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A Primer on the American Jewish Community CRC RAC ORT JESNA NCJW CAJE JLC PEJE AZM NCSJ RZA AJWS Jerome A USCJ UOJCA AIPAC URJ AJC JRF JDC USY JCPA NCSY UJC NFTY JCCA JTS A PRIMER ON THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY CRC RAC ORT JESNA NCJW CAJE JLC PEJE AZM NCSJ RZA AJWS JEROME A. CHANES ARZA COEJL ZOA JOFA WJC YIVO CLAL AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE A PRIMER ON THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY Third Edition The mission of American Jewish Committee is: — To safeguard the welfare and security of Jews in the United States, in Israel, and throughout the world; — To strengthen the basic principles of pluralism around the world as the best defense against anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry; — To enhance the quality of American Jewish life by helping to ensure Jewish continuity, and; —To deepen ties between American and Israeli Jews. JEROME A. CHANES To learn more about our mission, programs, and publications, and to join and contribute to our efforts, please visit us at www.ajc.org or contact us by phone at 212-751-4000 or by e-mail at [email protected]. Table of Contents Jerome A. Chanes is the author of A Dark Side of Preface v History: Antisemitism through the Ages (New York: Anti-Defamation League, 2000) and Antisemitism: A Primer on A Reference Handbook (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, the American Jewish Community 2004), and editor of A Portrait of the American Jewish Community (Westport: Greenwood/Praeger, 1998) Historical Background and Antisemitism in America Today: Exploding the and General Overview 1 Myths (New York: Carol/Birch Lane Press, 1995). He has taught at Barnard College and at Yeshiva, Religious Movements 6 Harvard, and Oxford Universities, and is a facul- ty scholar at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Jewish Federations Studies of Brandeis University. and Social Service Organizations 14 Politics, Defense, and Diplomacy 17 Educational and Cultural Organizations 25 The Agenda of the Jewish Community 29 Bibliography 41 Periodicals of Jewish Interest (An Annotated Selection) 43 Copyright © 2008 American Jewish Committee All Rights Reserved. Appendix of Jewish Communal June 2008 Organizations 44 iii iv A Primer on the American Jewish Community iv Preface In 2004-05, American Jewry celebrated the 350th anniversary of its first settlement in North America. The celebration provided the occasion for careful assessment of the meaning of the American Jew- ish experience and evaluation of the community’s current role in Jewish history. Clearly the uniqueness of the American Jewish experience needs to be underscored. No society in Diaspora Jewish history has been as welcoming of Jewish participation as has the United States. Over the past six postwar decades, the phenomenon of anti-Semitism, although by no means completely disappearing, has been relegated to the margins of American society. The eight years of the Clinton administration, in particular, signaled the collapse of whatever bar- riers may have remained to Jewish participation. The administration did not keep track of how many Jews it employed and really did not give it any significance. Beyond the citadels of government, uni- versity campuses embodied openness to Jewish participation. Jews represented less than 2 percent of the total population, but 5 per- cent of university students, 10 percent of university faculties, and as much as 20 percent of elite university faculties. Several Ivy League campuses, in fact, reported Jewish populations of 25 percent to 30 percent, and several employed Jewish presidents. In such an open society, Jews have prospered as Americans. Their economic and educational attainments in many ways have made them the envy of other religious and ethnic groupings. Ironi- cally, being a Jew constituted an enviable status in America, rath- er than a position to be avoided or hidden. Gone were the days of entertainment celebrities changing their surnames to hide Jewish origins. If anything, so well integrated were Jews in America that distinctive Jewish names no longer constituted evidence of personal Jewish status. Judaism and Jewish culture also benefited from the encounter with America. By 2004, America could boast a tradition of academic Judaic scholarship virtually unmatched in Jewish history. Hardly a university of note lacked an impressive program of Jewish studies, suggesting the arrival of Jewish civilization within elite American v vi A Primer on the American Jewish Community culture. Jews, in fact, had more opportunities to educate themselves Historical Background and General Overview Jewishly than ever before. By the twenty-first century, over 200,000 Jewish students were attending Jewish day schools—a number sev- Who Are We? eral times greater than the number during the 1950s baby boom. Perhaps most surprisingly, Orthodox Judaism, once considered Who are American Jews? This seemingly simple question has bedev- moribund in America, was experiencing a renaissance. Orthodox iled generations of historians, sociologists, psychologists, rabbis, and successes in securing Jewish continuity have reversed its