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nrst in a four-part series:
American Jewish Life in 50 years IS There A Demographic Time-Bomb? By Yosef I. Abramowitz
"Rabbi YolTanan said: Since the Temple was destroyed, prophecy has been taken away firom the prophets and given to fools and children." — Talmud For five years on Monday nights, Jewish identity issues were dramatically and amusingly played out on "Northern Exposure," the hit CBS series about a New York Jewish doctor living in small-town Alaska. Was Dr. Joel Fleischman going to live with Maggie (yConnell? If 80, would their home be a Jewish one? How do you define who's part of your community and who can say Kaddish for the dead? . And can importing bagels from New York maintain one's Judaism far fh>m the centers of Jewish life? Fleischman wrestled with these issues, escaped from them and ultimately returned to New York. "Mazal tov," says O'Connell as Joel re-enters the land of his ancestral past, leaving her behind. The tension between the Jewish doctor and his non-Jewish love interest, and their struggle to accommodate his troubled yet unyielding Jewish identity, may hold a due in real life to what Jewish life might look like in 50 years here in the lower forty-ei^t." The decisions we make today, where to allocate money and to what projects, will affect the American Jewish community for generations to come," says Professor Robert Chazan, chair of the department of Hebrew and Judaic studies at New |, York University and chair of the Werner Graduate I Fellowships Committee, which funds graduate ' training for future Jewish leaders. To have the greatest impact, however, we must think not 6 or 10 years down the line, but 26 or 50." A peek at the future, at Rosh Hashapa 5805 (2045 C.E.), is important as the Jewish community today takes stock of 5755 and assesses its priori:tie8. And despite the fact that 'Northern Exposure" -was canceled last season, the prognosis about the Jewish future may not be all bad. But that all depends upon who you ask. "When the United States celebrates its 'Tricentennial in 2076, the American Jewish com'munity is likely to number no more than 944,000 persons, and, conceivably as few as 10,420" Elihu Bergman, the assistant director of the Harvard Center for Population Studies, wrote in Midstream in 1377, unleashing a storm of debate and eventually widespread rebuke. While Jewish sociologists and demographers are split between optimists and pessimists, none of today's pessimists come close to sounding the death-knoU as does Bergman. But even the optimists, like Steven Cohen, a proJissBor at the Melton Center at Hebrew University, predict that in 60 years the 6.6 million strong American Jewish community of 1996 'will be •mailer than it is today." Here are the grim vital statisties: Half of all weddings involving a Jew are to a non-Jew and that number exceeds 2 out of 3 in many "new frontier communities* like Lo« Angeles, Colcuwlo and in smaller Jewish communities, like Ahuka, where there are 3,000 Jews. The Jewish population is increasingly moving Out of high density Jewish cities to places where there are fewer Jews, so the interfaith marriage ireta is likely to climb even higher.
Of the interfaith marriages,' more than two thirds of the children are being raised in another religion or with no religion. "Almost all, over nine in ten by my calculations, of the grandchildren of today's mixed marriages will not identify as Jews," says Cohen. Intensifying this demographic time bomb is the lowest fertility rate in the country of any reUgious group. If there was no interfaith marriage, the community would still be shrinking. Professor Vivian Klaff of the University of Delaware, a moderate in the demographic debates, projects a Jewish population that will shrink about 15 percent to a little over 4 milUon people in 50 years. "Lowered fertility combined with an aging population, and an increasing level of assimilation is likely to lead to a decline in the population," he writes in a forthcoming study of the Jewish famij And in their new book on Jewish life, Jews the New American Scene, Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab predict that "the cohesive body of Jews will not only be a smaller portion of the American population by the middle of the next century, it will be smaller in absolute numbers." Despite the strong negative trends in Jewish life, however, there are optimistic and youthful voiceajvho contradict the conventional wisdom. "There will be 7-8 million Jews in 50 years," says Abby Holland, 18, the immediate past president of the Reform Movement's National Federation of Temple Youth (NFTY). Her optimism is echoed in different degrees by Andrew Ashkenazi, 17, head of the Hadassah-sponsored