Is American non-Orthodox Jewry coming to an end?
Since the publication, a few years ago, of a highly reliable Pew study of Jews in America, there has been minimal discussion of the problem facing non-Orthodox American Jewry as defined by the Pew study.
The Pew research shows that close to half of all Conservative and Reform Jews married a non-Jew and had children that were not raised with any Jewish schooling. An apparent demographic collapse is on the horizon for these groups.
This would suggest that Jewry in America is going to become only Orthodox. The number of Jews in America has not been growing in the past 40-50 years except for growth in the Orthodox communities. The Conservative movement has seen an actual decline in numbers while the Reform movement maintains its status only by accepting intermarriage.
I would like to add my own personal observations.
I do not consider a large portion of the Conservative and Reform Jews in America to be Jews. Regardless of whether the mother or any parent was a Jew a disproportionate number of this group are hard-core Democrats and support Obama and other Jew haters. These Democrat Jews are perpetually indifferent to Israel. To me, they can not be considered Jews. If you are willing to see Jews die, because your Lefty ideology trumps all else, you aren't a Jew.
By simply defining a Jew as:
- anyone who declares himself a Jew,
- is willing to suffer the consequences of being a Jew,
- who learns about Jewish history
- knows some core Hebrew prayers and
- is primarily a supporter of Israel
is a Jew.
With my definition we will start out with 4 to 5,000,000 American Jews instead of 7 to 8,000,000. In my opinion these will be genuine Jews.
It would be my hope that these people observe the Sabbath, light candles on Friday night, and observe the major holidays. To me this would make the American newly defined Jew comparable to the bulk of the Jews in Israel.
It will make for a consistent and homogeneous definition of who is a Jew.