12 Jun
Culture, Latest

A New Jew?

by Kara A. Kaufman A landmark study of Jewish life released today reveals the deep and sometimes surprising changes the Jewish community has undergone over the past decade.  The study, conducted by the UJA-Federation of New York and based on nearly 6,000 interviews in eight counties in New York, is the largest North American Jewish community study to date. The data help us better understand the contours of who we are as modern Jews in America, challenging popular stereotypes and pointing out the connections between trends within the Jewish world and those within broader American life. The report illustrates several clear developments over the past decade. First, the size of the New York Jewish population has been growing over the past nine years, reaching 1.5 million in 2011. The study’s authors ascribe this rise to three primary...

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07 Oct
Latest

Jewish population's up. Quick, hit the panic button….

Ok, time to get your assimilation anxieties sorted out. The numbers of Jews and kinda-sorta Jews and non-Jews married to Jews or who are children or grandchildren of Jews is growing, and that's good, right? No, says Israel's Jewish Agency Chairman Ze'ev Haifetz, that's bad. Well, it's good that the number of "real" Jews is increasing—by 70,000 worldwide in the last year, according to the Jewish Agency. But how about those kinda-sortas? The ones who can become Israeli citizens under the Law of Return, but who might not pass Halachic muster for purposes of marriage to a "real" Jew under Israeli law. Apparently we are producing too many of that sort here in the U.S. The recent population study by TJA says that there are more than 11 million Americans...

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