Imagining Jewish America’s future (or lack thereof)
Two new opinion pieces predict the demise of Jewish America as we know it within a few decades.
Uzi Silber writes in the Forward that the disappearance of the "secular and religiously liberal" American Jew is inevitable due to intermarriage, low birth rates and assimilation. The fervently Orthodox community of Boro Park and its ilk, he argues, with its fecund birth rates and strong communal affiliation, represent the future of Jewish America.
Meanwhile, at Jewcy, Robin Margolis envisions a takeover of the State of Israel by its fervently Orthodox community in the year 2040, which will precipitate a civil war with Israeli Arabs who feel excluded by the establishment of a Jewish theocracy a la the Islamic Republic of Iran. As for the Jewish American community, by 2040 it has shrunk to "perhaps 30 to 50 percent" of its size in 2009, as "bagel jokes, Israel trips, discussions on intermarriage, arguments over Yiddish proverbs" proves too little to keep it together.
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I don’t understand the need to move to the land of our ancestors. Do English, French, or Spanish people have this urge as well? And what would happen if all the Catholics moved to Italy? My home is where I live, work and raise my family. And Cheryl, a religion that doesn’t change with the times and isn’t flexible is soon extinct.....
Richard
Richard, the English, french Spanish, Catholics, Protestants and Hindus have not been repeatedly threatened with extermination. Having a place of Jewish independence and self-reliance may be at least a partial shield against this in the future. As for religion, change is a slippery slope. Can it be that because it has not changed at its halachic heart, Judaism has persevered for 2000 years?
George Iverson let me say that to me this… the United States is where I was born, I now live, and consider my home, but Israel...Israel is my birthright granted by Ha-Shem for eternity. Now one thing to note.... if this melting glacier, rising sea level thingy has any merit.... The dead sea is the lowest place on earth…
Now… as for that 2bit jerk David… let me just say I am sick to death of you cowardly defenders of your own inaction. I have had so many of you pot-bellied rebel flag waving drunken nit wits tell me… a vetern of service… things like that it makes me queasy in a too much lard in the pancakes this morning queasy. The one thing you learn from a position of strength is you can tolerated the weaker a lot easier… David you have repeatedly brought, you and your buddies, a foul blend to these forums and really I wish, if you’re Jewish to learn to keep your mouth (typing fingers) shut for a change. If you aren’t Jewish then just leave… you are offensive, insulting, and hateful towards Jews.
I am a non-affiiated Jew. I feel at home in a local Chabad, Conservative or reform temple. We are a people of many ideologies and communities. Some fit and some less so. I may agree or disagree wtih any group in part or whole but I accept all as Jewish. Each has a great deal to offer. Each, I find, to be interesting and moving.
What is so interesting about various Jewish movements is how contrary they are to the way we think they may appear in chronological order. Many of the “Orthodox” movements make up for some of the most recently developed historically. Reform, in many ways, is quite old. Having said this so many of the attacks on each other from right or left is an artifice that has little to do with being Jewish.
Predicting where the American Jewish community will be in 30 years can be quite tricky. Numerically Orthodoxy is still quite small. Growing but small. Many Reform and Conservative Jews who do intermarry have children that grow up with Jewish identities. Historically intermarriage has been a double edge sword. In some parts of the world through Jewish intermarriage the community all but disappeared (China and India). In other parts, it actually revived and caused Jewish communities to grow and develop. Evidence can be seen around the world by how Jews in particular places look uncannily like the surrounding populations (black in africa, brown in the middle east and asian in India, etc).
The Jewish population in the United States is still growing...slowly.
The Conservative movement in Israel is growing...slowly.
There is a tremendous effort underway to change the law so there can be civil marriage and recognition of marriage conducted within Israel by non-Orthodox Rabbis. This will be a significant game changer.
