What Binds Us Together? Reflections from the fifth Circle of Fellows meeting.

At the fifth gathering of the CJPE Circle of Fellows on May 13, 2025, participants turned inward to ask: What do Jews need to know—and feel—to identify with a common People?

The session introduced the evolving framework of Peoplehood Knowledge—a six-dimensional model (historical, contextual, political/moral, cultural, religious, and emotional) for understanding how Jews cultivate a sense of shared identity. This model emphasizes that belonging is not just an intellectual act but an embodied, emotional, and ethical experience.

Rabbi Josh Feigelson (Institute for Jewish Spirituality) spoke about the “heart-work” of Peoplehood, arguing that deep bonds often form not through ideological debate but through ritual, silence, and spiritual presence. Moments like havdalah by a lake or communal meditation help Jews “feel at home in the universe,” offering a powerful sense of collective belonging that precedes words.

Benji Davis (IMPACT Israel Education and George Mason University) explored how learners make meaning of Israel and Jewishness in liberal educational environments. He proposed a model rooted in three interrelated dimensions—Reality, Idea, and Identity—through which learners can locate personal meaning and develop ethical agency. Belonging, he argued, should not be imposed but cultivated through authentic, values-driven exploration.

Fellows reflected on the shift from Peoplehood as a top-down, ideological project to a lived, relational process. The group wrestled with how Western liberal notions of the autonomous self may be giving way to more interconnected, fluid understandings of identity—what one participant called a “post-liberal” subjectivity.

Jewish educators, the group concluded, must design for coherence and identification, not indoctrination. This means creating spaces where learners can experience Peoplehood emotionally and spiritually, even before they define it intellectually. As one Fellow put it, the goal is not to plant ideas but to till the soil—to prepare the ground for belonging to take root. Read the full meeting summary here.