1) My parents only remained Jewish because they became Orthodox. The rest of the family didn’t. I think the logical conclusion of that story – which reflects statistical reality – is pretty clear to most people (or we could say – more people share my “worldview” than yours. So who’s livin’ in a bubble?).

2) Over 30 years of statistical surveys indicate that the Orthdox are growing – both through natural increase and the BT movement – and are NOT losing half their children to assimilation – not even the study you quoted says that. Again, who’s creating “their own worldview” here?

Previous generations tried various attempts to recast/nosejob/personalize Judaism, or to find Big Secular Ideas that could function as substitute Judaisms.

All those attempts have failed.

Young mods who think their own funkalicious ethical/cultural olio is somehow different from those earlier attempts – that it will somehow have more staying power – have yet to explain why that is so, why their culturally comprised Jewish pastiche will not fade and be irrelevant to their own kids.

The experiments have been run, the results are in. The only Judaism that provides enough beefy content to survive is the Judaism of G-d, Torah, and binding covenant.

The burden of proof lies with the innovators.

So what if the Orthodox have more kids? If more than half leave Orthodoxy as adults, they need to AVERAGE 5 kids per household just to maintain their numbers. So what if they are disproportionately represented in synagogues? Of course they are. But you’re saying their message is the only answer for American Jewry, and I’m saying that not only is that false, it’s not even true for MORE THAN HALF of the born-Orthodox themselves.

More imporantly, you disprove your own theory. You say “non-Orthodox Jews don’t hang around much longer than 2-3 generations.” Then you say that your grandparents were non-Orthodox Jews. So somehow, they got Judaism to you (3rd generation) and you got even deeper into Judaism than they were. I.e., you’re still Jewish, and your kids probably will be too. So it looks like the 4th generation of Jews begotten by your secular grandparents will indeed be Jewish. And your secular relatives of your own generation that married Jews “by accident” (and even some that intermarried, perhaps) will also raise Jewish children. If you didn’t find Orthodoxy, and instead were “just” a Conservative Jew, wouldn’t you still raise your kids Jewish? Probably. So what are you talking about? That’s 4th Generation. I’m at least 5th Generation secular Jew, and my kids are Jews, so that’s 6 generations. And I’m not the exception, I’m THE RULE, at least according to the statistics based here in the real world — from which you seem to so comfortably disengage.

But whatever, I’m done corresponding with you. You create your own worldview, so nothing I say can change that. Goodbye and good luck.

More to the point – you’re rather slippery in your selection of slides!

For example, slide 7 analyzes those American Jews who bother to join a synagogue – a much more solid definition of Jewish affiliation – and comes up with the same breakdown I cited from the 1991 study: the Orthodox make up between 1/4 and 1/3 of AFFILIATED Jews (depending on how affiliation is counted and other survey methodology – is joining a JCC considered “synagogue affiliation”? In some surveys it is).

Yet you pushed the slide with the 10 percent figure – while admitting that it’s the result of an imprecise, subjective statistical fudge.

Take a look, as well, at the slide showing the very large number of people under 18 in Orthodox homes – it would be instructive to compare that to the number of kids in less affiliated homes – but (a) that information is not given, and (b) it begs the unanswerable question: how do you gauge the Jewish affinity of such a child – who is often being raised in a home with just one Jewish parent, with little institutional contact?

I’m glad you are proud to be “still here” – but the evidence is clear, and in my own family as well: non-orthodox Jews don’t hang around much longer than 2-3 generations.

Here’s a little surprise for you – my grandparents were liberal/socialist types, not black-hatted Orthos. The statistics have played out very cleanly in my family – almost all my cousins have intermarried, and those that married Jews did so “by accident” – it wasn’t a matter of principle or (religious/ethnic) identity for them.

This holds true not only for the majority of boomers who did not continue their parents’ Reform temple membership – but also for the Reconstructionists who were deeply invested in their cultural/ethnic Jewish identity.

Without some connection to the core content of Judaism, none of this stemmed assimilation and intermarriage.

The only exception to the rule of assimilation is my parents – who became orthodox – and their children.

Sorry – previous generations have created “ethnically, culturally” Jewish identities based on funkdelic cultural fusion – and these identities did not provide sufficient justification for continued Jewish identity. You may still be here arguing with us – but the landscape is dotted with the smoldering, dying embers of American Jews who have ditched our camp, and moved on.

That is the reality against which this discussion takes place.

I wasn’t being serious. I have visited Canada, and liked Toronto, and though it was a nice city. Vibrant and large, if a bit spread out and sterile. It made me miss New York. I moved back within a few months.

There is a concept called, translitterated, “Lechatchilla” meaning from the begining. Often stated as “in ideal circumstances”
So much of history, especially Jewish, happens because things just didn’t happen in an ideal way. You know the old line,

Shit happens…

Why does shit always happen to us?

That is true due to war, poverty, powerfull social changes…..
I, personnally, look at how things seem to happen and the choices Jews continually make from the aspect of “Kav Zchut” – meaning the point of view of merit in other words: for the benefit of doubt.

