Podcast Summary: Identity/Crisis

Episode: Can the Jewish Big Tent Hold After October 7?
Date: December 9, 2025
Host: Claire Sufrin (with guest Yehuda Kurtzer)

Overview

This episode confronts the evolving state of Jewish community life two years after October 7, 2023—a traumatic moment still shaping both personal and collective identities. Guest host Claire Sufrin (director of research at Hartman) welcomes regular host Yehuda Kurtzer (Hartman Institute president) to unpack central questions:

• Can Jewish “big tent” communities still exist amid deepening divides, especially around Israel?
• How do values of care, inclusion, and leadership adapt after crisis?
• What does it mean to belong, and how do communities navigate boundaries and platforming?

The conversation—rooted in Jewish texts, personal stories, and institutional insight—explores the tension between solidarity, ideological clarity, and compassion as the Jewish world pivots from trauma to rebuilding.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Metaphors of Community and Grief

• Claire’s Opening Reflection (01:07):
  • Cites wedding, chuppah, and communal advice to illustrate two concepts: the specificity and generality of community (“community is where you are seen, and this being seen is a way of being known”).
  • Uses a Mishnah about knots as metaphor for ongoing communal longing and mourning since October 7.
• On Communal Mourning:
  • Draws a parallel to the transition from Shiva (Jewish mourning period) to ordinary life, referencing how the Jewish community is collectively “loosening its knots” of intense grief as the crisis moment subsides (05:33).

2. The Fragility and Purpose of the Big Tent (08:09–10:26)

• Yehuda Kurtzer on the 'Big Tent' Metaphor:
  • Traces the "big tent" ideal to pluralism in the '80s–'90s and to biblical models (Abraham & Sarah’s open tent).
  • Acknowledges current fragility:

    “Many of us have felt the need for something that feels tighter and more secure than the big tent... our fragile tents, because they don't feel like they are as hospitable for outsiders as they once were.” (08:50)

  • Current climate has shifted tents toward fortresses; trust and hospitality are eroding.

3. Care as the Core of Community (10:26–12:28)

• Redefining Community After Crisis:
  • True community is not just gathering, but “a place of deep human interdependency” (10:35).
  • The vital role of obligation, responsibility, and care—for receiving and giving.
  • Warns against reducing community to boundary policing:

    “The more that community becomes construed as some sort of political mechanism to divide between insiders and outsiders, it takes our eye off of the prize of why we are in community to begin with.” (12:10)

4. Inclusion vs. Platforming (13:18–19:21)

• Shifting the Focus:
  • Emphasizes need for clarity about community's purpose and underlying values, not just boundaries.
  • Advocates for room to include a range of opinions, as long as the organization's platform (official voice) is clear.
  • Crucial distinction explained:

    “A lot more Jewish communal institutions can house difference by tolerating a wide variety of views... But the things that they are going to elevate and put on stage—that's what I call platforming.” (15:00)

• Leadership Examples:
  • The rabbi who only allows himself to give sermons on Israel, creating space for wider inclusion.
  • Pitfalls of absent or unclear leadership illustrated by divisive events in Hillel/college settings.

5. Belonging, Discomfort, and Insiders/Outsiders (20:29–25:17)

• Navigating Discomfort:
  • Liberal Jewish communities (Reform, Conservative, Modern Orthodox) are inherently big tents and so discomfort is widespread, not unique to “outsiders.”
  • Yehuda’s personal experience:

    “Everybody's kind of uncomfortable... In fact, when I first moved... I was incredibly uncomfortable... because it didn't have exactly the calculus that I like.” (22:49)

• Affiliation & Disaffiliation Trends:
  • Since October 7, both ‘leavers’ (disenchanted with community stances) and ‘joiners’ (seeking solidarity) are numerous.

6. Community Needs vs. Ideological Conformity (25:46–29:50)

• What Should Communities Provide?
  • Leaders owe their communities clear articulation of values and mission. Members must decide whether their needs (e.g., to be represented vs. to be welcomed) are being met.
• Example—Physical Acts vs. Platforming:
  • Claire’s difficulty hanging a mechitza (partition): being present in a community despite some disagreement.

