Most people who claim to be Jewish but aren’t halachically Jewish aren’t interested in Kiruv organizations to begin with. In general the Kiruv movement no longer has as many interested customers as they once did because secular American Jews younger than forty don’t identify as being Jewish like they did in the heyday of the Kiruv movement. Or if they do identify as being Jewish, their “Judaism” is little more than the official position of the Democratic party (that they call tikkun olam) with some holidays thrown in. Their focus and success even in the US is mostly with Israeli immigrants. The Kiruv groups also use techniques to ensure the people they are dealing with are halachically Jewish. They do not take everyone claiming to be Jewish at their word. Of sad and ironic note is that if someone claims to be Jewish and has a Jewish name like Goldberg they assume the person is NOT halachically Jewish until further verification whereas if the person has a clearly non-Jewish last name like Hendricks there is a larger likelihood the person is in fact halachically Jewish.
Menu