Demographic study compass in stormy seas

Your participation is a mitzvah

By PAUL HAIST

article created on: 2009-01-01T00:00:00

We respect and trust our leaders to act in the best interest of the community. In Portland’s Jewish community this respect and trust has served us well over many years.

I have watched the leadership over a number of years reach out to the community at large in many efforts to bring to the table as many perspectives as possible, to include as many voices as possible.

These efforts have grown over the years, but, short of conducting our communal affairs in the manner of the first democracy in Athens, all such efforts are bound to fall short, to leave some out, and perhaps occasionally to misjudge what the community might prefer.

Just now, we are beginning to have a clear and scientifically valid idea of how small or large our community is.

The demographic study of greater Portland’s Jewish community commissioned by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland is the most recent and ambitious effort at bringing the community to the table. It is the most inclusive step our community ever has taken in the management of its collective affairs.

JFGP Board Member Josh Blank heads the Demographic Study Steering Committee. He put the importance of the study about as succinctly as one might.

“For years we have been operating with imperfect data,” he said. “Now we will have the information needed to make optimal decisions.”

We should always strive to make optimal decisions. I am confident that has been the case
in the past—that the Jewish community always has strived to do that.

But now in these perilous and precarious economic times it is vastly more important than most of us would or could have imagined just a few months ago to have the kind of information the demographic study will provide. Now, more than ever in my recollection, we need to understand clearly the needs and priorities all across the community.

It seems almost fortuitous that the community was able to launch this first-ever study at just this time, when we are in need more than ever of a reliable compass with which to navigate these troubled waters.

Now we will have the understanding we need; we will have the compass.

We will have it in some form for sure. But to have it in the best of all possible forms, to have the findings of the study be as representative and as reliable and as useful as possible, the 700 of you among the 4,300 out there who took part in the preliminary surveys need to answer the call that will come this month or next, when you will be asked to participate in the detailed community census.

It’s an opportunity to put your views, your concerns, your needs and your desires on the table when the community sits down to make the decisions that will shape the future of the community. For as long as those study findings are consulted in the communal decision-making process, you will—in effect—be at the table.

But it’s more than just an opportunity to have your voice heard.

It’s an obligation, a mitzvah, a call to take part in the process of healing the world, tikkun olam. In the end, that’s what this is all about, healing the world.

It will take about 25 minutes of your day.

You should not fail to answer the call. Go ahead; you’ll be doing yourself and all of us a favor.