Young Judaea youth movement; Eitan Gulton, 18, head of the United Synagogue Youth (USY) of the Conservative movement and by Jeffrey Greenberg, 18, head of the National Council for.Synagogue Youth (NCSY), affiliated with the Orthodox Union. The worst case scenario, articulated by Greenberg, is that the community will st^y about its current size. "Maybe the academics and the experts are tired, old, cynical and maybe they have given up on Jewish life, but maybe the 16, 18 or 22 year olds haven't," says Dr. Gary Tobin, director of the Cohen Center of Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. "I would expect that what you hear from the 16 to 18 years olds is radically different from what you hear the 50 and 70 year olds. Why? Because they are the next generation of Jews who aren't going to die. These teens are a cadre of leaders and their ideaUsm and energy will help mold the Jewish community of the future." According to Peter GefTen, the 1963 USY president and current director of the Israel experience program of the CRB foundation, "there is no question that we are sitting on the potential of an enormous demographic crisis that could eat up vast numben of our people within the next 10-16 years. But the flip side is that I believe as a matter of faith that our tradition has transcendent and practical value. Given exposure, it will speak to the hearts and minds of prsaentiy disconnected Jews •• long as we spend the next decade focusing our resources. By the year 3010, if we have not marshaled the human and financial resources to put forward our beet face and the highest quality of what we can difosrn and distill tnm our tradition that speaks to people's real-life needs, then we would have failed." Behind some negative trends in Jewish life.
Egon Mayer the director of the Center for Jewish Studies of the City University of New York and of the Jewish Outreach Institute, sees opportunity. "Effective Jewish outreach can swell the ranks of the Jewish conununity in a very short space of time by providing networks of inclusion for lie 2 million non-Jewish spouses and children of the intermarried that will exist at the beginning of the 21st century. By enabUng non-Jewish family members to participate and join in Jewish communal activities they will ultimately come to identify with the life and culture of the Jewish people, resulting in Jewish inclusion and growth." Applying Dr. Mayer's reasoning to Northern Exposure's Joel Fleischman and Maggie O'Connell, had they married and produced children, they could represent a net gain to the Jewish people if, as a family unit, they adopted Judaism. . Mayor's idea, not accepted as realistic by most experts, may not be far off the mark. In a forthcoming study of real Alaskan Jews, Bernard Beisman and Joel Reisman of the Cohen Center, find that despite low levels of Jewish organizational affiliation and high levels of interfaith marriage, "younger Jews observe Jewish customs and attach more importance to being Jewi^h than do older Jews...Thi8 finding is especially noteworthy since the rates of intermarriage are also statistically associated but in the opposite direction." In other words, even though intermarriage is high, it is positively correlated with Jewish pride and observance. Another surprising finding of the study is that among Alaskan Jews, there is a high frequency "with which the non-Jewish spouse acquiesces to the household being considered as Jewish and that children will be reared as Jews." If we make these patterns the nbrm in the United States within the next 50 yean, then we will defy the prophecies of the demographers and affirm the visions of the youth. But ifs a long shot (Part two, next week) Yosef L Abramowitz, a jounudiat, lecturer and consultant, ia the editor of the fortiieoming Jewish Family 4 life!, a Jewiah parenting and life styles magaxine. He can be reached at JFamilyLO aolxom
Mark the FAST with Food An effort is under way to provide 2,000 bags of food for Omaha area food banks during the high holy days. Rabbi Paul Drazen, president, Nebraska Rabbinical Council, said the council and the rabbis of area synagogues have launched a program called,"Mark the FAST with FOOD." Congregants are being asked to bring a bag of food before Kol Nidre services at Beth El, Beth Israel, B'nai Israel and Tiffereth Israel (Lincoln) Food will be collected at Temple Israel on Yom Kippur. He said that although individual synagogues have been collecting food regularly throughout the year, the coundl dedded that a combined effort would be in keeping with Isaiah 68:6-7 '.^ IhU U tht fiut I dmii^. tt i$ to tluire your brtad uUh th» Huitgry, And to lake the wretched poor Mo your home; when you see the noMod, to clothe him, And not to ignore your oun kUu'