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1 What, me worry?  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 11:51:50am
During his February 22 radio show, Beck described Reform rabbis as “generally political in nature.”

Yea, because no other Jewish groups are political! Just those sinful Reform Jews!

Meanwhile, a large majority of us eat, breathe and sleep politics, from the very religious to the very secular. I think the ADL is going to have to start their very own “Glenn Beck Page”.

2 HappyWarrior  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 11:59:59am

Cue right wingers whining that the ADL has a leftist agenda.

3 Glenn Beck's Grand Unifying Theory of Obdicut  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 12:33:16pm

re: #2 HappyWarrior

Cue right wingers whining that the ADL has a leftist agenda.

Cue Buck whining about how Beck is actually a real friend to the Jews.

4 What, me worry?  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 1:20:52pm

You have to understand the mind of The Beck. And I take no pleasure in the fact that I do.

Reform Jews are the ones who register as Democrats (by and large). That’s why he’s on the attack.

Beck would sell his momma down the river if it got him ratings.

5 goddamnedfrank  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 2:26:21pm

re: #4 marjoriemoon

You have to understand the mind of The Beck. And I take no pleasure in the fact that I do.

Reform Jews are the ones who register as Democrats (by and large). That’s why he’s on the attack.

Beck would sell his momma down the river if it got him ratings.

Reform Jews are also the largest group in the US and the largest group going to synagog. The political angle is really old too, it’s a well established way for bigots to define who gets to be called a good Jew and who gets called a Christ-killer.

6 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 3:04:51pm

re: #5 goddamnedfrank

Reform Jews are also the largest group in the US and the largest group going to synagog. The political angle is really old too, it’s a well established way for bigots to define who gets to be called a good Jew and who gets called a Christ-killer.

Every comment here was on the money.

However, I am unsure that Reform Jews are the largest movement. I think that the various flavors of orthodox out number them (especially since the orthodox have a much higher birth rate) and that Conservative is the nearly as large. Different people have different numbers out there.

In any case, I would guess that the Reform Jews are about a third of the American Jewish population.

7 goddamnedfrank  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 4:03:12pm

re: #6 LudwigVanQuixote

Every comment here was on the money.

However, I am unsure that Reform Jews are the largest movement. I think that the various flavors of orthodox out number them (especially since the orthodox have a much higher birth rate) and that Conservative is the nearly as large. Different people have different numbers out there.

In any case, I would guess that the Reform Jews are about a third of the American Jewish population.

I got my stats here. It claims that Reform Jews comprise 39% of synagog members in the US, Conservative 33%, and Orthadox 22%. Presumably Reconstructionist make up the rest, but the only number given for them is 2% of US Jews overall, and a caution given about their numbers being too low to accurately gauge.

8 Vicious Babushka  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 5:05:17pm

re: #7 goddamnedfrank

I got my stats here. It claims that Reform Jews comprise 39% of synagog members in the US, Conservative 33%, and Orthadox 22%. Presumably Reconstructionist make up the rest, but the only number given for them is 2% of US Jews overall, and a caution given about their numbers being too low to accurately gauge.

There really is no accurate count of the number of Jews in the U.S. or how many belong to what denomination, or to no denomination. The NJPS, which is not a census of U.S. Jews but a survey of a random sample (calling people up at random and asking them “Are you Jewish?” and then “Do you want to take our Jewish population survey?”). The last NJPS survey was over 10 years ago and their sampling methodology was questioned. The results are by no means definitive.

I was raised Reform, but I am Orthodox now. I have 9 children, and 26 grandchildren. This is typical in my community, but it is not the norm for Reform Jews, who have a much lower birthrate. The NJPS survey does not take these generational statistics into considerations, because their random phone-number dialing system is set up to hit areas with sparse Jewish populations at the same frequency as areas that are heavily populated.

Qualifications: I have a degree in Mathematics, and a long career of managing statistical sampling systems.

