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South African Jewish Population Study RELIGION and RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE

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South African Jewish Population Study RELIGION and RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE South African Jewish Population Study Sponsored by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies Advance Report No. 11 RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE i b Division of Jewish Demography and Statistics The Institute of Contemporary Jewry The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1978 This is one of a series of Advance Reports on the findings of the South African Jewish Population Study sponsored by the S.A. Jewish Board of Deputies. These concise reports, intended for preliminary circulation among interested researchers and Jewish communal leaders, aim to promote further discussion and research on the topics presented, and should only be regarded as part of a more comprehensive study which is in the process of preparation. Already Issued: No. 1. Methodology of the Study No. 2. Emigration No. 3. Demographic Characteristics No. 4. Country of Birth and Period of Immigration No. 5. Mortality No. 6. Educational Attainment and Languages No. 7. First Data on Fertility No. 9. Geographical Distribution and Mobility No. 10. Occupational Characteristics No. 11. Religion and Religious Observance No. 12. Jewish Community Activities No. 13. Marriage and Mixed Marriage Forthcoming Reports: No. 8. Jewish Fertility: A Cohort Analysis No. 14. Jewish Population Size: Retrospect and Perspectives SOUTH AFRICAN JEWISH POPULATION STUDY Sponsored by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies Advance Report No. 11 RELIGION AND RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCE by S. Delia Pergola and D. Tal Contents Page 1. Religious Composition of the Population 1 2. Conversion to Judaism 3 3. Characteristics of Non-Jews in Jewish Households 5 4. Synagogue Affiliation 7 5. Religious Observance 8 a. Synagogue Attendance 8 b. Household Rituals 10 Division of Jewish Demography and Statistics The Institute of Contemporary Jewry The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1978 RELIGION AND RELIGfOUS OBSERVANCE 1. Religious Composition of the Population According to the 1970 census, the Jews, with a population of 118,200 (3.1%) constituted the seventh largest religious denomination in South Africa. They were preceded by the relatively largest Nederduits Gereformeerde Church (40.1%), by the Anglicans (10.7%), the Methodists (9.6%), the Roman Catholics (8.2%), the Nederduitsch Hervormde (6.0%), and the Presbyterians (3.2%). In the previous 1960 census the Jews were the sixth largest religious group in the country. Such a loss of one position is explained by the fact that the inter- censal growth rate of the Jews (3%) was the lowest of any major South African religious group, and compared with an average increase of 22.6% in the total number of Whites between 1960 and 1970 (see Table 1). Table 1. White Population of South Africas by Religious Denominations, 1960, 1970 % change Religious denomination 1960 1970 1960-1970 N. 3,077,699 3,773,282 Total 100.0 100.0 22.6 Nederduits Gereformeerde 43.0 40.1 14.2 Gereformerde 3.2 2.9 11.0 Nederduitsch Hervormde 6.2 6.0 17.4 Anglican 12.5 10.7 5.1 Methodist 8.7 9.6 35.4 Presbyterian 3.6 3.2 6.8 Congregational 0.5 0.6 38.0 Lutheran 1.1 1.1 23.2 Roman Catholic 6.2 8.2 61.0 Apostolic Faith Mission 2.0 1.9 20.1 Other Apostolic 1.5 2.2 77.6 Baptist 1.1 1.2 36.8 Full Gospel 0.7 0.9 61.5 Greek Church 0.4 0.7 124.7 Seventh Day Adventist 0.4 0.4 27.9 Other Christian Churches 3.1 4.2 68.2 Jewish, Hebrew 3.7 3.1 3.0 Other 0.1 0.3 330.4 Object to state and no religion 1.2 1.8 88.6 Unknown 0.8 0.9 45.4 Source: South Africa (1970) Statistics describing the religious exposition of South African Whites are fairly accurate, since only 2.7% of the population objected to stating its religious affiliation, reported no religion, or failed to answer the question in 1970 (as against 2.0% in I960). It is there- fore unlikely that a large number of Jews hid in this residual category, though this may have been the case for a few individuals. The 1974 survey aimed at questioning the Jewish population as thoroughly as possible although its sampling design included a bias to- wards the more identified sections of the community CD. Only households with at least one Jewish member were taken into consideration, so that most households including persons converted from Judaism could not be included in the survey. However, because of the ongoing process of assimilation - and especially because of mixed marriagesC2) - there