Orthodox, Conservative, & Reform Families |
The Jewish Family The
Decline of the American Jewish Family “God
blessed them and said to them: be fruitful
and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it …”(Genesis 1:28). During
the decade ending in 2020, the self-identified Jewish population
in the United
States
dropped 5% to 4.9
million. If this continues, and it seems that there is no abatement in this
statistic, the Jewish community in America
will be so
minuscule that it will have no further impact on American politics
. The
overall American Jewish birthrate
is 1.9 children
for women
15 to 35. Excluding
the ultra-orthodox
, who have five or
more children, the American Jewish birthrate
is only 1.4.
Moreover, only 13 percent of American Jews
are 18 or younger.
American Jews have the lowest number of siblings.
Jews are on the average seven years older than other Americans. Only
nine percent of Conservative women and 3 percent of Reform women are married by
age 25. Added to this disaster is
the 72% intermarriage rate
. The
traditional Jewish family
exists today
despite all these handicaps. Yet, before the 20th century, the
European Jewish family held together because of the tremendous pressure placed
on each family by the anti-Jewish hate
they had to face
each day. Recently
the Anglican Church
published a book
concerning Christian responsibility for the 1900 years of anti-Jewish teaching
leading to the Holocaust
. The Archbishop of
Canterbury
acknowledged that
hatred of Jews was taught in churches and Christian society generally and led
to the mass murder of 6 million Jews
in the European gas
ovens. The Roman Catholic Church
and Protestant
denominations have also acknowledged this guilt. It was therefore always
necessary for Jewish families to protect their children
and adults against
this seemingly never-ending hatred. Therefore Jewish families sought to protect
their children and adults by teaching them the 10 commandments
as well as the
celebration of the Sabbath
. The teaching of
Judaism was a means of shutting out the non-Jewish world of hate and
persecution
.
This
was the message by the greatest Jewish scholar in Eastern Europe
. Israel
Meir Kagan
(1882-1933) wrote a
book entitled Chofetz Chayim or Delight
in Life. He became a role model by this book teaching the Jews to avoid all
slander and invective and to remember the 10th commandment. The
Immigration of Eastern European Jews
to
the United States
Prior to World War II
almost all of the
Eastern European Jews
who had come to the
United States after 1890 were poor uneducated laborers. Their families
were patriarchal and three generational, as grandparents were included. They
were home oriented, pious, and devoted to study the Torah
, the Talmud
, and Jewish
theology
. After the Second World
War
, a gradual climb
of the American Jewish community to wealth and education
began. It was then
that many Jews moved to the suburbs
and participated
with other Americans in the conformity and materialism, common in suburbia.
Jewish congregations then built synagogues
in the suburbs and
began to celebrate lifecycle events in a rather vulgar and exaggerated manner.
This was particularly true of bar mitzvahs
(Son of the
Commandments) or bat mitzvahs
(Daughter of the
Commandments), which had been solemn religious ceremonies but now became
exhibitions of the father’s wealth and economic success. An example of a bat
mitzvah party
was advertised by
the A B and C Parties and More Co.,
one of the many enterprises devoted to the entertainment of 13-year-olds. This
particular bat mitzvah party had a circus theme. It was held at the Plaza Hotel
in New York
, where the
ballroom was transformed into a
circus big top with the bat mitzvah girl dressed in a jacket worn
by Britney Spears, together with a top hat and fishnet stockings. There
was lavender with purple lights hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Vases with
violet orchids and roses bloomed on crystal covered tables. A troupe of
entertainers
with French names
amused 400 guests. The child for whom these expenses were incurred learned
nothing of her Jewish heritage that day, making her bat mitzvah a vulgar
display, devoid of Judaism’s teachings. It
is of course evident that the bar mitzvah could be celebrated in the synagogue
or at home, thereby confining the celebration to its religious origins without a
football theme and the appearance of professional football players paid for the
occasion. Bar mitzvahs feature singing YMCA and other mindless entertainment.
The principal effort displayed by these bar mitzvahs
is to exhibit
financial success
.
