Posted on 04/20/2006 4:10:00 PM PDT by avile
Poll: US Jews uninterested in shul By GEORGE CONGER
Jews ranked second to last on the table of weekly worship attendance with less than one in six attending services, beating out only those who report no religious affiliation.
"This is a statistical cri de coeur from our people," Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles told The Jerusalem Post. "If things continue as they are we will produce a generation of Jews who will be irretrievably lost."
In a series of interviews conducted from 2002 to 2005, Gallup interviewed 11,000 adult Americans and asked, "How often do you attend church or synagogue - at least once a week, almost every week, about once a month, seldom, or never?"
Approximately 44 percent reported attending worship services weekly or almost weekly, the April 14 report stated. The results varied among religious groups and denominations with almost two-thirds of Mormons, conservative Protestants and Pentecostal Protestants reporting they attended weekly services.
Roman Catholics and members of the mainline Protestant churches - Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians - varied in attendance between 43% and 45%. Episcopalians came last among Christian denominations, reporting only 32% weekly attendance, while Jews reported only 15%.
Rabbi Gary P. Zola, executive director of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, told the Post the survey was "very accurate snapshot" of worship attendance, but it did not accurately gauge the vitality of the American Jewish community.
He noted the survey did not distinguish among the different strands of American Judaism and stated that "you could find a different statistic" among the Orthodox than those drawn from "the more liberal-leaning wing."
"All of us who are concerned with the spiritual and religious dimension of the American Jew ought to be concerned about these figures," he said, but to "jump from that statistic to say that American Jewry is ill" was false.
"There is great vitality in American Jewry, but it is not being expressed" solely by worship attendance, Zola argued. "There are many different ways that you can legitimately wish to express yourself as a Jew and be involved in various aspects of the Jewish civilization, the Jewish communal experience," he said. "It is not possible to say the only measure of your commitment is synagogue attendance."
Zola noted that what the survey highlighted was the historic problem that synagogues were "not functioning in a way that is bringing in increasing numbers of American Jews that belong to the synagogue on a regular basis."
Wolpe was less sanguine. "Judaism requires a countercultural commitment," he argued. "If Jews do not develop a major, unshakeable passion for Jewish life and learning, observance will dwindle, as this study demonstrates. The results are a spiritual and cultural tragedy for the Jewish people and for America."
However decline was not inevitable, Wolpe argued. "At Sinai Temple we have instituted services that draw 1,000 people on a Shabbat morning and once a month, over 1,000 young people to Friday Night Live. It is through a combination of education, music and passionate preaching and teaching. There is no single, successful formula, but the best Jewish minds of our generation need support and aid in reversing this crisis," he said.
Ignorance piled on ignorance does not create wisdom.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
I love the univeralism expressd in Deuteronomy 4:19 and Malachi 1:11.
I love the sense of reason, which poses no conflict between a universe designed by God, and that allowded to develop through natural process. Even evolution, though yet unproved.
I love that God with all my strength and with all my mind and with all my heart. Yet that doesn't mean that I don't argue with Him, sometimes seemingly constantly.
I went to a conservative shul for awhile, but found them too politically liberal for me for the most part. Now I attend in a more orthodox setting, though do admit to some twinge at being separated from women. Though as Dennis Prager says, "If it comes to my concentrating on God or a woman's legs, a woman's legs will win out nearly every time."
So I think I know that answer, though I might argue with God some more....
My mom really did this for me. I used to church-hop with her throughout Christendom all my young life. I even sang in choirs therein - sometimes for pay.
Though I've often wondered why she didn't take me to a synagogue, where thankfully I finally convinced myself to go.
I suspect that might have been the end, and yet always the beginning of her search too.
I had to reread the post and I still don't see why you are upset at this freeper. Why should they be ashamed. Look around, liberal reform Jews, just like liberal Christians or anyone else are not having children in the requisite numbers to reproduce themselves. Maybe you read something there that I am not seeing????
It is becoming increasingly common to find non-Jews in attendance at orthodox synagogues all over.
Most think of themselves as 'Noahides'.
Orthodox services are public prayers and Torah reading. Music, singing (other than tunes used for prayers) and sermons are not central features.
Since everyone walks to shul and stays somewhere nearby, it's very easy to make friends by just tagging along if you're bold enough.
Most times there are classes on Sabbath afternoons suitable for those with little background.
It can be very much an enchanting experience.
