Leaders of the organized Jewish community — the “machers” — are weighing in on the Pew Research Center 2013 Survey of U.S. Jews, “A Portrait of Jewish Americans.” It will be a topic of conversation in these circles for three or 18 years.
This edition of the AJW has a Page 1 story from JTA that goes into some of the survey results. Also, on the opposite page is an op-ed about the study by Yossi Prager, who is the executive director-North America of the Avi Chai Foundation.
There are some fairly startling findings in the Pew survey, which do not bode well for the future strength and vitality of the American Jewish community.
For example, the Pew survey found: “The percentage of U.S. adults who say they are Jewish when asked about their religion has declined by about half since the late 1950s.”
There is no getting around the fact that this is a drastic fall-off in sheer numbers. Jews comprise a little less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, according to the Pew Center.
Many of those commenting on “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” have honed in on the finding that about one in five Jews (22 percent) say they have no religion. That godless cohort is proportionally larger among the Jewish Millennials (born after 1980, including my three sons). The survey found that in this group, 68 percent identify as Jews by religion, while 32 percent “describe themselves as having no religion and identify as Jewish on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity or culture.”
Going into this culture versus religion distinction, the Pew Center Survey notes: “Secularism has a long tradition in Jewish life in America, and most U.S. Jews seem to recognize this: 62 percent say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, while just 15 percent say it is mainly a matter of religion. Even among Jews by religion, more than half (55 percent) say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, and two-thirds say it is not necessary to believe in God to be Jewish.”
The Pew survey delves into long-running controversy: Who is a Jew? Here’s what the survey says: “A key aim of the Pew Research Center survey is to explore Jewish identity: What does being Jewish mean in America today? Large majorities of U.S. Jews say that remembering the Holocaust (73 percent) and leading an ethical life (69 percent) are essential to their sense of Jewishness. More than half (56 percent) say that working for justice and equality is essential to what being Jewish means to them. And about four-in-ten say that caring about Israel (43 percent)” is “essential to their Jewish identity.”
There is another essential element to being Jewish — and I really like this one— “having a good sense of humor.” The survey found that 42 percent of Jews think you need to get with the funny if you’re Jewish.
The survey also found that religiosity, or the lack thereof, has a profound bearing on the Jewish orientation of the next generation: “More than 90 percent of Jews by religion who are currently raising minor children in their home say they are raising those children Jewish or partially Jewish. In stark contrast, the survey finds that two-thirds of Jews of no religion say they are not raising their children Jewish or partially Jewish — either by religion or aside from religion.”
Also, the survey revealed that intermarriage rates have risen substantially over the past 50 years: “Among Jewish respondents who have gotten married since 2000, nearly six-in-ten have a non-Jewish spouse. Among those who got married in the 1980s, roughly four-in-ten have a non-Jewish spouse. And among Jews who got married before 1970, just 17 percent have a non-Jewish spouse.”
Those studying Jewish demography have noted for some time that the acceptance of Jews in American society has had the paradoxical effect of leading more and more Jews to marry non-Jews and thereby weaken the bonds of communal cohesion.
On this point, Jane Eisner, editor of the Forward (and a consultant to the Pew study) commented recently on a radio program in New York City: “There is so much of a greater acceptance of Jewish people and culture in this country. You see this reflected in the intermarriage rate. My goodness, in the last few years you’ve seen the vice president and the secretary of state marry their children off to other Jews.”
This is the “loving Jews to death” scenario.
It’s hard to see where the glass is half full, vis-à-vis the Pew survey; but some Jewish leaders have tried to put some positive spin on the dire report, as reported by JTA. They come a bit short of the knocker.
“I don’t think we should cry gevalt,” says Andres Spokoiny, CEO of the Jewish Funders Network.
Jerry Silverman, CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, comments, “I’m not devastated because I don’t know that the information is shocking based on the trends of 1990 to 2000 and some of the trends we’ve seen in local community studies.”
And some read the survey and went straight to blame. Michael Steinhardt, Jewish mega-philanthropist declares, “The leadership in the community is atrocious.”
My colleague, Andrew Silow-Carroll, editor-in-chief of the New Jersey Jewish News, recently wrote a column about the Pew survey, and noted, in part: “A friend in Israel drew a much blunter conclusion from the study: ‘American Jewry is screwed,’ he wrote. That’s too strong, but he’s right that, overall, we are a community in decline. The study confirms the ‘fewer and Jewer’ prognostications of various sociologists — that is, American Jewry is moving toward a minority of maximalists with secure Jewish futures and a majority of minimalists perhaps a generation or two from disappearing.”
Silow-Carroll says the Pew study reveals “the impracticability of Jewish secularism in the Diaspora, after a good 200-year run.” A segment of the Jewish community is no longer bound together by “Zionism, the labor movement, Yiddish culture, Jewish literature, Jewish hospitals and universities.” Again, we no longer cling together in the face of a hostile, anti-Semitic society. Now we run for vice president on a major party ticket or marry the president’s daughter.
So, what do you think? The pages of the Jewish World are officially open for discussing “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” and what it portends.
Be glad we still have a great Jewish newspaper in Minnesota.
— Mordecai Specktor / editor [at] ajwnews [dot] com
(American Jewish World, 10.11.13)
