The Conservative Movement in Judaism: Dilemmas and Opportunities

Chapter 5: Demographics

91 Chapter 5 Demographics CONCENTRIC CIRCLES OF JEWISHNESS1 The essentially individualistic character of American society requires that Jews relate to Jewish institutions as individuals. Affiliation in American society is voluntary, in the fullest sense of the word. The patterns of participation in American Jewish life reflect this combination of individualism and voluntarism. In a free society, the Jewish community cannot live within fixed boundaries confining all (or virtually all) of those born Jews and perforce encouraging them to organize to meet their communal needs. Increasingly, American Jews, if they profess any Jewish commitment at all, feel that they are Jews by choice rather than simply by birth. The organic tie continues to undergird the fact of choice, but birth alone is no longer sufficient to keep Jews within the fold. No one is more conscious of this than Jews themselves. As a result, the Jewish community has been transformed into what can be described as a series of uneven concentric circles, radiating outward from a hard core of committed Jews toward areas of vague Jewishness on the fringes (see Figure 5.1). FIGURE 5.1 Key: 1. Integral Jews (living according to a Jewish rhythm) 2. Participants (involved in Jewish life on a regular basis) 3. Affiliated Jews (affiliated with Jewish institutions in some concrete way) 4. Contributors and Consumers (giving money and/or utilizing the services of Jewish institutions from time to time) 5. Peripherals (recognizably Jewish in some way but completely uninvolved in Jewish life) 6. Repudiators (seeking to deny or repudiate their Jewishness) 7. Quasi-Jews (Jewish status unclear as a result of intermarriage or assimilation in some other form) Source: Community and Polity, D.J. Elazar, Philadelphia, 1995. p. 92 Figures are approximate; see text for full discussion. Demographics 93 The hard core of the American Jewish community—one might label them Integral Jews—consists of those whose Jewishness is a fulltime concern, the central factor of their lives, whether expressed in traditionally religious terms or through some variety of ethnic nationalism or an intensive involvement in Jewish affairs. For them, each day is lived by a substantially Jewish rhythm. They and their families tend to be closely linked to one another through shared Jewish interests and feelings and tend to associate with others of similar concern. Their Jewishness is an intergenerational affair. In short, they live, in one way or another, fully Jewish lives. Perhaps 8 percent of the Jewish population of the United States falls into this category (500,000 to 600,000 Jews). Surrounding this hard core is a second group—the Participants— consisting of Jews who take part in Jewish life on a regular basis and are considered much more than casually active in Jewish affairs, but to whom living Jewishly is not a full-time matter and whose rhythm of life is essentially that of the larger society. It might be said that, for them, Jewishness is a major avocational interest. They are likely to be officers of Jewish organizations, regular participants in adult Jewisheducation programs of various kinds, active fund raisers for Israel, and even regular synagogue attenders. Many members of the “Jewish civil service”—professionals employed by the various Jewish agencies—fall into this category; they spend their days working in a Jewish capacity, but their nonprofessional lives are not integrally Jewish. Ten percent (600,000) is a fair estimate of the percentage of such Jews in the United States today. Surrounding the participants is a third group—the Affiliated Jews—which consists of those who are affiliated with Jewish institutions or organizations in some concrete way but who are not particularly active in them. This category includes synagogue members whose affiliation does not involve them much beyond the use of synagogue facilities for the Jewish rites of passage or for High Holy Day services, and members of some of the mass-based Jewish organizations, such as Hadassah and B’nai B’rith, or any of the other charitable groups that are identifiably Jewish and whose membership reflects primarily private social interests rather than concern for the public purposes of Jewish life. This is a fairly large category, because it includes all of those who instinctively recognize the need for some kind of associational commitment of Jewish life, even if it is only for the sake of maintaining a proper front before the non-Jewish community. One might estimate that it includes approximately 30 percent (around 1...