Izzie Solomon, one of our current Noam Movement workers addressed the Masorti Europe conference on 8 November 2026, in Paris. She was as part of the opening plenary, entitled Honouring our Roots, Shaping our future: 20 years of Masorti Europe. This is what she said:
It is a massive honour being here in front of you all. It really means a lot that this community truly commits itself to giving its young people a voice.
Yesterday, in a Noam/Marom session we discussed fundamental aspects of our Jewish and Masorti identity. For me, two core values came to mind.
The first is critical thinking. Masorti is founded on the idea that we don’t have to do things like we always have.
I went to an orthodox Jewish primary school and then an orthodox Jewish secondary school. There were secular people and religious people. I was questioned about my Jewish practice by everyone. For this i am incredibly grateful. Because it just takes one person questioning your practice, your logic and reasoning, your traditions, for you to question them too. I think we can all agree that rigorous debate, questioning, and even revising our practices and beliefs is intrinsic to what it means to be Masorti. It not only makes us so deliberate and passionate and proud about our Judaism, but it also makes us identify what we don’t like and empowers us to change for the better. Arguably, critical thinking precipitated the creation of Masorti Judaism in the first place.
Critical thinking is even more crucial for us young people who are growing up in an era of algorithms, polarisation, headlines and discussions which are designed to be just as short as our attention spans. But with Masorti Judaism… we are forced to maintain nuance.
The second value which I reflected as integral to my young Masorti identity was humility. To me, being humble is a massive part of being young. Constantly we are told that we are naive, uninformed, inexperienced and ‘too young to understand’. Now i obviously don’t agree with any of that nonsense, but i do accept that my opinions today might not be my opinions in 10 years’ time. And if you are an adult in this room feeling very pleased with yourself that the youth have admitted generational defeat… know that reality check applies to everyone in this room! Nobody should be so stubborn or ignorant that they believe they will never change their mind.
As Masorti, we sit in a relatively central position between orthodoxy and reform/liberal Judaism. We therefore in the best position to be understanding of opinions that don’t align with ours. I say all this because the current state of the Jewish community, perhaps i can only speak for the UK, is in a crisis of unity- or lack there of.
It is wonderful that European Jewry encompasses 1.3 million people and 3 million opinions. Our differences make us more thoughtful, more passionate and more interesting; Critical thinking doesn’t guide us all to the same opinion.
But the polarisation between Jewish communities, and even within Jewish communities, based on politics, ideology and increasingly, sentiment towards Israel is going to lead us down a slippery slope. unless we figure out how to maintain respect and friendships with people we disagree with, we will find ourselves breaking off into smaller and smaller communities, until every synagogue becomes a minyan of you and the 9 people you agree with about everything. How depressing is that?
What i would like from the leaders and congregants in this room is to truly consider how we can become a Jewish community who can share a shabbat table with Jews who hold opinions different to our own. Set a good example for the younger generation who should be taught about Judaism through cross communalism, not polarisation.
We all agree that the world needs to be a more understanding place. Let it start with us.
I was asked to be the next generation speaker. My generation might be the newest, but that doesn’t mean we should have to wait to graduate out of our youth movements and enter adulthood before we are invited to the conversation. To view us as the ‘next generation’ is to pretend we aren’t here right now, trying to be heard.
Youth movements were created because nobody was listening to young people, so we decided to listen to each other. We have always pushed further than the generation before us. The whole point is to be courageously countercultural. Our youth movement predecessors were involved in the Warsaw ghetto uprising, the kibbutz movement, the anti-apartheid movement, and these weren’t just projects ‘by the youth for the youth’. These were ‘by the youth for the world’. Everyone loves this in hindsight, but at the time there were a lot of stressed-out parents and upset adults, but youth movements are about empowerment!
The passion and fervour in the young generation today fills me with such pride. Let’s look at Serbia, Brazil, India, look outside! Young people care about things! What’s more, young people are willing to learn, grow, change their opinions, stand up for what they think is right and fight against injustice. I think we should all be excited about what this generation is capable of, rather than scared that they may go against the grain.
