Opinion

Young Americans are happy about the future. They’re also terrified of it.

(RNS) — We are a nation caught between generations, and we don’t have the language to talk about what comes next.

(Photo by Polina Zimmerman/Pexels/Creative Commons)

Liz Bucar
June 15, 2026 

RNS


(RNS) — This past week, I lived the reality behind a new Pew Research study without leaving my own family. My in-laws were in town for my father-in-law’s sixtieth college reunion, a celebration of a version of America that delivered on its promises. My daughter was graduating from high school, excited and nervous about what comes next. Same week, same family. Different Americas.

On Friday (June 12), Pew Research Center released its analysis of the national mood timed to the country’s 250th anniversary, and the numbers confirm what I felt all last week: We are a nation caught between generations, and we don’t have the language to talk about what comes next. Most Americans think the country’s best days are behind us. Nearly 7 in 10 say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going.

The finding most concerning to me as a parent and educator is that while young adults (ages 18 to 29) report higher levels of happiness about the future than adults 65 and older, Gen Z is more pessimistic about what that future actually holds. Fewer than 4 in 10 believe the economy will be stronger or that the country will be less politically divided by 2050.


My daughter worries about all the unknown effects climate change will bring. She worries that getting into graduate school will be even harder than the brutal college application process she just went through. And she worries about what the job market will look like for her — whether there will even be the kinds of jobs she’s imagining, given how quickly AI is changing what human work means.

Hers is a generation that feels good, but they expect things to get worse. That makes me deeply sad, because it signals my daughter and her peers have been taught to manage their feelings while abandoning their expectations.

“Most Americans think the country’s best days are behind us”

 (Graphic courtesy of Pew Research Center)

Part of the problem is that we have convinced them, and ourselves, to think about happiness in individualized, therapeutic terms. Optimize your morning routine. Manage your anxiety. Cultivate gratitude. Stay present. The promise is that if we tend to our inner life, the chaos outside will feel more bearable.

What that version of happiness can’t do is help us imagine a better future together.

There was a time when Americans located hope not just in personal improvement but in collective projects: the Labor Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the New Deal. These were endeavors oriented toward something larger than any individual’s mood or even one generation. That orientation has been missing for a while — but it requires a story about why the future matters beyond our own lifetimes.

One place humans have always gone for stories about the future is religion, and this is why I have spent my career studying religious traditions even as someone who is not myself religious. What I have learned is that religious traditions share something the self-optimization industry cannot offer: a vocabulary for collective futures.

Judaism’s concept of ‘tikkun olam’ (repairing the world) assumes the work will never be finished in your lifetime and insists that’s not a reason to stop trying. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) hold that decisions should be made with seven generations in mind, orienting us toward people who don’t yet exist. Islam understands humans as stewards of the earth on behalf of those who come after. Christianity at its best understands the Kingdom of God not as a postmortem destination but something being built now, collectively, by people who will not see its completion.

You don’t have to be religious to recognize this is something secular culture has never quite figured out how to replace.

“Adults under age 30 and those 65 and older express similar levels of satisfaction with how things are going in the country” (Graphic courtesy of Pew Research Center)

The Pew data shows a country that feels its feelings without any shared framework for what those feelings are pointing toward. This is a failure happening on multiple fronts simultaneously — in politics, in media, in our institutions and, yes, inside religious communities that have sometimes let their vision shrink down to the size of individual spiritual comfort. We have all forgotten the importance of a collective story.

My father-in-law and his fellow Boomers had a version of the American dream that was structurally possible for them: work hard, build a legacy, pass it on. That story included an economic promise, but it was also a narrative about their place in a timeline and how they could impact the timeline after them. That narrative worked for them. But it won’t work in the same way for my daughter.

She will not become a homeowner at 28 the way her grandparents did. Her college diploma will not carry the same guarantee of employment and social status her grandfather’s did. It will be much harder to raise a family on two incomes, let alone one.

