In his four-part Daily Kavanah, sent to the Stephen Wise Temple congregation from April 25-28, 2022 Rabbi Ron Stern examines the recently-released Pew Research Center’s survey of American Jews. Download the survey’s full PDF report here.

April 25: American Jews are “culturally engaged, increasingly diverse, politically polarized …”

In 2020, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of America’s Jewish community. The results were recently made public. As committed Jews, this study’s findings should be of interest to our entire community.

The summary of the survey’s findings read, in part: “U.S. Jews are culturally engaged, increasingly diverse, politically polarized and worried about antisemitism.” 

We who dedicate our lives to the Jewish community contemplate these regular Pew reports each time they appear. We take the results into account as we plan our programs, grow our styles of leadership, and even design the very structure of the temple. 

Over the next few days, I will share some of the more intriguing statistics from from this report, and ask you the same questions which we Jewish professionals ask ourselves, because the Pew data is not just relevant for clergy, educators, and Jewish administrators; it should warrant the attention and response from all those who care about the Jewish future.  

Today’s topic: How do we identify ourselves?

The study’s more granular statistical breakdown can be found here, but these are the figures germane to today’s topic:

  • 73% identify themselves as Jews by religion (the others identify as cultural Jews)
    • For younger Jews (18-29) the split is 60/40 (religious vs. cultural)
  • 37% are Reform, 17% are Conservative, 9% are Orthodox
    • 32% don’t identify with any branch
      • For young Jews, it’s closer to 30/10/15, with 41% not identifying with any branch
  • 72% of recently-married, non-Orthodox Jews are intermarried, and they are much less likely to raise their children as Jews (67%) compared to Jews who marry other Jews (96%).

Here’s the real thought provoker: 65% of Jews say it’s more important for their grandchildren to share their political convictions than their spiritual identity. Wow! That does not bode well for the Jewish future.

At Wise, your educators, senior administrators and clergy are acutely aware of these trends in the Jewish community. We are committed to creating a vibrant, thriving Jewish future and are constantly developing programs and paths to Jewish engagement that seek to leverage these trends into strengths.

So, here’s your kavanah for today: If you believe that Jewish identity is something worth preserving, what are you doingright nowto ensure that the succeeding generations embrace Judaism as deeply as you do? 

April 26: The inevitable outcome of modernity?

Several years ago, during the High Holy Days, I presented a sermon that imagined the experiences of individual Jews across three different eras of history. I characterized the way each of those Jews understood religion, God, and the Bible. 

I began with the pre-modern Jew, who believed that God managed all human affairs, created the world in six days, and managed the changing seasons. Next, it was a Jew on the cusp of the Enlightenment whoonce educatedhad their traditional notions challenged by evolutionary science. Finally, I described the beliefs of the modern, educated Jew who challenged the divine authorship of the Bible, questioned traditional ideas of God, and sought to change the religion to suit their purposes. I suggested that Judaism had to change in order to meet the future. I heard from many of you. Mostly, I heard words of gratitude for articulating what they were feeling, but I also heard from some who were troubled by my challenge. 

Become a member at Wise buttonEnter: the recent Pew Report, which tells us that, of all Americans, it is Jews who are least likely to attend religious services on a weekly basis and believe in the God of the Bible. In fact, we are half as likely as our fellow Americans to hold certain ideas about religionbelieving that religion is important at all, attending services, and believing in a higher power or spiritual force. Find the report here (see page 22).

Rather than lament that which appears to be the inevitable outcome of modernity, I’d like to suggest that we have an opportunity. Jewishness, as an identity, is undeniably meaningful to most American Jews (73%). Yet, many of those Jews are ambivalent about some of the core ideas of traditional religion. At Wise, our clergy and educators realize that we must provide meaningful Jewish experiences to our membership every day. We literally stay up nights developing strategies to meet the changing needs of our community.

So, here’s your kavanah for today: What is compelling to you about your Jewish identity? When you truly listen to the next generation, what is compelling to them about their Jewishness, and how can we all work together to craft a path to Jewishness that brings meaning to their lives?

