How many articles have we read about the inexorable demographic slide of U.S. “mainline” Protestantism, difficulties lately hitting “evangelicals,” declining Mass attendance for Catholics and the growth of religiously unaffiliated people (“Nones”) who forsake all religious ties that bind?
There’s been far less media attention to the state of Judaism, the nation’s second-largest religion though Islam is moving up. It faces far worse prospects, according to premier chronicler Jack Wertheimer, a historian and former provost at Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS).
Reporters — if American Judaism is in serious trouble, that’s a big story by any definition.
This dire, developing story is a good example of the way scholarship that deserves media coverage can be mostly hidden for an extended period yet remain pertinent and newsworthy. Wertheimer’s “The New American Judaism” (Princeton), published two years ago, only caught The Guy’s eye when boss tmatt noted a review in the current edition of the Orthodox Union magazine Jewish Action. (The Guy has not yet read the book but that lengthy review provides ample substance and quotes.)
Wertheimer sees a “recession” — if not a great depression.
More than 2 million people of Jewish parentage “no longer identify as Jews.” Many others do not see themselves as part of the Jewish religion and define themselves only in cultural or ethnic terms. Rising intermarriage means fewer Jews tomorrow. Birth rates among the non-Orthodox are so low one wonders “who will populate Jewish religious institutions in the future.”
If the religion atrophies, can non-religious communal life thrive? “Will a sense of peoplehood keep the Jewish enterprise afloat?” Consider that “Jewish families without religion don’t stay Jewish for very long.”
The book, based on detailed interviews with 160 rabbis from all camps, culminates Wertheimer’s jeremiads (appropriately Jewish word) in prior writings. Basically he sees the faith in parlous shape except for Orthodoxy. The entirety of Judaism was what we know as Orthodoxy until the modern age. With emancipation, new forms emerged. The two largest are the liberal Reform branch, and Wertheimer’s own Conservative Judaism, which offered a middle path of thinner traditionalism than in the Orthodox branch.
Here we encounter the related question of who is a Jew. The Guy recently addressed the basics of Judaism as a religion. The American Jewish year Book for 2018 counted 6,925,475 U.S. Jews. Then there’s the Pew Research Center’s comprehensive 2013 survey of 3,475 U.S. Jews, which writers on this topic will want to study. Pew counted 4.2 million “Jews by religion” but added 1.1 million secular or cultural Jews without religious identity, and a 7.8 million total having some “Jewish background” of all sorts.
Pew reinforces Wertheimer’s woes. Among religious Jews, 85% had a “strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people,” but only 42% for non-religious Jews, The percentage of U.S. adults who identify with Judaism as a religion has declined by about half since the 1950s heyday so influenced by the Holocaust.
In all, 22% now said they have no religion, with 32% among the “millennial” generation. Only 15% said "being Jewish is mainly a matter of religion” while 62% said it’s “mainly” about ancestry and culture. Before 1970, only 17% of Jews were intermarried. Among the 60% now married to non-Jews, 37% are not raising their children as Jewish at all.
Reporters should try to obtain hard numbers and past trend lines on active membership from Judaism’s branches. But in terms of identification, Pew found U.S. religious Jews break down as 35% Reform, 18% Conservative, 10% Orthodox, 6% “other” and 30% lacking a denominational identity.
Also note dropout rates and birth rates. Pew reported about half of those raised Orthodox no longer identify with that branch, while 28% of those raised Reform have departed from religion altogether. All of the above only skims the realities that try the souls of non-Orthodox strategists. And what about that “demographics are destiny” theme?
Contacts for Jack Wertheimer: jawertheimer@jtsa.edu and 212–678–8869.
OBITS: The Guy worked part-time eight years covering religion for the PBS “NewsHour” and joined legions holding the deepest respect for anchor Jim Lehrer, who brought old-style newspaper canons of non-partisan fairness for all sides into the TV news hurly-burly. Michael Sovern made a little-known news contribution. Though very busy as dean of Columbia University’s law school, he came by after work to vet the pending stories for our Law section at Time magazine.