by David Breakstone
When I was growing up in Great Neck, a Long Island suburb of New York long known for its disproportionately large and wealthy Jewish community, Lubavitch was no more than a curiosity, satisfied by a Hebrew school outing to a matza-baking factory in Brooklyn on the eve of Passover.
Today, diagonally across from the Reform temple in which I celebrated my Bar Mitzvah, an imposing Chabad center is being constructed on a prime piece of real estate overlooking the water. Situated on a hill, it will likely soon be overshadowing the congregation of my formative years as well.
Cut to the 2012 Israel Day Parade along New York’s Fifth Avenue. An Israeli colleague who marched in it for the first time shared with me his surprise and dismay that the large majority of participants appeared to represent Orthodox institutions and organizations.
Don’t get me wrong. He wasn’t exactly complaining. He himself is Orthodox and actively engaged in promoting Torah Judaism worldwide, but as a Zionist he was bemoaning the low turnout of non-Orthodox supporters of the Jewish state. I told him that when I was there nearly 50 years ago, so were they. “Where have they disappeared to?” he wanted to know.
A few days later we got the answer. Hard data corroborating the anecdotal evidence.
A survey commissioned by the UJA-Federation of New York concerning the 1.5 million Jews living in the eight counties of New York City, Long Island and Westchester, revealed that 64 percent of the Jewish children in the region, and 32 percent of its entire Jewish population, run the gamut from modern Orthodox (10 percent) to haredi (22 percent). This represents an increase of some 50 percent over a period of 20 years. During the same two decades the number of nondenominational Jewish households more than doubled, rising from 15 percent to 37 percent of those surveyed.
The survey further revealed that Jewish education has intensified among those who identify with one denomination or another, but has declined among those who do not; that the overall intermarriage rate stands at 22 percent, while among the non- Orthodox it has climbed to a new high of 50 percent; and that those who do not label themselves as Orthodox are less involved in things Jewish than they were a decade ago, and that the ways in which they do continue to express their Jewishness tend to be increasingly through association with family or friends rather than with an institution, thereby threatening the infrastructure of the organized Jewish community.
In other words, even if inclined to march in support of Israel, they wouldn’t have had a framework within which to do so.
The bottom line: the more Orthodox and insular the Jewish community, the greater its retention rate. Surprise, surprise.
I’m reminded of the introduction to sociology course I took as a college freshman.
All these years later I still remember the field being dubbed as “the painful elaboration of the obvious.” Less obvious are the conclusions we are to draw from all this.
But before tackling that, let’s shift to Israel. I have no doubt that were a similar study undertaken here, we would also find that the intensity of Jewish education, birth rates, concern with the Jewish future and identification with the Jewish collective all rise in keeping with levels of ritual observance.
While digesting these phenomena together with a Shabbat meal shared with friends, one of them quickly jumped to conclusions. “If we’re genuinely concerned with Jewish continuity, then,” he offered, “we’ve really got no choice but to be investing in Orthodox institutions.” I almost sent him home without dessert.
The real challenge facing those of us who are concerned with Jewish continuity is creating a Judaism that is compelling for those for whom Orthodoxy will never be the answer. On both sides of the ocean.
The growth in the numbers of those alienated from Jewish life altogether is not going to be checked by augmenting support for those who portray authentic Judaism as unchanging and increasingly restrictive, inflexible and exclusive.
Doing so will only add to the sense of disenfranchisement felt by that segment of our population that occupies a shrinking middle ground between an expanding core and a growing periphery. It is they who need concern us. What that calls for in greater New York I will leave to somebody else to suggest. I will only propose what it calls for here in Israel: empowering those who offer authentic alternatives to a calcified Judaism while restraining those who would impose their fossilized rendering of tradition on the rest of us.
We can do both at once if we are but prepared to seize the moment. The time is now, for four reasons: Firstly, there is the Supreme Court ruling that the “Tal Law,” granting yeshiva students exemption from military service, is illegal and must be rescinded. This provides us with the opportunity to declare to the haredi population once and for all that they must shoulder their fair share of the national burden in defending the state or forgo the rewards of living in it – first and foremost the financial benefits that they have heretofore been successful in extorting from Israel’s coffers. (There are currently upwards of 60,000 young men who have not only been excused from serving in the army, but are being paid by the state to study instead!)
Secondly, there is the attorney-general’s determination, based on a High Court opinion, that the state must recognize and fund non-Orthodox rabbis, albeit in severely limited circumstances. This ruling establishes a precedent that must be grasped and utilized in myriad ways to embed the values of pluralism and religious freedom in the public consciousness and the country’s basic laws.