image from just plain folks. This publication explores the number of American one of nostalgia for a dying past to one of hope in a vibrant Jew- Jews and what those numbers mean; reviews the history to explain ish future. The determination of Orthodox leadership to rebuild on how and why we came to be what we are; examines American polit- American shores after the Holocaust constituted an inspiring exam- ical and cultural pluralism to understand how American Jews are ple of Jews refusing to surrender to the status quo and formulating organized; and, finally, surveys theagenda of American Jews—which instead an alternative vision of Jewish renewal in the United States. issues are important to us, what we are involved in, and why. These images of American Jewish life, to be sure, were hardly free of forebodings. The birthrate for American Jews was well below How Many? replacement level, connoting a decreased number of Jews in the fair- There has never been a complete census of American Jews in the ly near future. Intermarriage remained at extremely high levels (47 United States. Estimates of the number of Jews have varied widely— percent) and threatened to corrode Judaic distinctiveness and future precise estimates are impossible to come by—because of the difficul- Jewish continuity. American Jewish political influence could well be ty of defining the boundaries of the core question: Who or what is a attenuated in the coming decades in an increasingly multicultural Jew? Estimates range from 4.2 million to as many as 6.4 million Jews America, whose numbers were increasing exponentially while the in the United States. The authoritative 1990 National Jewish Popu- number of Jews remained flat and their percentage was decreasing. lation Survey therefore developed seven Jewish-identity “constructs,” To meet these challenges and plan for the future, American or categories, to spread as wide a net as possible. “Jews by Religion” Jewry constructed an incredible network of social service, defense, included three subcategories: “Born Jews, Religion Judaism,” “Jews and educational institutions. Some critics, in fact, claimed that the by Choice” (that is, persons who are currently Jewish, but were born Jewish community was overorganized. Others perceived the vast non-Jews), “Jews Born with No Religion” (persons who identified network as proof of what Jews can build in a truly free society. as Jewish but who answered “none,” “agnostic,” or “atheist” when To demystify what seems a complex and even arcane structure to queried about their religion). Combining these categories, the 1990 both outside observers and many Jews, the American Jewish Com- survey found approximately 5.5 million in the “core Jewish popula- mittee thought it useful to prepare a “road map” of the community tion.” Beyond these core groups, the 1990 NJPS counted as well: and its institutions. AJC commissioned Jerome Chanes, a longtime “Born/Raised Jewish, Converted Out,” “Adults of Jewish Parentage analyst of American Jewish life, to show the reader how the commu- with Other Current Religion,” many of whom consider themselves nity evolved, how it is structured, and what issues constitute its agen- to be Jewish by ethnicity or background, and “Children under 18 da. His Primer of the American Jewish Community, now in its third Being Raised with Other Current Religion.” revised edition, should help clarify the contemporary dilemmas. A more liberal estimate of the “core” Jewish population of the Steven Bayme, Ph.D. United States in 2006 is the 6.4 million Jews determined by the 2006 National Director Contemporary Jewish Life Department 1 2 A Primer on the American Jewish Community Historical Background 3 American Jewish Year Book, based on an aggregate of 535 local com- Jews had arrived on these shores, compared with between 100,000 munity estimates.1 Major centers of Jewish concentration are New and 200,000 during the period 1800-80. Most institutions of Ameri- York (1.41 million), Los Angeles, Miami and South Florida, Phila- can Jewry and Judaism were established during this period. With the delphia, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. restrictive anti-immigrant legislation of the 1920s, this huge wave While the total fertility rate of American Jews has been rising, of immigration came to an end; it was the destruction of European American Jews are still below “zero population growth.” Thus, the Jewry that spurred the post-World War II immigration of survivors community is not reproducing itself. The modest growth in abso- of the Holocaust, which infused new energy into American Jewry, lute numbers over the past half century has been achieved through especially into the Orthodox community. In a repetition of an ear- immigration into the United States, primarily from the former Sovi- lier pattern, these immigrants were not warmly welcomed by their et Union, with smaller numbers of Jews emigrating from Israel, Iran, coreligionists and established their own communal organizations. and other lands—an immigration that has ended. Many Jewish communities in America came into being dur- The lack of growth in the American Jewish population is all the ing the nineteenth century.
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