Aren't most Israels either "reform" Jews or secularists?
Sadly, for most Jews I know, being Jewish is more of an ethnicity or a club than a religion. The most devout Jew I know (outside of FR), is a Catholic.
I schlep my kids at least twice a month. It's all about family and community. A good rabbi is a good draw. Ours has grown from 300 members to 300 families in seven years. Leadership is key.
Except that Reform Jews are most open to converts and mixed marriages. When my wife converted, we started in the conservative synagogue, but were not exactly welcome there, because neither Patti nor I cut our connections with her Christian parents and sisters.
The Reform synagogue has been much more welcoming to us. And to other converts, as well.
The two are not mutually exclusive. As in, "Wow, God did some good work on that one."
The same contemptible statements could be made about white people as a whole. Such statements are being tossed around by several groups. But, prosperity is the more common cause of lowering birth rates as well as nearly 100 years of developing programs that focus on reducing the need to have many children as a "retirement plan." This trend, social security, the disintegration of the nuclear family, birth control, no fault divorce, two income families are all sources of reduced birth rates for all but the most established (2nd Generation + ) demographic groups in the US. The pews in Catholic churches are not filled with white families with 12 and 13 kids like they were even 20 years ago. So don't lay this at the foot of one congregation of Judaism and make all sorts of generalizations which have nothing to do with anything.
Its not about race, its not about religion as such, its about demographics and US values and politics.
Reform Judaism today is decidedly liberal, but you can find many congregations of all faiths lost in the woes of 20th Century moral relativism. Each person in the US has seen the failure of so many "experiments" of the 2nd half of the 20th Century.
But, even these failures have brought new truth and enduring successes. Its just that now is a time to do this learning.. to separate the discovery of the dignity and contribution of women in a modern society which is enriching and life affirming from the evil of death by "choice" and the denigration of the dignity of men and the denial of the great wonders of the institutions known as motherhood and fatherhood.
The "Great Society" turned out not to help the poor as much as it was the engine of the destruction of the dignity and the community of all who were sucked in by it.
And the rise of Secularism as an Ideal and its placement as the official "religion" of the US by courts attempting to extract a separation between Church and State have also been exposed as a great and enduring mistake.
But, now we know why. Admittedly the price was high. But, moving forward, each Religious community needs to reflect and learn. So don't look down your nose at Reform Jews. Try looking in your own mirror. They will wonder more in the desert, or perhaps they will find their way. This is all in God's hands.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
And you should see the size of their calves!!!
(Hmmph! How did this become a Hillary-bashing thread?)
>> I schlep... <<
Yes, we have an authentic Jew on FR.
hehehe.
I miss NY...
>> But, the contempt for Reform Judaism is unmistakable. Millions of people with good minds are praying for something like Reform Islam to show up and save the world. <<
Well, that's because unreformed Islam is pure evil. As a Catholic in a very religiously mixed state university, I noticed, the more religious a Jewish person was, or even a Hindu, the more likely I was to get along with them. The LESS religious a Muslim was, the more tolerable they were.
Ala "Fiddler on a Roof." "Tradition " is something that the "modern" world despises because it does establish a separate identity which goes counter to the dominent culture. This culture denounces conformity to any standard except its own, and that standard changes from generation to generation, so that we are constantly called upon to reject our own parents and grandparents.
The reform movement as it was created out of the "Pittsburg Platform" slips the webbing of much of the "form" of Orthodox practice but attempts to point directly to the nature of God and mans relationship with god. In that they have cut free of the writings, they are subject to wondering.. and struggling. But, those who worship books and words and forget to worship god are also just as subject to the vicissitudes of wondering and struggling. Its the nature of the problem, finding, accepting and living in God. Its not easy.
In that you see the light of god in people who commit themselves to god.. and find them attractive is not surprising. In that Secular Jews like Secular Christians seem to be lost, selfish and empty is also not a big surprise.
Just understand, that the sample of impressions and individual contacts is viewed through a lens of our own filters and desires so that we miss much that doesn't reaffirm our prior expectations.
"In Judaism, a lot of religious ceremony is done at home. Except for the high holidays, attendance at Synagogue isn't demanded. Lighting the Sabbath candles and the Pesach Seder are home-based traditions and are the centers of those observances."
You make an excellent point. And in fact, if faith is in the home it will endure. Going to your place of worship and having no carry over on the days in between makes attendance a moot point. These are the traditions children remember and hold on to when they are adults.
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