Until that happens, this latest development – as welcome as it is – amounts to little more than a tiny drop in a vast bucket.
At most, it is likely to lead to less than a dozen Reform and Conservative (Masorti) rabbis being employed by the state, compared to the more than 4,000 Orthodox rabbis currently on the public payroll. Still, Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar has vowed to work to reverse “this shameful phenomenon” of recognizing as rabbis those who labor “to uproot the foundations of Judaism.”
Thirdly, there is the public’s expression of outrage during the past few months in regard to the exclusion of women from the public domain and other manifestations of religious extremism, coercion and questionable use of public funds. Thousands of ritual baths, paid for out of the taxpayer’s pocket, are off-limits to any bride-to-be who has not been referred by a state-sanctioned rabbi.
The more than 300,000 émigrés from the FSU who are not halachically Jewish are being denied the possibility of conversion, and the situation is only getting worse. In 2011, only 4,293 recognized conversions were performed in the country, compared to 8,008 four years prior. Furthermore, potential immigrants who converted abroad are being denied recognition as Jews here, despite a Supreme Court ruling requiring the Interior Ministry to accept them as such. The result: the people of Israel are ready to draw the line on this side of sanity as never been before, finally saying no to the creeping encroachment on personal liberties that has been tolerated since the establishment of the state.
And finally, that the government now enjoys the support of 94 of the Knesset’s 120 parliamentarians means that the power of any one of its component parties is diminished while threats to leave the coalition over one piece of legislation or another may be taken less seriously. This is the moment to enshrine in legislation the promises of the Declaration of Independence in regard to religious freedom.
Due to the confluence of these four developments, we are at the cusp of an historical opportunity. We must not squander it. Orthodox hegemony, far from guaranteeing the future of the Jewish people will ultimately lead to its attenuation, hastening as it will the flight of the majority from tradition, and deepening the sense of alienation from the so-called Jewish state on the part of Jews around the world who are increasingly asking themselves if it really belongs to them as well. This is something we can ill-afford – not in Great Neck, not along Fifth Avenue, and not in Jerusalem.
David Breakstone is vice chairman of the World Zionist Organization and a member of the Jewish Agency Executive; the opinions expressed are his own. Published courtesy of the author.
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Wish that at least the second half of this were published – and W I D E L Y distributed – in Hebrew too!
The basic premise of the article is a good one – finding a way to speak to the many Jews (on both sides of the ocean) who, for whatever reason, will not gravitate to Orthodox Judaism.
However, it is unfortunate that in doing so, the writer chose to bring himself down to the level of stereotypical Orthodox-bashing: “unchanging and increasingly restrictive, inflexible and exclusive” “a calcified Judaism” “fossilized rendering of tradition” etc.
While, as with many stereotypes, these characterizations can always be found somewhere in the community, and while there are developments in certain sub-sections of the Orthodox world that many (including many Orthodox Jews) find troubling, the stereotypes the writer employs provide, at best, a gross caricature of Orthodoxy, and one that is certainly unfair and unkind to the many Orthodox Jews who don’t fit into his mold (or who would not characterize what they do in these terms). It certainly doesn’t describe the Orthodox community of which I am a part.
Beyond the errors inherent in generalizations, the real issue is whether the diagnosis is correct. Is the Tal Law really the reason why secular Israelis aren’t streaming into Reform and Conservative synagogues? Or have Reform and Conservative synagogues not yet made their case for relevance to the vast majority of Israeli secular Jews? Is the lack of non-Orthodox Rabbis on the government payroll the real reason that Israeli secular Jews aren’t joining? If that were so, then how to explain the many Orthodox synagogues in Israel (including my own) that are packed despite not having any Rabbi on payroll (I haven’t met a Baal Teshuva yet who became Orthodox because their Rabbi was on the government payroll; most became observant through privately funded organizations), or how to explain the continued contraction of Reform and Conservative Jewry in the U.S. where this issue simply doesn’t exist. How to explain the expansion of places like the Chabad across the street from the Reform temple of the writer’s childhood, that people like me who also grew up Reform ultimately gravitated to.
The issues in some parts of the Orthodox world may well be driving non-Orthodox Jews away from Orthodox Judaism. But if anything, that should make it easier for non-Orthodox streams to gain a foothold – the real question they need to ask themselves is what they need to be doing better to gain that foothold, not making the case that the obstacle is merely the sins of the Orthodox.
David Breakstone exposed.
David Breakstone was for years the spokesperson for the Masorati movement here in Israel which is the name for the Conservative movement in Israel, and I agree with the previous talkback that his article is full of Orthodox bashing.
