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Jewish World Review Oct. 8, 2009 / 20 Tishrei 5770 What the Chicago Olympics failure must teach Jewry By Joseph Aaron
Two lessons actually.
The first is how very important passion is.
It seems that those making the case for Chicago in Copenhagen didn't have very much of it. "Chicago's pitch is called flat," is how the Tribune summed it up. Jim Warren of MSNBC, who was in Denmark to watch the proceedings, said Chicago's presenters were "emotionally flat."
The Chicago Tribune's David Greising wrote that not only was the final, key presentation flat, but Chicago's entire bid was like that. "Chicago bid by the book. Chicago's color-by-numbers approach lacked the charisma and character that is the essence of the city."
He noted that began when the Chicago 2016 committee dropped its original slogan for the games, "Stir the Soul," which he called "inspired" and replaced "this jambalaya of an expression with white rice: 'Let Friendship Shine.' Yeck. Chicago's new slogan, antiseptic as rubbing alcohol, seemed to betray a certain soullessness that permeated the rest of Chicago's 2016 bid.
"Rio had samba and soul. Chicago had neither. Rio won."
Indeed, after winning, Brazil's president said it was because "We presented a heart, a soul and the passion of Brazil's people."
Passion. By all accounts, Chicago's presentation to the Olympic committee was the best, in the sense of being the most professional, the most well-organized, full of charts and graphs and hitting all the key points about budgeting and transportation and facilities.
Problem is it was all head and no heart. By all accounts, Rio's presentation was not as polished, but got you right in the kishkes, full of sizzling Latin music and fetching photos and a very emotional message about how the Olympics would transform Brazil, about how it was South America's time. Those watching it were carried away with the passion of it all.
It was mostly heart. And guess who won.
All that reminded me very much of the Jewish world today. There is no more organized community in this country than the Jewish community. We really got our acts together, organizationally speaking. We have lots of great organizations doing things in very efficient ways, amazingly able to raise money and to spend it wisely and with both accountability and transparency.
I'm not diminishing any of that. Not at all. Indeed, it is quite impressive, a role model for how other ethnic groups should operate, a role model most other ethnic groups rightfully envy.
And all that is to our credit. But somewhere along the way, I fear we have forgotten about passion. Focused too much on being very professional, forgotten about needing, too, to be inspiring.
I don't think anyone looking at today's Jewish world would say they see a whole lot, or even any, passion. You hear about anti-Semitism and Iran and Israel and assimilation and intermarriage and this need and that need. All important, yes. But all, somehow, emotionally flat.
In Jewish life today, if there is any appeal at all to our emotions, it is to our baser ones, to our fears, to our worries, too much is about whether Iran will have the bomb in six months or two years, too much is about the number of anti-Semitic incidents there were last year, carefully breaking them down by state and by type of incident.
Too much in Jewish life is about mechanics, this committee meeting and that dinner, this program and that lecture, about what a threat Hamas and Hezbollah are, whether Obama is good for the Jews or not.
But where in all of that is an appeal to our higher, more noble emotions, to our hopes and dreams? Where is the positive passion, the inspiration, the uplift? Jews hear a lot of words, but how about some music?
Israel is an amazing place, easily able to inspire and ignite passion. But all we hear about, all we talk about are its problems and the threats against it. The dangers, the concerns, the enemies. Judaism is an amazing religion and culture and people, easily able to inspire and ignite passion. But all we hear about are its problems and about those out to get us.
Where is the wonder and beauty and majesty of Israel, of Judaism, of Jewish life, of being Jewish? Where are the heroes and the ideals and the stuff which would feed our souls? Why don't ever hear about that, why don't we talk much more about that?
The question I am asked by readers more than any other is what my answer is for what Jewish life most needs today, what would most make it better, stronger, healthier and more vibrant.
My answer is always the same. Make Judaism fun and meaningful.
Fun and meaningful. Do those two things and you will get young Jews wanting to be part of Jewish life, you will get all Jews not only committing to the Jewish community, but doing so eagerly and with a full heart. With passion.
What Jewish life is most missing, what Jewish life most needs, far more than anything else, is to provide Jews with fun and meaning. With passion.
We've been great at taking care of the polished professional part of running a community and a people. Now we gotta remember to focus on the passion part.
If Chicago's botched bid for 2016 taught us anything, it should teach us that.
And it should teach us something else. Namely that little things matter as much as big things. In some ways, more.
Chicago bidding for the 2016 Olympics was a very big project, involving the skills and efforts of lots of people, a lot of money, a lot of work. And except for that passion thing, Chicago proved itself up to the job, putting forth not only, by all accounts, the best bid of the four cities competing, but the best bid any American city has put forth in many years.
Meanwhile, we can't get our parking meters to tell the correct time or prevent a gang of thugs from beating to death a young kid in broad daylight. A big thing we handled superbly, the everyday not so much.
And yet life is, for the most part, about the everyday. It's the everyday that goes a long way in determining the kind of life you have.
What if all the hard work of the Chicago 2016 committee, what if all those talented people had devoted themselves not to securing the Olympics but to doing something about Chicago's everyday problems, the CTA and gang violence and poverty and political corruption? What if they had spent the last four years doing that instead of getting ready for Copenhagen?
That, too, reminds me of the Jewish world. When it comes to big things, really big things, we are masters. We established a Jewish state just three years after our people were decimated in the Holocaust. We forced the mighty Soviet empire to let our people go. We reunited with our long lost Ethiopian brethren after more than 2,000 years.
Truly amazing achievements, about which we should be very proud and very grateful.
Problem is that too much do we only muster our energies and our talents for big projects. Now, yes, unlike the Olympics, which was a choice, the Jewish world cannot fail to do the big things. It was obviously right and necessary for us to take on the big efforts of establishing a Jewish state, freeing Soviet Jews.
My point is that even as we do those big things, we cannot neglect the little things. We must do both, must recognize that both deserve our best efforts. We must put the same effort, show the same dedication and determination and talent and togetherness in taking on the small stuff as we do when we take on the big stuff.
Jewish disunity is rampant and eating away at us. And yet, there is virtually no focus on, no effort to do something about it. Where are our best minds, where are the programs to get Jews to love and respect each other? If we can pull together, focus our energies, be at our best to free Soviet Jews, why do we not do the same to free Judaism of baseless hatred for each other?
Young Jews increasingly don't seem to see much reason, find much motivation to be part of the Jewish community. Yes, I know there are many programs reaching out to young Jews, but nowhere near the effort there should be, nowhere near the commitment and ingenuity, the creativity and ideas we show for the big projects.
Too many Jews are uninterested in, tired of Israel, which they have mistakenly come to see as a place always in trouble and hated. Too many Jews are apathetic about their Judaism, go through the motions, but see no reason to care very much. Yes, I know there are programs to address both of those realities, but nowhere near the effort we put into our big projects. Why isn't our best and brightest, why isn't our money, why doesn't our focus get applied to these little things? Why do we spend so much more effort, have so many more organizations working full time and full speed on anti-Semitism, but not on Jewish apathy?
Thank G-d, we are good at the big things, but it is not enough if we get all mobilized for that and only put half-hearted efforts into the little things, little things that go a long way to determining the quality of our Jewish lives and the quality of Jewish life. We can do both, we must do both.
Chicago may not be getting the Olympics, but Judaism will be far better if we get the lessons to be learned from Chicago's bid. Namely that small things, too, call for our best, and that while being organized is good, it's passion that makes a people great.
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Joseph Aaron is Editor of The Chicago Jewish News. Comment by clicking here.
© 2009, Joseph Aaron | ||||||||||