I look at a lot of what has happened,at least in my experience that way. Lechchilla, things didn’t go the way they should have in a Jewish sense.
I am not interesed in putting the various “progressive” places and people on trial. There is a really good chance that for once and for all we could all do without those flippen labels….fucking “progressive” “orthodox” and all that bullshit…
That eventually, eventually we will learn to get our act together so we don’t need all that.

The only label I want to see is the one that says Kosher…

To me “unkosher” is not an alternative that is in the “lechatchilla” range of possibilities. You can argue how people may need that. I could say, “kav Zchut” what do you expect?

Many new flavours of Kosher operations provide all kinds of alternatives, especially to the Intermarried, that accomodate whatever level observance presented.

Shabat Shalom,
Have a good there

I am trying to hate less.

No, it was Communism. Communism embraces bloody revolution and an ends justifies the means approach. Additionally, a “dictarship” of the proletariat is already a point of entry for dicatorship generally. In fact, there is no Communism without dictorship, and there is no reason to attempt to separate the two.

And I hardly think I am hair-splitting when demanding that latter 20th century socialist models such as France and Canada (though I wouldn’t wish the latter even on TM) be put in the same category in any way shape as China, Cambodia, or the U.S.S.R. That is just rediculous. (Note: PSL did no such thing, someone else did.)

DK, I would suggest that it wasn’t communism either, but dictatorship hiding behind the label.

“Socialism is dead – after it caused the death of countless innocents.”

Let’s be clear about this — countless innocents dies because of Communism, NOT Socialism. They are, in fact, not the same thing. Not the same thing at all. And it is beneath you to pretend that they are. You know better.

I can see how stats like that are conjured up. The truth is if you go back in history, like 50 years, there wasn’t really a conservative that had a lot of people. Wasn’t that so?
If we look at a lot of our parents generation, for those of us 40 or older, there was mostly orthtodox out of default. Maybe a little reform. After WW2 in this country you can say orthodoxy lost most of its people because of “denomination” switching. It is well known that the suburban life in the US caused many affiliated Jews to lose thier affiliations, especially outside the borsht belt at that time. The new conservative and reform movements could be said to pick up the that slack to a large extent. It is also a question whether that was because the “progressives” offered so much of an alternative or thats all there was. From what I understand, the Jewish world in general took a beating in that war and “orthodoxy” didn’t really recover even in the US. To me, those stats focus in on older people that can say they used to have an “orthodox” background like in cheder or something. There was a vast generation of Jewish boys that went through cheders that were taught by out of touch old teachers that often couldn’t speak english, only yiddish. For girls it was even more extreme I would think.

And if you re-read my comments, I’m not trying to change the way you do Judaism whatsoever. I’m not telling you to “get with the program.” I’m not saying that I’m right and you’re wrong. In fact, you’re the one saying you’re right and I’m wrong. Which is fine and predictable. I’m sure my labor-movement, MLK-loving grandparents that you imagine I have were hearing the exact same things from the black-hatted grandparents that I imagine you have. And yet…I’m still here.

What I’m saying is there’s more than one way to do it. You think that’s a wrong statement. But don’t tie it in with Jewish continuity, because…I’m still here.

And I never said Reform Jews are 90% of the population. I said Orthodox is only 10% of the population. Here’s your stats, and they’re recent too, because you seem to be such a stickler about that:
ujc.org/getfil...
Slide 5 of 23: “Ten percent of American Jews consider themselves to be Orthodox.”

(Now, if you read slide 2 of 23, you’ll begin to understand the methodological mess that is the NJPS, but basically, that 10% is only among the 4.3 million most affiliated Jews, it does not bother to count all 5.2 million individuals in the US who THE NJPS DECIDED were less Jewishly affiliated. If you were to measure the Orthodox among all 5.2 million US Jews, their numbers would be closer to 8%. But hey, I won’t sqabble.)

ALSO, BECAUSE YOU MADE ME GO AND FIND THE NUMBERS, PREPARE TO BE BITCH-SLAPPED, STARTING… NOW: CHECK SLIDE 9 OF 23!!!!! It says:

“Among current Jews who were raised Jewish, identification with Orthodoxy has declined over time.”

587,000 Jews were raised Orthodox and are currently Jewish. Of those, only 240,000 are currently Orthodox!!!! Meaning… (see slide 10 of 23)…

“A MAJORITY OF JEWS WHO WERE RAISED ORTHODOX NO LONGER CONSIDER THEMSELVES TO BE ORTHODOX.”

WOW.

Why was this not front-page news in every Jewish newspaper in the country? Why do we still live under this oppressive myth that the Orthodox are the only ones who know how to do “Jewish continuity”?!

Okay, sure, the born-Orthodox who leave Orthodoxy are still strongly-identifying Jews, but according to everything you’ve been saying, it’s just one more generation until they’re out the door too, right?!

MORE THAN HALF. WOW. That’s even worse than I thought when I wrote my initial comments.