7. After Crisis: Reclaiming the Big Tent (29:50–34:44)

• Softening Boundaries:
  • The “war mode” and insularity were appropriate initially, but “we kind of have to push back now against the overreaches of that impulse and allow ourselves to get reacquainted to all of the beauty that comes with living in big tent communities.” (29:50)
• Mainstream vs. Margins:
  • Mainstream cannot just be defined by numbers—moral and democratic claims must be separated (“mainstream is a cheater's word” - 35:58)
• Institutional Change:
  • Communities and organizations need values clarification to move back toward inclusivity.

8. Institutional Evolution and Schism (37:11–40:51)

• Decline, Redesign, and New Communities:
  • American Jewish institutions have always shifted with demographic and ideological changes.
  • Schisms (e.g., new anti-Zionist synagogues) are not inherently tragic but reflect adaptation.

9. Boundaries, Platforming, and Softening (40:51–46:37)

• Past Writings and Schism:
  • Yehuda reflects on being “descriptive, not prescriptive” when noting seams in the community.
  • Emphasizes there is room for both separation (“living in separate tribes”) and for the tent to remain open for those willing.
  • Dangers arise when communities harden hearts and walls, becoming inhospitable to difference.

10. Beyond Mourning: What Is Sustainable Community? (46:37–53:28)

• From Crisis (Shiva) to Normalcy:
  • Must eventually let go of crisis models and recognize ongoing trauma as part of identity.
  • True measure is whether communities can sustain “places of care” for individual ongoing needs, not just during collective tragedy.
  • Example:

    “It was kind of easy to cry in shul for the last couple years... In some ways that's community as a place for care, when everybody knows what we're mourning and dealing with is level one. But level two is communities as places of care where we have to do a little bit more work to figure out what people are actually working through...” (52:01)

• The Test Ahead:
  • Can Jewish communities convert the solidarity and resilience forged in trauma into vibrant, inclusive, enduring communal life?

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the fragility of community:

  “Our fragile tents, because they don't feel like they are as hospitable for outsiders as they once were...”
  (Yehuda, 08:50)

• On the true purpose of community:

  “Community is not just people who gather, but a place of deep human interdependency... obligation and responsibility we have to one another.”
  (Yehuda, 10:35)

• On inclusion vs. platforming:

  “You can tolerate different viewpoints, but platforming is what you choose to elevate. Most Jewish institutions can do inclusion without platforming everything.”
  (Yehuda, 16:10)

• On membership discomfort:

  “Everybody's kind of uncomfortable... and maybe sometimes that happens because we're also unwilling to put in the work to be part of the inside.”
  (Yehuda, 22:49)

• On institutional evolution:

  “Schism is not the worst tragedy in Jewish history... sometimes living in separate tribes... might be okay today.”
  (Yehuda, 44:20)

• On the post-crisis community challenge:

  “It was kind of easy to cry in shul for the last couple years... But level two is communities as places of care where we have to do a little bit more work to figure out what people are actually working through and where it's actually comfortable to cry, even if it's not the shared trauma...”
  (Yehuda, 52:01)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|-----------------------------------------| | 01:07–05:33 | Reflections on grief, knots, and mourning | | 08:09–10:26 | The “Big Tent” metaphor—its history and fragility| | 10:26–12:28 | Care as the purpose of community | | 13:18–19:21 | Inclusion vs. platforming, leadership dilemmas | | 20:29–25:17 | Insiders, outsiders, and discomfort | | 37:11–40:51 | Institutional change, schisms, new communities | | 46:37–53:28 | From shiva to sustainable, caring community |

Tone & Language

The conversation is thoughtful, candid, and reflective—marked by empathy, personal openness, and a hopeful seriousness about the challenges and tasks facing Jewish communal life post-crisis. Both speakers strive to balance realism with aspiration, acknowledging pain and complexity while offering vision for a more inclusive, caring, and genuinely “big tent” Jewish future.