This is the line where David Breakstone makes the thesis of his article:
“The real challenge facing those of us who are concerned with Jewish continuity is creating a Judaism that is compelling for those for whom Orthodoxy will never be the answer.”
The FACT is that for hundreds of thousands of young Jews who grew up in the Conservative movement, as shown in the recent population study of NY, other recent studies and a paper from Steven M Cohen which I will share below- the Conservative youth chose to opt out of the Conservative movement. Usually going left to leave the scene altogether or to intermarry and possibly join Reform. Thousands who grew up in USY and/or Ramah and liked Judaism moved to modern Orthodoxy.
This might not be news to ephilanthropy readers- that Conservative youth who grew up in the Conservative movement voted with their feet in two directions- to leave Conservatism as it did not appeal to them- AND THEY ARE THE ONES WHO KNEW IT BEST AND GREW UP WITH IT!!!
But now let me provide your readers with some fascinating documentation from one of the leading sociologists of American Jewry Steven M Cohen (who is definitely not Orthodox himself) which your readers might not know. Here are two quotes from a paper which is based on research of getting the response from hundreds of alumni of the Ramah Camps- – these are the “stars and the starlings” of the Conservative movement who gave VERY low rates of score to the services they grew up in. Here are two quotes from the study:
pp 38-39: “Ramah alumni show signs of an alienation from aspects of conventional Jewish life. They more readily express reservations about rabbis, cantors, worship services, congregations, and the Conservative movement. These aspects of alienation are all the more striking given their high levels of Jewish involvement.” and this from page 40 of the same paper: “Some of the most committed Jewish ‘products’ of Camp Ramah dropped out of North American Jewish life by moving over to Orthodoxy or eastward to Israel. As we have seen, those who remained within Conservative Judaism harbor reservations about its leaders, congregations, and services.” The title of the paper is called Camp Ramah and Adult Jewish Identity: Long-Term Influences on Conservative Congregants in North America Steven M. Cohen Melton Centre for Jewish Education you can see the full paper at http://www.bjpa.org
Or click directly to the paper here:
http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=2
Give it up David Breakstone. More Jewish kids who grew up in the Conservative movement left the movement than stayed and of those that didn’t opt out of Judaism became Orthodox. The fact is the Conservative synagogue model doesn’t speak to the younger generation. Our parents who joined the Conservative movement in its heyday 1950s give or take a decade or two- belonged for social reasons- not for its services. Those social needs do not apply to today’s younger Jews. Modern Orthodox Judaism fully integrates into the world and any Jew wanting to live both a full Jewish life and an American or secular life can do so by being Modern Orthodox. You can find successful Modern Orthodox men and women in all of the good professions in the U.S. today.
David Breakstone you wrote:
“The real challenge facing those of us who are concerned with Jewish continuity is creating a Judaism that is compelling for those for whom Orthodoxy will never be the answer.”
Well one can see from the last NY population study and this paper of Steven M Cohen that the Conservative movement certainly doesn’t has the answer of creating a Judaism that speaks to the younger generation. Those who grew up Conservative, including those who were the best kids from Camp Ramah, decided its better to have nothing to do with Judaism or become Modern Orthodox.
For thousands of Conservative young Jews who couldn’t find meaning in being Conservative they found “the answer” in becoming modern Orthodox- including myself.
Those are just the facts.
Now I invite all readers to click on the link to read the study so they will see I was not misquoting or being too selective in what I quoted.
http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/details.cfm?PublicationID=2
The Conservative movement has been such a failure in the U.S. is probably why this is the first article I have seen written by David Breakstone where he didn’t fully identify himself with the Conservative/Masoriti movement which he has been the spokesperson for in Israel for many years.
This interesting article fails to mention a few very simple facts that seem to be ignored by many. Israelis are not running to join either conservative or reform congregations. Those who do are mainly North Americans etc. Why don’t they join? They have told me that they chose not to be observant while at the same time believing that you cannot change Jewish Law. Halacha is halacha and therefore, they chose not to observe but not to change it.
Also, there are many in Israel including some of those referred to as ‘pop stars’ who have also not done the army. We have children of some of our past Knesset members who have left Israel so that they don’t do the army either.
In all honesty, does the IDF really want to have observant soldiers? My experience as an army volunteer has told me otherwise.
Without leadership that accepts that Israel is a Jewish country for Jewish people and not just an escape route to be used who are unhappy at home, nothing will change. It’s time to look to the future as well as the past and decide what we want to be. Growing numbers of young people are leaving Jewish life even after coming on Birthright.
It’s time to become a Torah country and a Torah people with all the challenges that involves. Time that this column stopped bashing Observant Jewry.