(Jewish Group) Older adults show a willingness to connect with Jewish community -- but many don't

About half of older Jewish Americans are not engaged with the Jewish community, but within that group, the vast majority — 70% — are at least open to increasing their engagement.

That’s one of the findings of a new survey of older Jewish adults from the Jewish Federations of North America.

The Jewish community generally gets high marks for its programming for young people — from its popular preschools to Hillel for college students. But leaders of the federations, which represent more than 350 Jewish communities across the continent that organize and fund social welfare, educational and other programming, wondered how they were faring with older Jews.

They found that they could be doing better for a group that is growing in numbers, living longer and is healthier and more tech-savvy than previous generations of older Jewish adults.

“This is a very different audience that we’re working with now,” said Sarah Eisenman, who heads the Federations’ office on community and Jewish life. “A lot of our engagement structures and continuum haven’t necessarily been updated to reflect who this audience is today and where it’s going.”

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