The conversion of the bar mitzvah from a religious ceremony to a
“three ring circus” has led to the commercialization of bar mitzvah parties
organized by business interests such as that developed by the so-called “Bar
Mitzvah Queen of New York
.” While at one
time bar mitzvah celebrations included a muted gathering for adults and a
separate party for children
to play, now
parties are for all generations and are based on so-called themes such as
football, hockey, or basketball, accompanied by loud so-called
“music.” These themes have no connection to Judaism. The music is
usually loud for the sake of noise and the dancing is reminiscent of commercial
ballrooms and other “pick up” places. Part of the entertainment consists of
having the family act in “movies.” Popular TV shows are also imitated and
the family is called to produce these films, which are shown to the bar mitzvah
guests. These bar mitzvah parties usually are
produced in hotel ballrooms, which are decorated in the most bizarre
fashion. Entertainment may include casino tables and celebrity
performers. The bar mitzvahs cost from $80,000
to $150,000.
These displays show that, unlike established
upper-class non-Jewish Americans, Jews are still insecure in American society
despite their achievements. There are of course many American Jews
who continue to
view bar/bat mitzvahs
as religious events
and who do not indulge in any stupid and barbaric exhibitions. Sociology teaches that it
may take several generations for the descendants of immigrants
to feel at home in
the American environment. This is called acculturation and accommodation, which
at least some American Jews
have finally
attained in the 21st century. Although
there are some very wealthy Jews in this country, in the 21st century
most American Jews
belong to the
middle or upper middle class
. It has been
observed that the religion most practiced by American Jews has been American
freedom, democracy, openness, and unprecedented opportunities. As religious
affiliation has declined among American Jews, this shift from Orthodox
observance to secular values has led some observers to claim the Judaism is
likely to disappear entirely from the United States, or be limited to a few
Orthodox enclaves. Jewish
Philanthropy What
is left of the Jewish religion is usually expressed in the form of philanthropy
rather than
adherence to theology. The American Jewish community in the 21st
century is wealthy if compared to earlier generations. There are however still
a good number of poor Jews
who are seldom
recognized or identified. Beginning
around 1925 some Jewish immigrants
and many of their
native born children
moved from the slum
areas of the big cities into wealthier suburbs
, where they
encountered the American middle class
. This was an
opportunity to live in a more spacious apartment or house than in a slum, as
was most common on the Lower East Side of Manhattan
and similar places
in American cities. This was this first step in horizontal mobility
undertaken by
American Jews
. In
the 1930’s almost all American Jews
, other than the
German Jews
of the 19th
century, came from blue-collar workers
or from homes whose
fathers owned small businesses. These
Jews continued to attend the same Orthodox synagogues
known to their
parents and grandparents. Yet attendance by second-generation American Jews
at religious
services
began to be
sporadic, as many Orthodox beliefs were challenged by American-born Jews
. Those
Jews who were married in the 1940’s and 1950’s were interested in
Conservative Judaism
because it allowed
individual choices concerning many of the orthodox
rituals without
abandoning tradition
as did Reform
Judaism
, which was brought
to the United States by German Jews
. Reform Judaism
had been brought to the United States by German Jewish immigrants
in the nineteenth
century. German Reform resembled American Conservatism but became much more
radical in the United States. Both
Conservative and Reform Judaism allowed women
to participate
equally in the religious rituals, thereby reducing the all male religious
dominations and creating a pattern of female liberation within the family.
Furthermore, Conservative and Reform Judaism encouraged women to attend
colleges and reduce and/or eliminate their erstwhile dependence on the income
of men. In
mid-twentieth century the America Jewish family became smaller. Both the decline
in the birth rate but also the reduction of the three generation family to two
generations created the opportunities for vertical and horizontal mobility
, which became
universal in the twenty-first century.