Finally, about half the world’s Jewish population consist of people of color. This is the fastest growing segment of the Jewish population. It may be that in 30 to 50 years more Jews will be black and brown and this may be the face of Jewish America and world Jewry. Although plenty of Orthodox most are not.
Phillip
“yonasonwolff” is worth a thousand “Meatball Misfit” (see above: “Lets hope that the Jewish pres of iran finishes off israel...") The good guy goes, and the Israel-hating fruitcake stays! So long as JTA refuses to rid this site of anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, etc., the good guys will leave one by one.
Mr Glasser,
It was not LIFE or LOOK magazine that predicted the end of Judaism in America by 2000, but rather a comment made by an Orthodox rabbi, who predicted that we’d all either go to Israel, or stay in the US and become soul-less suburbanites. I believe that it was in TIME magazine. I remember thinking, “what an idiot”, which is about what I think of Uzi Silber’s silly article. He and Margolis might start talking with the young Israeli Shapardim and the ‘Russians’, because the majority of them are definitely not headed in the Orthodox direction. The Conservative move3ment is the only one in the progressive movement that is in trouble.
As a devout Jew, who travels regulary between Israel and the rest of the world, I don’t remember ever seeing any bar to Jews living in the diaspora. That’s nonsense.
As a ReformaDox, I don’t remember seeing anything in Talmud that says Jews to be Orthodox to be Jews. Most of the shabbat liturgy and prayers were composed AFTER Talmud, so the streamlining of Judish observance by Conservatives, Reformers, Liberals, Reconstruction, and Renewal cannot be a violation of Talmud.
250 years ago, the Vilna Gaon excommunicated Chassids, so obviously, Chassids aren’t Orthodox. The rabbis of Spain, Italy, and France excommunicated Moshe ben Maimon, so obviously he wasn’t a Jew. For thousands of years Jews, like Acher and toiday’s Orthodox have aided the Nations in isolating and killing off other Jews. Don’t forget, the kapos in the camps were all Orthodox big shots.
It is the insulting arrogance of Orthodox pontificators that keeps me from claiming to be Orthodox. We Jews are called to be the light of the world, and since Orthodoxy utterly fails in that Mitzvah, Orthodoxy can no longer claim to be Kosher. Therefore I will deny being Orthodox, because I am Kosher.
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joel glasser
10/09/09 08:43 PM
I have two comments.
First, I think “MEATBALL HERO” is IN MY OPINION, an idiot.
Just this past week, a Nobel winner in science was an Israeli; when was the last Iranian (with what? 8 or 10 times the population) the home of a Nobel winner? Or, any Muslim country (in a field of science).
I cannot think of any.
Israel is the home of perhaps one fo the greatest concentrations of engineers, scientists and medical people.
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I would also like to repsond to Mr. Rob Brownstein.
I agree that it is difficult to extrapolate decades into the future.
A few eeeks ago, the Rabbi of the Shul I go to discussed this issue, and brough up an interesting point.
In (I beleive the year was 1964-not sure, but in the 1960’s or so) LOOK MAGAZINE ( remember that?) predicted that by the year 2000, there would be NO JEWS IN THE US, due to intermarriage, low birth rates; conversions; assimilation, etc.
Yet, as we can see, that is not the case.
Yes, Reform Judiasm is weak- but, it was (in my view) more for social ( and business/networking) meeting palce then religion. With the religion coming in second (or third) in importance.
(I attended a funeral service at a Reform Shul, a few years ago, where the Rabbi talked about going to eat lobster, and pork ribs; and criticized a mourner- who is Orthodox, for having a beard, and wearing tsitises (hope spelled correctly).
I am not Orthodox ( and went as a courtesy- to a family member, who ahs offered me assistance in personal matters, several times over the years), and I was offended. NOT that the Rabbi ate the lobster and pork, but that he talked about it in a Shul. A Christina- with any knowledge of the jewish religion wuld probably- upon hearing something like this, think ALL Jews are hypocrites, or worse.
Anyhow, my 5 cents worth.