The first Target store in San Francisco is set to open downtown in the Metreon building in 2013. Here’s an idea I’ve been thinking about that seems to me like a great idea. I hope Target implements it, and if not, I’d love to understand the shortcomings of the idea.

Problem

I imagine that a big challenge of shopping at the San Francisco Target will be transporting your stuff home. People will have a few options: Those with cars (either owned or shared) can drive, fight traffic, pay for parking across the street, and cart their stuff from Target to their car. Those without cars can buy only as much stuff as they can comfortably carry back on the bus; or pay for a cab (which may or may not be easy to find).

Solution

What if Target put forth some version of: “Spend $100 at Target and we will give you 50% off a ride home. Spend $200 and we will drive you home for free, anywhere in San Francisco.”

It seems to me that this would encourage folks to spend enough to get a discounted or free ride home, and my guess is that the economics could be made to work without a ton of difficulty.

It Gets Better

But perhaps the best part is this: Target could drive people home in branded vans that read “Come to Target. We Will Drive You Home.” These vans will drive around the city and would be a fantastic marketing campaign.

Of course, the same idea could work for any store in a dense urban environment that wants to encourage customers to buy a lot of bulky items.

Someone please tell me why this isn’t a great idea!

In his NYTimes piece this weekend, “Americans: Undecided About God”, Eric Weiner invokes a punctuation metaphor to represent God:

Precious few of our religious leaders laugh. They shout. God is not an exclamation point, though. He is, at his best, a semicolon, connecting people…

While I have a deep appreciation for well-used semicolons, I’ve often liked to think of God, or of my religious yearnings, as represented by the question mark. The cultivation of wonder and curiosity are, to me, perhaps the highest spiritual and religious pursuit.

The humbling yet stirring notion that we find God not through answers but through questions is a concept I learned from my Jewish upbringing and that has always resonated with me.

The following is the speech I delivered at the New Israel Fund’s Guardian of Democracy dinner at the Four Seasons in San Francisco on October 13, 2010. You can also watch the video.

As chair of the New Generations board, my primary objective is motivating young adults to join in support of our shared goal: a Jewish and democratic Israel.

The story of the year on this topic was Peter Beinart’s piece in the NY Review of Books. Titled, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment”, it explains that young adults have disengaged from Israel because they have been unable to connect in a way that accords with their liberal values. “For several decades,” Beinart writes, “the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.”

Beinart paints a foreboding picture and articulates our mission: “Saving liberal Zionism in the United States — so that American Jews can help save liberal Zionism in Israel — is the great American Jewish challenge of our age.” 

I will share three ideas of how I believe NIF must rise to this challenge:

First is to continue doing the great stuff we’re doing. Beinart’s primary recommendation to Jewish organizations is to speak frankly about Israel; this has never been a weakness of NIF. It is essential that we continue bringing Israelis here to make a case for NIF in their Israeli accents. My own introduction to NIF was delivered by Israeli author and historian Tom Segev, speaking at Temple Emanu-El.

Second: We, the New Israel Fund, must proudly declare ourselves pro-Israel. We in this room understand that our work is in service of a strong and healthy Israel, but too many others harbor a misperception that Israel’s external defense and her internal well-being are somehow incongruous. No one should be deterred from joining us because of that false choice.

Third, and most important: Let’s tell a bigger story. The anxiety that underlies Beinart’s entire piece is that even if young Jews are given a more honest way to interact with Israel, few will care enough to engage. Some surely will, as evidenced by the impressive group here tonight. But if we are to be successful, we must begin to win over the others. If you speak with young Jews who are disengaged from Israel, you will find that many, if not most, are still proud of being Jewish. Some cherish Jewish contributions to knowledge and culture; others attribute dearly held values, like tikun olam, to their Jewish heritage. In order to reach this group we must tap into this pride and connect it to our mission.

We at NIF talk primarily about the current state of Israeli society, the work of our incredible grantees, and the basis of our mission as enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence. But I believe we need to articulate a larger story, one that helps young Jews see themselves as part of a Jewish civilization that has existed uninterrupted since ancient times; that helps them understand that today’s Israel is the crucible in which our people will determine the values that define us and put them on display for the entire world to see.

In a few weeks we will read the Torah portion of Jacob’s night spent wrestling a man by a river. Jacob eventually prevails, but not without sustaining an injured hip that turns his confident stride into a humbled limp. Only after this struggle, through which he is said to find his true character, does Jacob earn the name Israel, “he who wrestles with God”. And only then is he prepared to reconcile with his brother Esau and build his home in peace.

The parallel to today is obvious. Before we, the Jewish people, can find true peace with our brothers, perhaps we too must wrestle with ourselves: Who are we; and what kind of society must we create in our state? As it was for Jacob, it may be a long, sweaty night, and we may not escape without injury. But perhaps only then, as it was for Jacob, will we have earned the name Israel.

Jeremy Lizt and Avraham Burg, 10/13/2010