American Judaism is in decline. That’s great news for the Jews

Synagogues closing, rising intermarriage: that's one way to tell the story of today's American Diaspora. But there's another way to see the data, write two optimistic rabbis

We stand now before the falling stones of American Judaism. So many of the structures, boundaries, and even purposes that gave American Jews definition and texture now face seismic upheavals. Rapidly declining religious participation, rising rates of intermarriage, deepening division surrounding American and Israeli politics, declining participation in Jewish philanthropy all tell the story of decline.

If all this comes to pass, the American Diaspora may be better off.

Our ancestors came to these shores, largely from hostile countries in Europe. Their successors now embody the diversity that helped America thrive, holding fast to Jewish values that encourage goodness and well-being.

In 2020, the Pew Forum released another major study of our Diaspora. It showed a growing Jewish population, now representing nearly 2.4 percent of the American population (up from 2.2 percent seven years prior) – perhaps owing to methodological differences, or perhaps due to an actual growth in the self-identified population of over half a million people.

Nearly half of American Jews have been to Israel, in good part because of the Birthright Israel initiative. Almost 20 percent of American Jews have participated in activities with Chabad, the ultra-orthodox outreach group, even as a significant overall majority favour clergy officiating at interfaith and same-sex marriage ceremonies.

The data might feel contradictory in places, but it unearths a key phenomenon: the definition of what it means to be Jewish is changing before our eyes.

A remarkable opportunity now presents itself.

What would happen if the community focused less on a self-defeating narrative of assimilation and more on engaging the 1.4 million people with Jewish affinity and 2.8 million with Jewish ancestry?

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American Judaism Is in Decline. That's Great News for American Jews (Haaretz)

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