Converts to Judaism to Celebrate Rosh Hashana - Chicago Tribune
Many Jews have had an uneasy relationship with converts and conversion. There are no missionaries dispatched to developing countries, looking for souls to save. Proselytizing is so frowned upon that even today, some rabbis adhere to the ancient tradition of sending away prospective converts three times as a test of their commitment.
But attitudes have changed, propelled by demographic challenges. While Judaism has gradually moved toward more outreach, a 2013 survey of American Jews — the first in more than a decade — triggered a new sense of urgency.
The survey, by the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project, found that the intermarriage rate had reached a high of 58 percent — a huge shift from before 1970, when only 17 percent of Jews married outside the faith. Two-thirds of respondents said they do not affiliate with any congregation at all, evident by a recent flurry of synagogue mergers nationwide. Many leaders thought the future of the Jewish people, who are 2.2 percent of the U.S. population, was in peril.
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