A new book, Beyond Jewish Identity: Rethinking Concerns and Imagining Alternatives, edited by Ari Kelman and Jon Levisohn, straddles the distinction between the processes that shape Jewish identities and the communal project of “Jewish identity.” The book’s essays hover around the idea that there’s something troubling about “Jewish Identity” and the outsize role that it now plays in Jewish communal-organizational discourse that needs to be reconsidered, especially with regard to Jewish education. The editors push for this reconsideration because they believe that attending to Jewish identity as an outcome undermines thoughtful Jewish education and misdirects the attention of the funders.