What my daughter’s generation needs is a reason to rebuild. This can’t be an overly optimistic spin on the state of the world nor nostalgia for a version of the American dream that was never available to everyone. What we all need to find again is a collective story about what we owe each other and the future we share.

But how do we do this? The first step is recognizing that going it alone is not the answer, that human flourishing has always been a collective project. The second step is finding new ways to come together across generations to share the stories we love, name the futures we want and reject the ones being written for us by people with too much power and too little accountability. We’ve seen glimpses of what this can look like in the energy that surrounded Zohran Mamdani’s campaign — which felt less like everyday politics and more like a collective imagination exercise.

I think religion is probably how we used to do this, and we haven’t figured out what replaces it. Religious communities were places where people of different generations gathered regularly, told stories about the past and the future and held each other accountable to something larger than their own happiness.

We don’t need to rebuild traditional religion. But we need something that does what religion does at its best.

We have the feelings. My daughter deserves the story.

(Liz Bucar is a professor of religion at Northeastern University and the author of “Beyond Wellness: How Restoring the Religious Roots of Spiritual Practices Can Heal Us” (Tarcher/Penguin Random House, 2026). She writes the Substack bestseller newsletter Religion, Reimagined.)

A judge orders ICE to free a Wisconsin mosque leader, citing a 'substantial' free speech claim

(AP) — The government has claimed he is a foreign policy threat, but Sarsour's attorneys say he was actually targeted for speaking out against Israel.

In this photo provided by Yaseen Jajeeb, Islamic Society of Milwaukee President Salah Sarsour smiles, Thursday, June 18, 2026, shortly after his release from a county jail in Indiana, where he was detained after his arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in March. (Yaseen Najeeb via AP)

Rebecca Boone
June 18, 2026 

(AP) — A federal judge ordered immigration officials to release the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque from detention Thursday, finding that Salah Sarsour has raised a “substantial” claim that he was being targeted for speaking out in favor of Palestinian rights.

Sarsour, a Palestinian-born legal permanent resident of the United States, was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on March 30. The government has claimed he is a foreign policy threat, but Sarsour’s attorneys say he was actually targeted for speaking out against Israel.

U.S. District Judge James Patrick Hanlon wrote in a decision Thursday that attorneys for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not provide enough evidence to refute Sarsour’s claims of retaliation for free speech, nor did they explain why Sarsour was suddenly considered a threat now after more than three decades of legal residency in the United States.”The mere invocation of foreign relations concerns does not automatically trump First Amendment rights,” wrote Hanlon, who was nominated by Trump in 2018. Hanlon ordered that Sarsour be released from the Indiana county jail where he was being held, and allowed to return to his Milwaukee home while his immigration case moves forward

Sarsour was released a few hours after the ruling.

“I am so relieved to be with my family. For 80 days, I haven’t been able to step outside and breathe fresh air,” Sarsour said in a prepared statement. “This experience is a reminder to all of us that we must fight together for our right to be a voice for the silenced. I will never stop speaking for Palestine and humanity, wherever I am.”

Sarsour, who has Type 2 diabetes, has lost more than 30 pounds (14 kilograms) during his incarceration and his attorneys say his blood sugar levels were only being checked once a month in the jail, putting him at risk of organ failure or death. He was released from the jail Thursday afternoon, said Malak Saleh, the communications manager for the Institute for Middle East Understanding, which has been assisting with the case.

Sarsour’s legal team said in a statement that they were ecstatic, and said he never should have been detained in the first place.

The ruling is also “a sober reminder that, if the government can target Mr. Sarsour, everyone’s free speech rights are at risk,” they wrote.

A statement from the Department of Homeland Security called Sarsour “a terrorist who was convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails” and said any accusation of discrimination by ICE agents is false.

An investigation by KFF Health News and the AP found that hundreds of detainees in at least 33 states have filed federal lawsuits with similar allegations of medical neglect.