April 27: Younger American Jews are “less emotionally attached to Israel …”

Jews dreamed of establishing a Jewish nation in the land of Israel from the moment the Romans destroyed the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and dispersed our community in the first and second centuries C.E. They often invoked the far more ancient words of the Israelite prophets first penned in the sixth century B.C.E. to express both the pain of exile and the hope for a return to the land.

With the advent of modern Zionism in the 19th century, there arose dissention among the ranks. Some ultra-Orthodox Jews insisted that the nation could not be re-established until the Messiah arrived. Many religiously-liberal American Jews insisted that America was the new Promised Land.  Certainly, from the 1967 Six Day War until only a decade or so ago, the vast majority of the world’s Jews supported the vision of a Jewish national homeland and truly embraced the vision of Israel. However, according to the Pew Research report, the trend for America’s Jews is that the younger they are, the less connected they feel to Israel (see page 36 here).

In the words of the report:  “More broadly, young U.S. Jews are less emotionally attached to Israel than older ones.” That is a result of a host of complicated factors that are beyond the scope of this brief piece. However, the question to contemplate today is: Given that we are a generation that has been blessed with the fulfillment of the 2,000-year-old dream of a national homeland for the Jewish people to call our own—a truly miraculous occurrence—I believe that it’s incumbent upon us to teach our children both about the magnitude of this great gift and also the investment that Jews everywhere have in Israel’s future.  Again, this is something that we dedicate ourselves to every day at Wise. (Join us for a three-part series beginning on May 12 and continuing in the fall addressing this very issue: How do we talk about Israel? Register here.)

Your kavanah for the day: What can you do—and what will you do—to strengthen the emotional and spiritual connection between the younger generations in your family and our homeland?

April 28: “We experienced absolute hate, so we respond with love …”

When I was growing up in Morristown, N.J., all Jews were straight and Ashkenazi … at least that’s what I thought. If an Asian or Black person entered our synagogue, we “knew” (incorrectly, of course) they weren’t Jewish. And in all honesty, I didn’t know any openly gay people and certainly didn’t understand the many challenges LGBTQ+ persons confronted in those days. Of course, now I know differently, and the Pew Report affirms that awareness.

According to the survey, nearly 10% of U.S. Jews say that they are gay, lesbian, or bisexual; among Jews 18-29, 15% identify as something other than White;  17% of American  Jews live in a household with someone who is Black, Hispanic, Asian, or another non-White ethnicity; 4% of Jews under 49 identify as Black, 13% are Hispanic, and 1% are Asian. Of course, there are gay Asian Jews, gay Black Jews and so on (see page 37 of the Pew report here).

How different our kids are from those of us who came of age in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s! Our kids, from a surprisingly young age, have had gay friends and are aware of gay family members. As adults, they have gay partners. They know Jews of all ethnicities, and many of their Jewish friends have at least one parent who may not even be Jewish, yet they live Jewish lives. Our awareness of who is a Jew today has become far more richly variable than it was in decades past. That is why Wise is so deeply engaged in building a more inclusive community, and I am happy to be personally involved with a thoughtful cohort of our members who are helping to guide the process.

Today is Yom HaShoah, our communal commemoration of the Nazi Holocaust. This day commemorates the absolute “othering” of the Jewish people, the Gay and Lesbian communities, and all those who were perceived to diverge from the perverse Nazi view of humanity. As a people who experienced the worst genocide in human history, it is incumbent upon us to fashion a radically inclusive view of humanity even as we do all we can for our uniquely Jewish identity to flourish.

We experienced absolute hate, so we respond with love. We experienced murderous dehumanization, so we respond with the assertion of essential human dignity. We experienced the nearly overwhelming attempt to suppress our hope, so from our place of triumph, we embrace the deepest hopes of others; by turning outward and inward we ultimately strengthen ourselves.

My question for you today: Given the increasing diversity of our Jewish community, what can we do to ensure that all who identify as Jews (or seekers of Jewish identity) feel that our doors are open to them and once they step inside they feel a true sense of belonging?