogue in East Memphis and with 1,500 member families, one of the largest Reform congregations in the United States.
Today, the program is organized with Mandelman as its director and organizing a variety of gatherings for young people who are new to Memphis as well as those who have grown up in the city. The goal is to have something for everyone, regardless of how that person might want to engage with their Jewish heritage. There are gatherings like “Underground Shabbat,” which occurs in someone’s home with a peer-led service. There are happy hours, Jewish cooking classes, group tickets to Grizzlies games. There are “TI Talks,” panels with discussion usually about a social justice issue or other newsworthy topics.
“The Jewish tradition roots us all and connects us all together,” Mandelman said. “We all know what it’s like to celebrate Shabbat or put our mezuzah on our door or find those things that are still special that are around forever, but maybe we don’t want to go to temple every Friday night for services. … I think that our temple walls aren’t confined just to the synagogue. I think that the whole city is a part of it.”
One Wednesday night, also before COVID-19 shut down Shelby County, a group gathered in a narrow room on the fourth floor at Crosstown Concourse to hear experts discuss economic development and revitalization. While Connectti meets all over the city, it also has a designated space at Crosstown.
The group — including developer Benjamin Orgel, professor of social work Elena Delavega, municipal planner Angelica Carey and Community LIFT President Eric Robertson as guests — discussed the nature of equity versus equality, revitalization and gentrification and how new developments can maintain space for low-income residents.
They ended with Rabbi Jeremy Simons, 37, assistant rabbi at Temple Israel, speaking about a concept found in the Mishnah and the Talmud of “arguments for the sake of heaven.” The night, he said, modeled a beautiful example of that.
“Judaism is more than just the religion,” Simons said in an interview with The Commercial Appeal. “It’s community, it’s culture. I think especially for younger people moving to a city especially for the first time, they may not have realized what Judaism meant to them.”
All of that plays a role in Connectti as it tries to bring people together regardless of whether they “engage Jewishly differently,” Mandelman said.
For Matthew Hollon, Connectti has been a chance to get to know other people his age in a casual environment, something he’d never experienced before in a religious setting. Hollon, who grew up in Alabama, has lived in Memphis since 2011 and began his involvement with Connectti roughly four years ago.
Sometimes, focus on Judaism means an emphasis on the past, he said.
“Some people often see Judaism as this old religion that has been around forever and a lot of the people they feel are involved are older,” Hollon said. “You have brotherhood and sisterhood at most congregations that tend to be older as well, so I think it’s important to keep people our age engaged in our faith and wanting to be a part of it, which is what Connectti does. It connects Judaism to us on our own terms.”
In Connectti, he particularly sees the Jewish value of “tikkun olam,” “repairing the world,” Hollon said. That especially shows in the TI Talk events that focus on correcting wrongs and engaging important societal issues.
“We already feel like we need to be involved in the community and work to make the world a better place,” Hollon said. “It brings that desire of a lot of millennials to work to be the change they want to see and bring that Jewish concept back to it. It combines those two needs into one.”
Since COVID-19 struck the county, Mandelman has been tasked with rethinking what that engagement looks like. She’s considering turning “Underground Shabbat” into Zoom calls connecting individual household units. They’ve already done a virtual happy hour.
The regular dinner for new Memphians that they host twice a year was done virtually in August, after Mandelman had a leadership team distribute welcome bags to the newcomers filled with Shabbat essentials — candles, a bottle of wine, challah bread — along with a list of things to do in Memphis and a Temple Israel face mask.
Before Rosh Hashanah, which begins Friday, the leadership team reached out to new Memphians to personally wish them a Happy New Year, and Mandelman has also tried to have one-on-one conversations (virtually) throughout the pandemic.
TI Talks have continued online, one on voting rights, another on mental health during a pandemic.
And, they’ve held some socially distanced events outdoors, including a prayer event at the Memphis Botanic Garden, and Mandelman is currently planning an event at an apple orchard for Sukkot.
“Just being creative and having to think outside the box has really pushed the boundaries of what it means to gather,” she said.
Rabbi Adam Grossman, the former assistant and associate rabbi at Temple Israel who was involved with the foundation of the young adult community that would later become Connectti, now has a different role in a different organization: He’s the director of Emerging Networks at the Union for Reform Judaism, a position he began in 2019.
In that role, he’s focused on building and sustaining communities of 20- and 30-year-olds in Reform Jewish communities across North America.
“The goal overall is how do we support individuals that are struggling to find connection in a very complicated world and how do we do that in a space that is connected to their sphere of influence, which is one of the things that makes Connectti and other organizations similarly so powerful,” Grossman said.
His earlier role with the beginnings of Connectti had a “profound impact” on his understanding of young adult Jewish communities, Grossman said, and today the community “is a model for other communities to follow.”
At a national level, some have noticed a shift in millennials as they’ve become less engaged with their places of worship, Mandelman said. For the Union for Reform Judaism, “they see it not as an issue, but an opportunity to engage them.”
She has been sharing ideas with other leaders of young adult groups at synagogues across the country, getting feedback and making connections.
“What we’re doing here (in Memphis) doesn’t need to just stay here,” she said.