I'm a big fan of Hillel Halkin. Read his latest in the New York Sun on Jewish population trends in the US.
I'm one of those almost extinct ethnic Jews Halkin refers to. There are still a few of us left. If Halkin lived in the States, he'd be one too. Ethnic Jews can also be called 'Second Avenue Deli Jews', after the famous (and recently closed) Kosher deli on the Lower East Side that was open on Sabbaths but not on Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur or Passover.
Did I say I've always been a big admirer of Halkin's? I am. if (but not) only for his prodigious and varied output, beginning with 'Letters to an American Jewish Friend' written three decades ago, and through his ongoing flood of articles in Commentary, the Forward, as well as the Sun.
Even in the relatively insular and Jewish Lower East Side, I witness catastrophic assimilation at work. in the eighties, the rate of assimilation was said to be 50%. Well, its much steeper than that in the shtetl which is my hood. Any Jew who hasn't (in some combination) gone to an Orthodox Jewish school, been to Israel and/or isn't kosher at home, almost always (no hyperbole) intermarries. An informal playground count indicates that even in our oh-so very Jewish neighborhood, and excluding the orthodox, intermarriage is running at about, oh, 90%.
Some readers may wonder why NYapikores would care. Well, the only thing keeping us Ethnic Jews from extinction are...Orthodox Jews.
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9 comments:
I like your blog, keep it going... Judaism will have to become more demanding and interesting in order to keep young Jews involved and to compete with undifferentiated American consumer culture. That's a good thing. If, like Reform Judaism, the religion offers no value, provides no meaning or insight into life, and makes no demands on the individual, then why should anyone bother? Who wants to go to synagogue and listen to a bunch of vague, meaningless BS when you could stay home? Reform was an understandable reaction to the irrational restrictions of the old religious life, but it became so generalized as to be empty. Reform Jews are the ones who are completely assimilating. Make Judaism more compelling (ie, by going back to meaningful traditions) and people will stay.
Given your(non)beliefs, would you approve of your child marrying a non-Jew?
dear anonymous,
thanks for your support. i hope you keep returning. its such a tough battle, keeping the unaffiliated involved. the reason i go to shul, is not to listen the amiable rav's shabbes homilies which say little to me. its for company of my buddies, for my little boy and daughter (that latter attends a coed yeshiva).
what would you conisder meaningful and worth retaining?
MK,
I'm agnostic. but a nationalist jew. its the tribe i was born into. im attached to my people. i dont belive in miracles, yet weve survived 3000 years, as the refugees of history. i want to keep the chain alive. and the fact that i dont believe has nothing to do with my sheer fascination with sefer hasfarim. and admiration for our forefathers and mothers.
i want to keep the chain alive.
That sounds great in theory. But the statistics indicate you'll face an uphill climb. If you raise your children in secular culture, they'll meet many non-Jews... and there is a very good chance they will fall in love with one. Is it likely (and is it moral) you could talk them out of marrying a person they love simply to "keep the chain alive"?
So the only thing that will save Judaism is ignorance and untruth? In that case who needs it.
LT,
it is a problem. there are so so many enticing shikses in college. but short of living in israel or living in a cloistered frum environment, its very tough. so, given that im not interested in a frum lifestyle yet am keen to keep that chain connected, ive tried to find the essence, (tamtzis) of what could keep the ethnic jew (which was very common up until the sixties) a yid. kosher home, modern ortho yeshiva (with ivrit b'ivrit)and tight attachment to israel seems like a workable if somewhat rickety solution. true, theyll meet nice goyim in college but the psychic undergirding would have been set. ive seen it work many times. and with me too.
if all else fails, i'll pay the guy/chick to go away.
anonymous, isnt it pathetic? that by the late 21 century the only sizable population of jews in the US would have been sustained by a myth? but then again, the only reason you and I are talking is because our forefathers have been perpetuating this myth for 25 centuries. for or better worse. when my father stopped believing he thought it was all or nothing. so he left the fold (big yeshivish family in bklyn) and decided he would essentially live a non jew. but them the pinteleh yid re emerged somehow years later.
I just don't see keeping a myth alive as a good thing to dedicate your life to. In fact, I think the opposite is a more respectable goal.
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