I recently passed a church here in Los Angeles and its sign caught my eye: “Join us for The Gospel According to Taylor Swift.”

I give this church credit for attempting to use Swift’s dominance of pop culture to get people in the door and somehow better relate their religion to young people. Make no mistake - I’m all for it. Why not take advantage of the most popular artist in the world as a unifying force?

But the cute marketing belies an uneasy truth: all religions, including Judaism, are struggling with bringing up this new generation with religion. It's a question that permeates my life’s work: in a world where technology matters more than spirituality, how can we uniquely engage young people today to ensure our Jewish traditions are continued? Can we possibly sneak Judaism’s timeless message of living a meaningful life, with good values and true human connection, into a Gen Z world?

Even harder: once we get their attention, how will we keep it? What will be the “stickiness factor”?

For the past three generations, supporting Israel and the lesson of “Never Again” have served as the main “stickiness factors” for the American Jewish community. But as the Holocaust fades from memory, as antisemitism becomes normalized, and as Israel is increasingly vilified among young people post-October 7 – will that be the case moving forward for Gen Z?

Only a few new Jewish programs have come along over the last 20 years that have successfully captured young Jewish adults, and even those few successful initiatives have struggled with sustaining participants’ newfound Jewish connection once their program is over.

Which makes our jobs at JGO that much harder. We see ourselves as the last chance for young adults in a group setting (grad school) to engage Jewishly, before the pressures of work and family life take over. It’s not just our responsibility to get them in the door, but to keep that connection going for the long term after they graduate.

Whatever that new stickiness factor is (and at JGO we are thinking about it constantly) it must be authentic, hopeful, inclusive, and timeless in order to meet the needs of this new generation.

Because Taylor Swift isn't going to do it.