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Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld
The author is a long time adviser on strategy issues with the boards of directors of several large multinational corporations from Europe and North America. He is a member of the board of directors and former chair of the Center for Public Affairs of Jerusalem and has received the LIfetime Achievement Award (2012). of the journal for the study of anti-Semitism.
"The greatest vagueness in population estimates for American Judaism was the prevailing view in the 1950s that orthodoxy would die. There were only a few central communities and scattered enclaves of Jews around America who were observing seriously. "
A law professor at Columbia Law School since 1974, Richard Stone was president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and was invested in venture capital primarily in Israel.
"Most Jews who identified themselves as Orthodox at that time were not serious observers. For many, orthodoxy was more a social category than a religious one. In most places, Orthodox arrived immigrants during the great wave that occurred between the turn of the century and the 1920s did not set up serious orthodox education systems for their children.
"The vast majority of these children, even though they identified themselves as Orthodox, differed little from the Jews who identified with the liberal denominations. In about a generation, most descendants of orthodox immigrants made the easy transition to the Reform Party or the Conservative Party. The orthodox term suggested stigmas related to problems of class, wealth, Americanization and obsolete and unattractive behavior.
"The influx of refugees from the Holocaust has significantly strengthened the existing orthodox infrastructure. The Orthodox communities began to develop and overcome the resistance to orthodoxy that prevailed in American Jewish society. Jewish day schools, in which children could receive a serious education based on a Jewish text, grew at an incredible rate, both in modern communities and in Haredi communities.
"This has radically changed the chances of not perpetuating orthodoxy in a new generation of high-educated American children. In the 1960s, there was a critical mass of truly orthodox Jews of all stripes. The need and tendency of Orthodox communities to concentrate in their own geographical areas have created Orthodox neighborhoods, mainly in New York and surrounding areas, but also in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver and even in unpredictable places like Memphis, Tennessee, Savannah and possibly Los Angeles and others.
"The arrival and determination of the refugees was the initial catalyst for this demographic surprise. Another important factor was the growing viability of the state of Israel, which even inspired Jews who did not yet call themselves Zionists.
"Jews around the world have experienced an extraordinary moment when Israel emerged victorious from the" Six Day War ". This intensified the pride of being Jewish, which allowed the American Jewish community to recognize that strong Jewish religious identity did not constitute an obstacle for others. aspirations
It turned out that many Orthodox Jews with minimal secular education were doing extremely well in a variety of other activities. There is now a class of billionaires and hundreds of orthodox haredi millionaires far more numerous than we generally know.
"In the 1960s and early 1970s, a legitimate ethnicity developed outside the Jewish community. At the same time, stereotypes about the definition of the American aristocracy collapse. This played a role in strengthening Jewish identity and facilitating an increase in Jewish observance, at least at the more modern end of the orthodox spectrum. This development of American society also opened the door to a surprising number of secular American Jews who sought spirituality by becoming orthodox.
"At the same time, the modern Orthodox community has attended the best schools and has flourished professionally and financially. In the 1970s, being orthodox was in no way an obstacle to success in professions or businesses that graduates of excellent secular higher education institutions tend to populate.
"More importantly, in the haredi Orthodox communities, refugees and refugee children have begun to accumulate considerable wealth without the traditional educational profile. Much of this wealth results from the major added value of real estate over the last fifty years in the entire metropolitan area of New York. It also turned out that many Orthodox Jews with minimal secular education were doing extremely well in a variety of other activities. There is now a class of billionaires and hundreds of orthodox haredi millionaires far more numerous than we generally know.
"A dramatic result of the accumulated wealth in the orthodox haredi community is that thousands of Jewish men study in the yeshiva full time for much longer periods than ever before.
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"There is now a multi-faceted Orthodox world with an infrastructure that should allow it to continue to grow, perhaps geometrically, since Orthodox families have on average many more children than the unorthodox Jewish world. .
"The unorthodox Jewish world continues to claim membership of a decided majority of Americans who have identified themselves as Jewish. Yet it has turned into a different type of Jewish community whose future seems to be in doubt. Only a tiny percentage of educated students in reformist and conservative institutions receive a comparable Jewish education, even by far, in their secular education.
"Many unorthodox children are now separated by four or five generations from the knowledge of family members based on Jewish knowledge or observance. For at least two generations, the majority of Jews outside the Orthodox community married. This has resulted in a continuous movement of liberal denominations in favor of accepting as a Jew anybody who wants to be Jewish. Many have assimilated and have little or no Jewish identification.
"Those who seek to preserve Jewish identity frequently define their Jewishness as an aspect of liberal political values and ethics. Even for those who accept this type of Jewish identity as legitimate, it seems difficult to project anything other than to decline in the unorthodox Jewish community.
"As a result, it seems that Orthodoxy is on the path of American Judaism domination and that Orthodox Jews will experience spectacular growth, both in numbers and in influence. Haredi orthodoxy is already much larger than modern orthodoxy. The growth of Haredi Orthodoxy will probably be greater than that of any other segment of the Jewish community.
"Predictions of US-Jewish demographics have often been wrong in the past, and there could certainly be developments in the future that will contradict the predictions suggested in this paper. But if current trends continue, the expected consequences will be numerous. A Jewish-American Orthodox-dominated community will continue to play a leading role in many secular domains. On the other hand, Jewish notoriety in certain areas, such as entertainment and popular culture, would probably decrease.
"The tendency of Orthodox Jews to protect their values and interests will probably continue to produce political influence disproportionate to the number of Jews in the general population. Orthodox Jews have the financial resources, the sophistication and the motivation to play a substantial role in the problems that really interest them. I think the pro-Israel lobby in the United States, even though it will be dominated by the Orthodox, will continue to be very effective. "
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