Sarsour has no criminal record in the U.S. He was convicted by the Israeli Ramallah Military Court in 1989 of throwing a Molotov cocktail and stones at Israeli army forces, and by the same court in 1995 of attempting to hold weapons and ammunition. Sarsour has denied committing those crimes.

The Israeli military courts have faced scrutiny over allegations of limited due process and high conviction rates of Palestinians. Israel rejects those claims.

The U.S. government has been aware of the charges against Sarsour for 25 years, Hanlon wrote, and considered them at least four times when evaluating his eligibility for naturalization. Still, Hanlon noted, the government didn’t arrest and detain Sarsour until 2026.

Attorneys for DHS and ICE contended that Sarsour doesn’t have the same First Amendment rights as citizens, but the judge rejected that argument. People who enter the U.S. lawfully are invested with the same rights guaranteed by the Constitution to everyone within U.S. borders, Hanlon wrote.

Sarsour’s deep ties to the community — including his spouse, six children and nine grandchildren who are all U.S. citizens — and health concerns also weighed in favor of his release, Hanlon wrote.

“We’re getting our dad back!” Salah’s son, Kareem Sarsour, said in a prepared statement. “This experience has been a nightmare to wake up to every day, with his health at risk in a cruel basement cell simply for speaking up for Palestine. But we know who my dad is, he’s a voice for the voiceless and the heart of our family and our community. I can’t wait to hug him, and I hope everyone like him will be released.”
___

Boone reported from Boise, Idaho.

Jewish groups rally in support of Milwaukee Muslim leader detained in ICE jail

(RNS) — Progressive Jewish advocacy organizations condemn what they view as a misguided attempt to fight antisemitism by targeting Palestinian permanent residents, such as Salah Sarsour.

Faith leaders, community advocates and family members of Salah Sarsour gathered for a vigil outside the Clay County Jail on Sunday, June 14, 2026, in Brazil, Ind. The group is calling for the release of detained Milwaukee-based Palestinian activist and green card holder Salah Sarsour. Photo courtesy of Jews for Salah

Ulaa Kuziez
June 17, 2026 

RNS

(RNS) — The closest Kareem Sarsour had come to seeing his father in more than two months was standing outside an Indiana county jail where he is being held by immigration officials. 

Salah Sarsour, a Muslim Palestinian leader and green card holder, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March. Kareem Sarsour’s visit requests have been repeatedly denied. 

“It’s heartbreaking and deeply upsetting to know my father is only a few steps away, yet I can’t see him, check on him, or give him a hug,” Kareem said. “It was a very painful ride back knowing we left my father there.”

But on Sunday (June 14), Kareem Sarsour’s spirits were buoyed as he stood beside dozens of American Jews who drove in from neighboring states to rally outside the Clay County Jail to demand Sarsour’s release.

Jodi Melamed, leader with the Milwaukee chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace, speaks during the event. Photo courtesy of Jews for Salah

Many American Jews feel an obligation to support Sarsour, said Jodi Melamed, an organizer with the Milwaukee chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace.

“It is very rare, especially since Oct. 7, 2023, to have so many Jews from such a wide variety of perspectives on Israel come together to defend a Palestinian for Palestinian speech,” said Melamed.

National Muslim advocacy groups see Sarsour’s arrest as part of a politically motivated campaign to stifle pro-Palestinian speech in the United States. That view is increasingly shared by other faith groups in the U.S., including some Jews.

Progressive Jewish advocacy organizations condemn what they view as a misguided attempt to fight antisemitism by targeting Palestinians like Sarsour.

“The administration is specifically conflating the fight for Jewish safety with the ways that people are standing up for Palestinian rights, and then using that as a strategy to push an anti-immigrant agenda and crack down on civil liberties broadly,” said Jamie Beran, chief executive officer of Bend the Arc, a Jewish social justice organization. 

Homeland Security officials have described Sarsour as a national security threat with ties to terrorist groups. 

