The fast growing Orthodox Jewish community in United Kingdom’s capital has prompted the ‘Liberal Judaism’ group to attack the Haredi community of expanding its households over letting it go.
“The ultra-Orthodox ‘pickle Judaism’ rather than preserve the religion by ‘refusing to engage with the outside world’,” Liberal Judaism Chief Executive Rabbi Danny Rich claimed, according to The UK Jewish News Online.
The natural increase of the Anglo-Jewry, according to the latest Board of Deputies’ annual communal statistics report, is largely attributable to the number of births within the Hared community to the extent that they now comprise at least four out of every ten Jewish births.
In Stamford Hill (North London) and Manchester alone, the number of boys born to strictly Orthodox Jewish families was at least 546 in 2007, rising to 683 in 2012. This would infer a total of over 1,000 births (male and female) in 2007, rising to over 1,300 in 2012.”This represents an average annual increase of 4.6% over this period, a rate which is broadly consistent with other indicators of the growth of the strictly Orthodox population,” the report states.
But the anger of the Liberal Jews is over the fact that over the last 30 years, the proportion of marriages taking place under the auspices of the United Synagogue and other central Orthodox movements declined from 60 percent to just under a half while those in the ‘strictly Orthodox sector’ have soared from less than one in 10 to more than three of every 10.
Reacting to the figures, Liberal Judaism CEO Rich said, “The Charedim (ultra-Orthodox) don’t preserve Judaism, they pickle it. Refusing to engage with the outside world constitutes a failure to engage with Judaism’s key prophetic mission – the commitment to social justice.”
“Jews have a clear choice: do we retreat from the modern world to safeguard the purity of our ‘ancient bloodlines’, or do we share our message of justice as proud members of a multi-cultural society?” Rich asked. Adding, “I think marriage is a very reductive way of defining Jewishness. A Jewish marriage doesn’t secure a Jewish life and a Jewish life does not depend on a Jewish marriage.”
But Rabbi Avraham Pinter, a leading figure in the Stamford Hill community and a former Labour Councillor, was not at all amused at the figures or deterred by Rabbi Rich’s attacks. “For the head of the Liberals to suggest that Pickle facts-page-001 (1)marriage is not important to Judaism is rather rich,” Said Rabbi Pinter. “They have only had 140 marriages in the last five years while there were 1,300 Charedi marriages.”
Photo: The Daily Telegraph
(Jacob Kornbluh – YWN)
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6 Responses
Hah, those sour losers are disappearing faster than a speeding bullet. Soon they’ll be nothing left of those liberal Jews (if they’re even halachicly Jewish). They are going the way of the pony express. And they have no one to blame but themselves. These are their dying cries.
How is this unique to Britain? The same situation is true everywhere. As Jews give up Torah, they lose interest in things such as having children (why bother if you have nothing of value to pass on to your posterity), and they focus of consumption and materialism (if your existence ends at death, and you can’t take it with you, why not live it up).
They will always object to us, since we are the survivors and they are not. We should realize that the non-Orthodox Jews (not the goyim, not “the church” – whichever one you are mad at this week, not even the Arabs) are our enemies.
I LOVE PICKLES!
@Toras Moshe
Then who is going to pay the bills?
Pretty sure the ATM doesn’t accept a shtickle Torah to withdraw cash.
Unfortunate, that the Askkenazi ultra orthodox have done such a poor job of not mikaravim these non orthodox Jews
Great. But we in the religious community are lossing a large number of our children as well. This is far many different reasons. And they become the next generation of liberal Jews. Orrrr they live a lie and dress frum marry frum but believe in nothing. So don’t Rejoice so soon