words here andthere, like "schlemiel" and "zoftig" -- and even then I am stillunsure of their true meaning in the times when it was spokenfreely. Scholars have predicted the extinction of the language by2040 AD, or 5800 on the Jewish calendar. America has also been an influence on new kinds of Judaism.Mordecai Kaplan founded the Jewish Reconstructionist movement inAmerica in the early 1900s. In 1917 he led a shul whichincorporated a broad realm of cultural and recreationalactivities. Five years later, he formed the Society of theAdvancement of Judaism, which believed that worship was only oneof many issues a congregation should address. His book Judaism asa Civilization called for a "reconstruction" of Jewish life. TheJewish Reconstructionist Foundation (now the Federation ofReconstructionist Congregations and Havurot) issued new liturgicaltexts in the 1940s and 1950s, and it opened the ReconstructionistRabbinic College in Philadelphia in 1968. It is an evolving andorganic kind of Judaism, which is constantly adapting itself to theneeds of the community and the society it serves. Judaism today, largely because of the American hustle-and-bustle contemporary lifestyle, is just a religion instead of a way of life. We are now in a period of time where many options are presented on how to be Jewish -- going to shul, observing theholidays, sending your children to learn about the Jewish ways oflife, belonging to temples and Jewish organizations (i.e.,Havurah, an attempt to revive Judaism in small social groups) --instead of what was only one way to be Jewish. No central ideaholds it together. There's really no one common way to be Jewishanymore....