In an April statement, the agency said Sarsour, who grew up in the occupied West Bank, had been convicted of throwing molotov cocktails at armed Israeli forces before being granted entry to the United States in 1993. A spokesperson also alleged that Sarsour lied in his green card application. 

Sarsour’s lawyers have argued that U.S. officials knew about his history since 1993, when his visa application was approved. They say his detention was politically motivated. 

In a status hearing on June 8, Sarsour’s attorneys asked a federal judge to release him, saying his health has deteriorated.

Sarsour was also denied a Quran and has been repeatedly interrupted by guards when he is trying to pray, his attorneys wrote in a May 29 letter to U.S. District Court Judge James Patrick Hanlon. When Sarsour, who is diabetic, asked for an adequate diet, his lawyer Luna Droubi said he was told to purchase barbecue pork rinds from the commissary, which would violate Muslim dietary laws, which forbid pork products.

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Wis., who was able to visit Sarsour on the day of the protest, said he was not receiving adequate medical care for his diabetes.

“Salah is being targeted for his advocacy for Palestinians, but his mistreatment is part of the Trump administration’s larger campaign of hate against immigrants,” she said in a statement Sunday. 

Sarsour was president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, the largest mosque in that city, before his arrest. He was also a board member of American Muslims for Palestine, a national organization focused on education about Palestinians. 

Kareem Sarsour, Salah’s son, spoke during the event calling for the release of his father. Photo courtesy of Jews for Salah

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore speaks with Kareem Sarsour, son of Salah Sarsour. Moore was one of multiple elected officials to attend the event. Photo courtesy of Jews for Salah

Melamed, a longtime friend of Sarsour’s, described him as a bridge builder with strong ties to interfaith communities in Milwaukee. As a board member of the mosque’s K-12 school, Sarsour helped create a strong Holocaust education program, helping bring Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein to the school more than once.

“He’s the papa bear of our interfaith community, and that’s why it’s so hard and so shocking and really cruel,” Melamed said of Sarsour. 

American Jewish communities are divided over support for Israel. But there is wide agreement among American Jews that the Trump administration’s massive deportation agenda is unjust and in many cases unlawful.

“It should be a given that we’re here because we are Jews,” said Rabbi Bruce Elder of Congregation Hakafa in Glencoe, Illinois, who spoke at the protest. “You cannot separate the Jewish immigrant experience from other immigrants that are coming through. Our Jewish textual tradition calls for us to be here.”

Elder, who is also affiliated with the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and T’ruah, the rabbinical human rights group, said he does not think support for the Palestinians should be tied to antisemitism.

“The cover of fighting antisemitism from an administration that has some of the most racist antisemites — using that to try to divide us against other folks, to me, is an incredible concern,” he said.

A group of attendees takes a photo together, many wearing shirts that read “Free Salah” on the front. Photo courtesy of Jews for Salah

Progressive Jewish groups have also supported and advocated for several international student leaders targeted with detention or deportation for their pro-Palestinian activism, including former Columbia University students Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi.

In Colorado Springs, Colorado, local Jewish advocates and Christian groups have supported Hayam El Gamal and her five children, who were released after 10 months from ICE custody. ICE had been trying to deport the family since El Gamal’s ex-husband was charged with attempted murder for throwing molotov cocktails at protesters who’d gathered in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza — an attack his family said it knew nothing about.

Erin Adlerstein, who organized a Jewish-led rally last month asking for due process for Hayam El Gamal and her children, acknowledged the horror of Mohamed Soliman’s attack on the Boulder Jewish community. “But as a neighbor of the El Gamal family, it just does not serve me in any way to hold these children responsible for the actions of their father,” Adlerstein said. 

For Kareem Sarsour, the presence of Jews at the protest demanding his father’s release was meaningful.

Interfaith unity, he said, counters ICE’s goal of “breaking us as a community and picking on us one by one.”