On the bright side, 57,000 Jews who were not born Orthodox now consider themselves Orthodox. That’s nothing to sneeze at. In fact, it is quite a remarkable feat, something to be proud of. But in comparison to all the born-Orthodox who leave Orthodoxy, it puts lie to your statement that it is the only sector of Judaism growing in numbers. In fact, it’s maintaining it’s numbers mainly through high birth rates, because so many more leave than come in.

Ben-David, I need to thank you for making me look up these numbers. They are truly stunning. I can’t believe they haven’t been widely circulated, but I will make sure they will be in the future.

Repeated attempts to do away with halachic structure (“we don’t rub sticks to kindle fire anymore, snicker-snicker”) while preserving some way to “make Shabbat holy” – have all failed. not just at preserving the holiness of the Sabbath – but at preserving any meaningful, motivating reason for staying Jewish.

Without exception.

In the most free, philosemitic period in Western history.

In the most free, philosemitic republics.

On 2 continents (counting the post-WWII communities of South Africa, South America, and Australia, it’s more – but I’m focusing on Europe and North America).

Sorry, Loathaleh -
It’s not 1906, when progressives mouthed similar lines while urging their ortho brethren to get with the socialist program (after all, it preserves the “core values” of Judaism).

Nor is it 1956, when a generation of American Jews used palaver identical to your posts to justify their suburban assimilation, facilitated by the platitudes of Reform Judaism.

It’s 2006.

Every post-Englightenment “substitute Judaism” has failed:

Socialism is dead – after it caused the death of countless innocents.

Liberalism? When our grandparents equated being liberal with “Jewish values”, being a liberal meant standing beside Martin Luther King and all he represented.

Now it means standing beside RuPaul and all s/he represents… to say nothing of the painfully contorted pose left-wing doctrine now forces liberal Jews to assume on the Arab-Israeli conflict, viewing the killers of Jews as “victims”.

Secular Zionism? A caustic mix of classic diaspora self-negation and shell-shock has secular Israel turning in on itself – and lashing out furiously at the Orthodox and the settlers, two groups with a far more solid, grounded Jewish identity (this is exactly paralleled by the venom of many non-Orthodox American Jewish groups towards the Orthodox – a recent example being the protest of secular JEWS against construction of an eruv in their community – AFTER the non-Jewish local government has approved the measure. This sad and bitter story has already played out in several NY suburbs.).

The Rest of Us have already seen several generations of our brethren try to do away with the sense of covenantal obligation, try to translate Judaism into universal values.

And it’s clear that

(a) their motives are not pure – their subsequent actions betray a strong urge to smooth the way OUT of Jewish community and specificity, despite their claims that they wish to “preserve” Judaism and “make it relevant”.

and most important:
(b) all their attempts have failed to maintain even the most basic sense of allegiance among the vast majority of young Jews – the freest, least persecuted Jews ever – who have passed through their institutions (however briefly!)

Loathaleh – I have repeatedly asked you to corroborate your statistical claims. You’ve responded that you can’t put you finger on the exact studies – while spouting ever more incredible pseudo-statistics (no, reform Jews are not 90 percent of North American Jewry…).

History and actual events have overtaken your claims. Yet you – like many other “progressives” still petulantly urge The Rest of Us to get with the program.

The authentic Judaism of the ages is doing just fine – and attracting many Jews thirsty for a Judaism with real content. The Judaism of the binding covenant and Halachic system is the ONLY sector of Judaism that is growing in numbers – around the world, and in Israel – and not least among its swelling numbers are the large number of Jews who’ve despaired of come-as-you-are, let’s-have-a-drum-circle, Moses-votes-Democrat recreations of Judaism in the idolatrous image of other cultures and belief systems.

There is no continuity without content – without a reason for standing apart. The “progressive” attempts to finagle the cultural dichotomy have led in one direction – towards assimilation.

Spare us the dusty tap-dance about “preserving the Sabbath” while violating it. It didn’t work then, and it doesn’t work now.

On the other hand, I’ve seen a Jewish “commitment ceremony” and felt that it was indeed Jewish — though maybe not traditional “Judaism.” But I think we’ve identified our differences sufficiently enough for one blog entry, and I don’t know about you but this page takes an incredibly long time for my browser to load, so I’m hoping we can give up now! ;0

I just want to make it clear that I am not “kicking out” anyone for not personally keeping all 613 mitzvot. What I am saying is that actually advocating a disregard for a Torah mitzvah by accepted and certified clergy members and leaders of the movement and calling that Judaism is problematic.

I understand that this is still not acceptable to you, but it is important that you recognize that this can be perceived as a very different thing by those of us who restrict our intolerance to that which is presented as Judaism as opposed to that which Jews happen or choose to do.

I am, quite frankly, astonished to learn you would not be insulted if someone called you a spic. You’re telling me that if you went to some event with a friend and overheard someone whisper, “look, he brought his spic with him,” you wouldn’t be offended?! Is there any word at all that would insult you? Whatever it is, imagine me calling you and/or your family that, then you’ll have some idea of how I feel. Thanks.