Thus in the 1950’s Jewish men and some women
were becoming
teachers, white collar clerks and salespeople. Moreover, the Jewish birthrate
began to decline in
the 1940’s and 1950’s. By 1923 Fifty percent of American Jews
produced two or
fewer children
and by 1940
American Jews had become more successful than any other immigrant
group. Family
Stress among American Jews
As their material success increased, American Jews
placed less
importance on families. They were then more willing to leave home and live
independently. This means that those American values
such as financial
and professional success helped in weakening the family ties
which were the
solid foundation of immigrant life.
Likewise
synagogue life changed as wealth increased and women
became more active
and more accepted as leaders among all Americans, including Jews. By 1990,
women had become synagogue officers, major donors, and decision makers. The
National Jewish Population Survey
of 1990 showed that
by then the most common Jewish household consisted of one person living alone
. The next most
common was two adults, and third was a household of two adults with at least
one child under 18 living at home.
` Jewish
birthrates
are extraordinary
low. In 1990, 93% of Jewish women
18-24 had not yet
had children
. As a result the
replacement level among Jews
is too low to
create a next generation large enough to guarantee the perpetuation of American
Judaism. The
high intermarriage rate
of American Jews
compounds the
problem of perpetuating Judaism. That rate is now (2020) about 72%, so that the
overall intermarriage rate for Jews of all ages is about 55%. This development
is related to the acceptance of America Jews as marriage partners
by non-Jews, as the
erstwhile opposition by non-Jews concerning marriage of their children
to Jews has
declined considerably. Moreover, Jewish-Christian intermarriages
are now subject to
dual identification, in that both Christian and Jewish symbols
are prevalent in
such households. Thus, a Christmas
tree and a Menorah
may both be present. Divorce
Divorce
was once very rare
among Jews and was viewed as a scandal. American divorce in general has
increased and become as common as one parent families
. In 2019, eighteen
to nineteen divorces were recorded for every 100 Jewish marriages. Therefore
one third of Jewish children
live in homes
touched by divorce. These divorces often involve the grandparents of children
from divorced mothers who may need to work to support themselves and their
children despite the obligation of fathers to continue the support of children
after divorce. The
American Jewish family is further fragmented by the upper middle class
obsession with
college
. About 80% of
Jewish adolescent high school graduates go to college. Many leave the parental
home to go to a college out of town. A considerable number never return to live
in their hometowns because they find jobs elsewhere or marry someone in a
faraway state. Older adults, both
Jewish and not Jewish, have moved from New York
and other northern
states in large numbers and have settled in Florida, Arizona, and California. Those
who have moved from the northeastern states to the south are often grandparents
who need to adjust to grandchildren who are not Jewish. Grandparents
have become important in the Jewish and non-Jewish American family because three
out of every five mothers are working. Nearly 40% of Jewish women
are professionals
. It is important
to remember that even in the European Jewish family, many women worked outside
the home, albeit they were not college educated but sold goods from pushcarts.
This was also true of Jewish immigrants
to America. Both
in Eastern Europe
and in America, an
orthodox
Jewish man studied
the Talmud
while the wife had
to earn enough to insure the survival of the family. In the twenty-first
century the number of married men who study while the wife works is minimal but
it does exist. Substance
Abuse In
the 1970’s and since then domestic violence
and incest were
first visible in Jewish American families. Even alcoholism
and other substance
abuse which was once absent from Jewish families is now also a Jewish problem.
This is most likely the result of the high intermarriage rate
. This is also
related to the so-called “liberal
” orientation of
most American colleges. Since a majority of Jewish high school graduates attend
colleges, the “liberal” values of these institutions become Jewish values.
