advancement. Many younger Jews find this too confining. They wish to express their Jewishness
through social justice work globally, and have created innovative Jewish social justice startups to do so.
What, if any, are the implications of this for traditional Jewish solidarity? Another, overlapping set of
challenges concerns the institutional loci of Jewish identity. Many young Jews do not join mainline
Jewish organizations––federations and synagogues (especially Conservative synagogues). At the same
time, they are finding new venues to express their Jewishness. Very often, these venues include the
significant participation of non-Jews. They are not membership organizations, but rather, "alternative"
sites of artistic, musical, and literary expression: concerts, clubs, bars, etc.
Transitioning to a network society
We wish to explore whether these generational changes are manifestations of a larger phenomenon: the
transition to a network society, which has identifiable and predictable features. Has this pattern of
joining organizations and finding new Jewish venues been influenced by the "network" paradigm
organizing production, firms, and general human interaction? Networks are opposed to top-down,
command structured, centralized bureaucratic organizations and i