9 goddamnedfrank  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 5:30:21pm

So, it is demonstrated that a person can be raised Reform and become Orthodox but it the unspoken assumption seems to be that this doesn’t work the other way around? That’s interesting. Maybe birthrate is only one small factor in overall membership. it’s possible that Reform synagogs might be more welcoming in general, maybe that’s how they maintain their numbers.

10 Vicious Babushka  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 5:51:26pm

re: #9 goddamnedfrank

So, it is demonstrated that a person can be raised Reform and become Orthodox but it the unspoken assumption seems to be that this doesn’t work the other way around? That’s interesting. Maybe birthrate is only one small factor in overall membership. it’s possible that Reform synagogs might be more welcoming in general, maybe that’s how they maintain their numbers.

You are making the reverse assumption that a majority of Jews raised Orthodox will ultimately join Reform congregations. Where is the evidence for that?

However I am questioning the accuracy of the statistics that you quoted. That is the result of a random telephone survey sample, NOT a census count.

11 goddamnedfrank  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 6:13:47pm

re: #10 Alouette

You are making the reverse assumption that a majority of Jews raised Orthodox will ultimately join Reform congregations. Where is the evidence for that?

However I am questioning the accuracy of the statistics that you quoted. That is the result of a random telephone survey sample, NOT a census count.

I’m not assuming anything, except that in a country where 44% of people change religions from the one they were raised in that Orthodox Jews probably aren’t going to be a huge exception to this trend. Also, considering that the interfaith marriage rate among Jews appears to have passed 50% a while ago, it should not be that surprising that Reform synagogs might benefit significantly from their welcoming attitude towards outsiders. The synagog I go to has at least one interfaith married goy on their board of directors, and they appear to be quite proud of that fact.

Go ahead and question the statistics, that’s what they’re there for. I notice though that you have nothing to supply in return except for argument by personal anecdote and your own authority as a mathematician.

12 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 8:16:01pm

re: #7 goddamnedfrank

Yeah that is what I thought, that survey is 11 years old. Reform Jews have on average, less than two children per couple and Orthodox on average, around four. Also these things get very hard to measure since they go by synagogue membership and do not include all the college kids.

13 Mad Prophet Ludwig  Wed, Feb 23, 2011 8:58:48pm

re: #9 goddamnedfrank

So, it is demonstrated that a person can be raised Reform and become Orthodox but it the unspoken assumption seems to be that this doesn’t work the other way around? That’s interesting. Maybe birthrate is only one small factor in overall membership. it’s possible that Reform synagogs might be more welcoming in general, maybe that’s how they maintain their numbers.

There is another very famous study that I will have to find.

simpletoremember.com

The upshot of it is that intermarriage amongst Reform Jews and Conservative Jews coupled with low birth rates are crippling their numbers. It is not that the children of intermarried couples die off faster or anything like that, G-d forbid, but rather that the chances of the children of an intermarried couple, particularly the less traditional the Jewish parent was, have a huge chance of not associating with Judaism at all when they grow up.

Further,

You need to take the Baal Tsuva movement into account. A BT is a Jewish person like me or Alouette who was not raised particularly observant, but became so later on. From a Demographic standpoint, in the less observant movements, there is a trend - a very large trend, to either disassociate completely from one generation to the next, or to “move up” in observance so to speak.

The Conservative movement suffers the most from this.

Conservatives try to be observant and traditional to a certain extent while making certain compromises with the necessities of modern life and certain other “modern” takes on the Tradition. For example, if living in the suburbs, driving to synagogue on Shabbos is optional or it is not uncommon to see women wearing tallit and tefillin (traditionally men’s things).

However, Conservatism (what I was brought up in) has been plagued by rather than being a “just right” mix, many find it is either too much or too little and bleed into one of the other movements.

As far as demographic trends are concerned, in one more generation, the Orthodox will be the majority of an overall shrinking Jewish population in America.


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