Conference About Jewish Future Under-Attended by Young Jews

By Karen Klein

LA JOLLA, California — An event about the future of Jewish peoplehood should be full of its future. This one wasn’t.

A concern that has been sitting quietly in the back of my mind about Jewish communal continuity came into sharper focus at the Z3 conference at the Lawrence Family JCC in La Jolla. It was not the content that troubled me. Several sessions were unusually substantive, featuring academics who rarely appear in mainstream forums. The organizers clearly invested in thoughtful, serious programming. What unsettled me was not what was being said on stage, but who was there to hear it.

Despite the conference’s forward-looking themes, the audience was overwhelmingly older. Close to ninety percent of attendees were well into their seventies and beyond. This is not a critique of older adults. They have sustained Jewish communal life for decades, their commitment is admirable, and their continued presence shows how we should never “age out” of these conversations. But their near-total presence at a gathering dedicated to a “future” of Jewish peoplehood raised a persistent alarm. If these are the conversations meant to shape the next generation, why is the next generation not in the room?

This disconnect became especially clear during a session titled “Young Zionists.” The panelists included thoughtful individuals in their 20s and early 30s who spoke about identity and leadership. They were also, notably, some of the only people under 40 in the room, aside from a couple of tables of high-school students and yours truly. I sat near these teens and recognized the familiar choreography: the fidgeting, the whispering, the sideways glances. Their presence felt obligatory rather than chosen. I do not fault them. I was once that teenager attending Jewish events for extra credit or the chance to be with friends. But the teens attended only that evening session. They were not present the next day. Their absence sharpened the question forming in my mind: are we mistaking symbolic youth presence for genuine generational engagement?

This is not a crisis of apathy, but of access, awareness, and intentionality. If we do not confront this generational disconnect, Jewish peoplehood risks drifting into a future with too few inheritors.

That question deepened when I met a young woman during the lunch break. She appeared to be in her early twenties and, at first, her presence felt like a hopeful exception. Curious to know how she came to be there, I asked. Her answer deflated me. She had not come for the conference at all. She came to support a friend who was speaking. She had no intention of staying for any other part of the event. What made this more striking was who she was: a recent IDF veteran and a Garin Tzabar alumna, someone who embodies the kind of cross-cultural Jewish identity our community claims it wants to cultivate. Yet she would not have known the conference existed if not for her friend. Even after being in the room, nothing encouraged her to remain. She left. I wanted to beg her to stay.

If someone as connected as she did not feel this space was meant for her, what does that imply for the thousands of less-connected young Jews?

My unease intensified when a speaker addressed the mostly elderly audience and pointed to the young panelists from the prior evening as evidence of a “bright and secure Jewish future.” The reassurance was well intentioned, but the conclusion felt disconnected from reality. Simply placing young people on stage does not guarantee continuity. If anything, the numbers suggested the opposite.

This isn’t a story of disinterest. It reflects structural habits, generational drift, and outreach models that privilege efficiency over cultivation.

For years, American Jewish institutions have reported dwindling participation among younger Jews. The energy exists—online, in activism, in cultural spaces—but it rarely translates into communal institutions. The gap between digital engagement and in-person Jewish life is widening, and events like this make that gap visible.

The absence of younger adults at the conference reflected something I have been sensing more broadly. Younger adults are not entering these conversations consistently or in meaningful numbers. Practical realities may play a role. Many events and leadership opportunities follow a “pay-to-play” model, a system I have never had the means to participate in. And if you are not already embedded in certain networks, you may never hear about opportunities like this. Yet the young woman I met was embedded, and she still was neither aware of the event nor compelled by it.

This is where outreach matters. Younger adults rarely appear in communal spaces without relationship-building. People show up when someone reaches out personally, when there is follow-through, and when there is a sense that their presence is genuinely needed. These efforts may bring in only two or three people at a time. The numbers may not raise millions, but in the long term, deliberate and relational engagement is far more effective than broad invitations sent into the void. It is another example of our community’s ongoing difficulty with long-term strategic commitment. I have written about this shortcoming in the context of hasbara and Israel advocacy.

This is a shared responsibility. Organizers may not always have the bandwidth to prioritize intentional outreach, but without it, generational imbalance becomes self-perpetuating. Older attendees also have an important role to play. Many have children and grandchildren who should be part of these conversations. Their participation should not be symbolic. They should be invited, encouraged, and ideally accompanied.

My intention is not to diminish the conference itself. The ideas discussed deserved a wider and younger audience. But ideas about the future cannot flourish when the future is absent from the room. We cannot rely on a handful of young voices on a stage to stand in for an entire generation. If younger Jews do not see themselves reflected in these spaces, they will not step into them. And if they do not step into them, the communal future we imagine will not materialize.

Continuity is not secured through reassurance, but through participation. And participation begins, quite simply, by making sure we are in the room.

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Karen Klein, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, is a dual American-Israeli citizen.  This essay first appeared on The Times of Israel website.