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For the past week, those of us who care about the future of Jewish life in America have been agonizing over the results of this study.
My personal opinion is this: after the Holocaust, in a world where we often evade or lack meaning, purpose, and mission, Torah Judaism is the only hope for the Jewish future. The problem with Reform (which counts 35% of American Jews) and Conservative (now down to 18%) is that these movements fail to engage their own members in any meaningful religious life. Thus, in actuality, there are Orthodox Jews and Secular Jews. Most Reform people adhere to the anything goes/relativistic mindset, and with few notable exceptions, their services are sparsely attended. The same is true of Conservative, with the notable difference being that Conservative Judaism, in theory, does make demands on its followers. Most Conservative Jews are really just Reform; those that keep kosher homes will eat treif outside the home, people will drive their cars to places other than shul on Shabbat, and nobody davens regularly and lays tefillin, and the youth are largely promiscuous and engage in casual sex, the latter in direct contradiction to Elliot Dorff’s teshuva on these issues, which explicitly condemns such conduct. Their day schools are shutting down left and right, due to low enrollment, and they recently decided to shut down KOACH, the college outreach initative, and to cut off funds from their yeshiva in Israel, which produces graduates who end up leaving the movement and becoming part of liberal Orthodox and/or postdenominational, independent minyanim. (I know many who went to the CY and became 100% observant after leaving; indeed, it is said that Conservative success stories involve their kids either becoming rabbis in that movement or becoming Orthodox, although despite our millions of dollars in kiruv, only 1% of Reform and 4% of Conservative Jews became Orthodox, according to the study).
What is the answer? Kiruv obviously isn’t the saving grace, since the rates of baalei teshuva are relatively low. Likewise, how do we engage people in a rigorous, demanding religious lifestyle, when in an age of hedonism, instant gratification, and cheap thrills, people have little interest in delving into the issues and questions of eternal, timeless, spiritual importance.
The fact that in spite of our attrition rate, Orthodox Judaism has the most promise for the Jewish future. However, what saddens me is that through the unbridled freedom of our society, we’re accomplishing what Hitler desired: the eradication of Jewish identity. While our Orthodox ranks grow, these gains are far exceeded by the rates of assimilation and intermarriage seen among the non-Orthodox (71% of whom intermary, and 68% of whom believe atheism isn’t a problem).
If anyone is interested in reading the full article detailing the results of the study, it is available on the JTA website (written by Uriel Heilman).
I find it really depressing that the intermarriage rate has risen to 58%. It makes me think more seriously about aliyah.
A certain percentage of the Conservative and Reform Jews identified in the study are not halachically Jewish, either because they’re patrilineal Jews or because they consider themselves Jewish through an invalid conversion of their mother or maternal grandmother. The survey researchers could have asked about whether their mother is Jewish and whether she converted, but as far as I can tell they didn’t. It would be nice to know what percentage of each movement, and what percentage of non-affiliated self-identified Jews, aren’t Jewish at all under Jewish law.
The sample of Orthodox Jews, and especially MO Jews, is very small, and because of this small sample size it’s hard to know whether the results are valid.
There are some oddities in the results that suggest the sampling was inadequate. A pretty large percentage of self-described Orthodox Jews (including ultra-orthodox) indicated that they didn’t refrain from handling money on Shabbos.
The survey found that only 50% of those raised Orthodox were still Orthodox, which contradicts the idea that the Orthodox are so good at retention. However, the numbers are much higher for the younger Orthodox groups, and these numbers are only good if the sample was truly representative. I have a feeling that the more frum families, especially chassidim and those with many children, refused to participate in the study when contacted, because they were too busy or just not interested.
The 1% and 4% kiruv numbers might be correct, but they might underestimate rates of making teshuvah, if a significant amount of BTs make aliyah or if the survey for whatever reason ended up undersampling BTs. Even so, given the anti-Orthodox attitude of Reform and Conservative Jews, and the anti-religious cultural context in which we live at this time, these numbers are not insignificant. They mean there are thousands of new observant Jews, marrying other Jews and raising observant Jewish children.
There were some very strange findings that lead me to believe that either the samples were bad or the questions were bad (or maybe people were having fun at the interviewer’s expense).
Maybe I can believe that only 83% of MO keep kosher in the home (presumably people who are MO in their minds only). But 1% of ultra-orthodox have Christmas trees in their homes? 15% of ultra-orthodox attend non-Jewish religious services at least a few times a year whereas only 14% of reforms do? 13% of ultra-orthodox don’t believe that Israel was given to the Jews by G-d (here I suspect the question was confusing, leading UO’s to believe it was about the State.)
“The issue with aliyah and Israel that I have is that most Israelis are not religious. While they mostly end up marrying other Jews and identifying as Jews, secularism and irreligiosity are rampant there. Many Israeli high school kids don’t know ‘Shema Yisrael, H’ Elokeinu, H’ Echad’.”
Where are you getting this information? Far from not knowing the Shema, Israeli high schoolers know Tanach better than many Americans (it’s taught in regular public schools!) They know and understand halacha even if they don’t follow it. They have a strong Jewish identity and feel proud of being Jewish, and a sense of ownership over Judaism. They care. Most strikingly, they care about the preservation of traditional Judaism. In Israel, it is not uncommon to hear secular Jews rebuking Conservative and Reform Jews for not following halacha. Yes, you can say it’s hypocrisy, but I think it’s beautiful to see that halacha and mesora is so precious to them and that even if they don’t personally “buy in” to the system, they support it and hopefully will one day return. Contrast this to in America, where 98% of the population is not even Jewish, and of those who are, many are completely ignorant of the most basic Jewish traditions. At least in Israel you have a starting point.
I think mods that this would get more hits if it said Jew instead of Pew in the title
Jewish feminist, I am sure there are some non-frum Israelis who know a lot about Judaism, but there are also many who don’t. I was at a Rosh Hashana meal a couple years back with an educated Israeli who literally did not know more about the Yom Tov than its name. And this is after getting degrees from two Ivy League schools, which are rumored to be empty on Rosh Hashanah.
The biggest problem IMO the collapse of non orthodox Judaism. The reality for many people Orthodox judaism isnt going to work (If it were people would be flocking to shuls, keeping Kosher, Shabbat, but they arent)
Charedism just isnt right for everyone, otherwise there wouldnt be OTDers. People dont leave if they are happy.
While there might be 1-4% of BT’s there are probably a similar number of OTDers so that probably cancels each other out.
A way must be figured out how to keep people who do not want to live the Charedi lifestyle in the fold
Shoppong: it’s not a typo. There was a study by the Pew Research Center about the future of Judaism in the US.
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