This development leads to the observation that in the 21st century
the American Jewish family resembles non-Jews. The American upper middle class
families
are different than
their ancestors of 100 years ago. Because of intermarriage, the children
and grandchildren
of these intermarried
families sever
their connection with the Jewish people. This
development was already visible in the mid twentieth century when, according to
Herberg, Judaism was no longer considered marginal to American society. This
meant that Judaism became part of the American religious tradition
, as the media now
spoke of “Judeo-Christian” ethics
as the most
important American values
. This was
expressed by the construction of palatial synagogues
, many of which
were hardly used by the Reform and Reconstruction movements, but served as
announcements that Jews had arrived socially and were now part of the American
community
. This had become
true despite the small numbers of American Jews
who, at only 1.7%,
were now viewed as one third of the American religious landscape
. Horizontal
and Vertical Mobility After
most Jews had moved from the city ghettoes to the suburbs
, the distance
between the synagogue and the family home increased dramatically. It was no
longer possible for most Jewish families to walk to a nearby sanctuary. Now it
became necessary to drive some distance to get to Friday night or Saturday
morning “services.” The diffusion of Jewish families in the suburbs
resulted in a
diluted Jewish identity. This means that Jews were living in areas where most
people were not Jews, as had not been true in the ghettoes of the big cities.
Jewish newspapers
were not sold in
the local stores and kosher
food
was not in
evidence. Most
Jewish parents who moved from the inner city Jewish neighborhoods to the suburbs
claimed that they
did so for the sake of their children
, whose vertical
mobility
into American
society was very important to them. These parents did give their children a
Jewish education until bar/bat mitzvah but discontinued such Jewish learning
thereafter. Once
the Jewish families had moved to the suburbs
, many women
now assumed
responsibility for tasks which had previously been the sole province of men.
Women now chose the schools children
were to attend,
they chose the family synagogue, and, most important, chose the neighborhood in
which to live. The final result of
moving to the suburbs was the loosening of ties to the older immigrant
generations
and a remarkable
increase in both vertical and horizontal mobility
of all subsequent
Jewish families. All this was true of the nineteen fifties. Yet,
more was still to come in the next two decades. Prior
to the movement to the suburbs
, the obligations
of family members to one another were considerable and permanent. Now women
become decision
makers in Jewish organizations
including the
synagogues
as well as such
community associations as the Jewish Federation
. This meant that
women were finally able to escape family obligations only. By the 1960s Jewish
women became dominant in the Jewish community. At
the end of the 20th century it had become evident that the Jewish
family had become much smaller than ever before, not only because of the low
birthrate
and the number of
single adults but also because of the immense horizontal mobility
of so many American
Jews
that it was not a
sensation if grandchildren did not know the grandparents living in the same
city. By 2020 the vast majority of the American Jewish families were
distributed all over the United States, so that children
no longer know
their grandparents or other family members, whom they see on such occasions as
bar mitzvahs
, weddings, and
funerals. Change
in the American Jewish Family After
1980 the American Jewish family changed considerably. It is of course true that
change has always been part of Jewish life. However, these most recent changes
dethroned men who were in charge of finances and were the final authority of the
family. In the forty years ending in 2020, women
have become
ascendant in the American Jewish family as they have gained college educations
and considerable incomes. In the course of many years, legal changes have given
women more and more rights. Significant are the Married Women’s Property Acts
. Prior to these
Acts, women’s property belonged to their husbands and women could not sue nor
be sued. In short, before the 1880s the family was defined by the father and
husband. Childhood
too changed a great deal by reason of legal changes. After 1920, all American
states had compulsory school laws
. Furthermore,
children
no longer went to work in dangerous jobs, if at all. Consequently,
ideas about marriage and the family changed as choice, companionship, and
romance took the place of arranged marriages
by marriage
brokers. As
marriage changed so did divorce
. Although the
divorce rate
among Americans
Jews or non-Jews is about 50%, it was far lower in the 20th century
and before because it was very expensive and unpopular. Beginning
around 1970 more and more children
became so-called
latchkey children
, who came home
alone after school when both father and mother were working and the children
were alone at home. Even pre-school children are affected by the employment of
mothers
. Three out of four
Jewish mothers
of small children
work and place their children into nurseries
or hire babysitters
while they work. As
birth control
and female
employment increased, the America Jewish family and all Americans experienced
rising divorce
rates
and declining
marriage and birth rates. By 2007 nearly 40% of American children
were born to
unmarried mothers
, although this was
far less among Jews than in the general population. By
2020 divorce
has reached 50%, of
whom a majority remarry. As a result, less han 15% of American families
reflected the older model of father working and mother staying at home with
natural children
, all living
together. The largest contingents of Jews are widowed, always single, divorced,
remarried, and earning a dual income
. Assimilation
and Amalgamation American
Jews
have become so
assimilated to American lifestyles that in the 21st century being
single is as common among Jews as among other Americans.