are some non-Jewish members in Jewish households. We shall refer to the aggregate total of Jews and their non-Jewish household members as the "enlarged Jewish population". We shall refrain here from entering into a detailed discussion of the various methodological problems involved in the definition of "Who is a Jew?" (Herskovits, 1960; Glazer and Moynihan, 1963). We shall only note that in the 1974 survey, as well as in official censuses, some room was left for self-definition : people claiming to be Jews were recorded as such, without checking if they actually were according to Jewish traditional criteria (Halakha). Moreover, people with unknown or no religion, but born of a Jewish mother, were considered as Jewish for the purposes of the survey. Table 2 shows that the proportion of non-Jews in Jewish house- holds was very small indeed (1.3%). When we refer, however, to the children of heads of households, either living with their parents or not, the percentage of non-Jews was twice as high (2.6%), which is explained, at least partially, by intergenerational patterns of assimilation. The detailed breakdown of religious denominations of non-Jews in Jewish households, and of non-Jewish children of heads of Jewish households, is considerably different from the basic denominational structure of the South African White population. The incidence of members of different branches of the Dutch Reformed Church is very small, in comparison with that of Anglo-Saxon patterned Christian denominations, and of a relatively large group of persons with "other and no religion". This confirms the known trend of the Jews to identify linguistically, culturally and socially, and to intermingle with the British, rather than with the Boer sections of the South African population. (1) See: Advance Report No. 1, Methodology of the Study, p.3, in this series. C2) See: Advance Report No. 13, Marriage and Mixed Marriage, in this series. 2 Table 2. Enlarged Jewish Population, by Religion and Generational Status, 1974 ׳« Population in Jewish Children of heads of Religion households households N. 99,045 28,078 Total 100.0 100.0 Jewish 98.7 97.4 Other, total 1.3 100.0 2.6 100.0 Catholic 0.2 13.0 0.4 15.2 Dutch Reformed 0.0 0.2 0.1 5.2 Christian Jews 0.0 0.2 0.1 2.1 Anglican 0.3 26T 1 0.2 6.1 Other Christian 0.3 22.6 Moslem 0.2 9.7 37.9 כ1y 0u. 5 Other, no religion 1.6 61.7 2. Conversion to Judaism On the whole, religious conversion appears to play a minor role with regard to the Jewish community of South Africa. Research referring to the 1960's, reported by Dubb (1973), clearly showed that few Jews were actually approached by missionaries and even fewer sought conver- sion to Christianity on their own initiative. It is much harder to assess the quantitative impact of the purely secular process of dis- sociating socially from Jews, abandoning any vestige of Jewish culture, and denying totally the relevance of one's Jewish origin. Both may be associated with intermarriage - either as a consequence of alienation or as one of its causes. On the other hand, the growing impact of intermarriage is un- doubtedly related to a recent increase in the number of converts to Judaism. Though no real statistical comparison could be made, one receives the impression that the conversions balance related to family formation may well lead more people into the fold of Judaism than it takes away from it. The general impact of this process, however, is still quantitatively marginal in the framework of South African Jewry. In 1974, 1.1% of the enlarged Jewish population had converted to Judaism during their life- time (see Table 3), while 97.6% were bom Jewish, and 1.3% were not Jew- ish. In other words, about 44% of non-Jewish-born members of the en- larged Jewish population had been converted to Judaism, and about 56% had maintained their original religious affiliation. This balance holds true within most socio-demographic sub-groups in the enlarged Jewish population. 3 Table 3. Converted Members of Jewish Households, Aged 15 and Over, by Selected Characteristics, 1974 Converted Jews % Converted Jews Characteristics % enlarged Jew- % non-Jewish distribution ish population born Total 1.1 43.9 Sex 100.0 Male 19.1 0.5 38.2 Female 80.9 1.5 45.6 Age 100.0 15-29 31.2 0.9 41.7 30-44 38.3 1.6 58.2 45-64 30.5 0.9 40.2 65+ 0.0 0.0 0.0 Town of residence 100.0 Johannesburg 23.4 0.4 47.2 Capetown 49.7 1.7 48.6 Durban 14.4 2.0 43.5 Pretoria 5.3 1.1 61.0 Port Elizabeth 4.2 1.6 71.8 Bloemfontein 3.0 2.3 62.5 There were four times more females than males among converts to Judaism, in connection with more frequent male exogamy. Most converts were young adults, the largest age-group being between 30 and 44.
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