Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry
by By Shay, Scott A.
Category: Religion , Judaism , General

In his provocative book, Getting our Groove Back: How To Energize American Jewry (Devora Publishing, January, 2007), Scott Shay takes on the major obstacles facing American Jewry today. He examines the current state and future prospects of American Jewry and finds a Jewish community that is dangerously adrift and on an overall downward trajectory, due to a community-wide lack of shared purpose, focus, and mutual concern. To counter this downward spiral, the author presents a platform of ten practical and achievable mini-manifestos that can reinvigorate American Jewry as a whole.  Casting away conventional wisdom and political correctness, this book carefully brings to bear extensive research as it deals with the most controversial and essential issues facing American Jews.  Crafted to be practical, Getting Our Groove Back is also uplifting. For every question the author presents, he details his solutions in a pragmatic, doable fashion. It soon becomes clear that American Jewry is in a unique time and place at the nexus of promise and peril as it faces the choice of being an inspiration or irrelevant.   In these pages no punches are pulled and no issues are avoided.  Readers are challenged and enlightened, and forced to rethink their own pre-conceptions and conclusions about the state of American Jewry and its place in the world.