Childbirth
is therefore
avoided altogether or limited to one or two children
among the married.
This is largely related to the amount of education of Jewish couples
. The more
education, the fewer children. Orthodox Jews are the exception to these trends.
This low birthrate
has already led to
a decline in the proportion of American voters who support Jewish interests
such as the security of Israel
. Furthermore,
politicians such as Bernard Sanders
of Vermont, a man
of Jewish birth, now support Arab
antagonism to Israel’s very existence together with attacks on American Jews
sponsored by Arab
politicians
in the U.S.
Congress. Furthermore, a smaller Jewish community will be less able to help
Jews living in countries like Hungary
and Romania who are
victims of government organized anti Jewish conduct. Intermarriage
and the Decline in the Jewish Population The
high intermarriage rate
also weakens the
Jewish community, particularly as children
of intermarried
parents will be
strongly influenced by non-Jewish grandparents to celebrate Christmas
together with their
non-Jewish mothers
or fathers. Because
of the high intermarriage rate
, the Jewish family
has also been confronted with a problem that was at one time foreign to the
Jewish community. That problem in alcoholism
. Many Jews are
related to non-Jews who drink too much alcohol and are therefore addicted
alcoholics. Their Jewish children
are far more likely
to also consume too much alcohol. That was not true when Snyder wrote Alcohol
and the Jews in 1958. His findings were that Ameicans of Irish descent were
fifty times more numerous among admissions to drunk wards in New York
hospitals than was
true of Jews, and that this was true of Scandinavians, who drank fifteen times
in excess of Jews. According to Snyder, drunks were ten times as numerous among
Italians, nine times as numerous among the English, and eight times as numerous
among the Germans than among the Jews. In short, Jews were at one time the most
sober of all American ethnics
. The low rate of
alcoholism among Jews has been attributed to the religious significance of wine
among Jews. Jews drink wine to welcome the Sabbath
on Friday night and
to welcome their Holy Days at other times. Alcohol is not seen as a means of
soothing one’s emotional pains
or dealing with
disappointments, rejections, illness, and death. Instead, alcohol among Jews is
seen as a blessing from God, as Jews pray over wine and recite, “Blessed are
You. Lord, Our God, King of the
Universe, Creator of the Fruit of the Vine.”
This distinct religious symbolism
protects Jews from
giving alcohol powers that are attributed to it by non-Jews. Alcohol
and Violence in the Jewish Family Alcohol
addiction is related to domestic violence
. Therefore, as
Jewish alcoholism
has increased, so
has domestic violence, which has become a serious and destructive force among
Jews. The fact is that family violence is a Jewish issue in the 21st
century. An
extreme example of Jewish domestic violence
concerns a Jewish
woman college student who was dating a Jewish fraternity brother. Not long
after they dated several times, this man began hitting her. She severed the
relationship after going to counseling. Then the same man began dating this
student’s sorority sister. She
warned her to stay away from this man but the girl did not listen until the
boyfriend killed her. Numerous
dating relationships are abusive. Fifty-seven percent of high school and college
students have been in such relationships or know someone who has been abused
while dating
. Domestic
violence abusers seek power and control over their partners by financial,
psychological, or physical means. These abusers use threats, humiliation,
intimidation, coercion, and abandonment to gain control.
Domestic violence also includes child abuse
. It has been
estimated that one in fifteen children
are beaten and
otherwise abused at home. Furthermore, ninety percent of children in abusive
homes are witnesses to adult violence
between parents.
Domestic violence occurs in Jewish homes in the same amount as in the general
American population , i.e. 15 to 25 percent. One
aspect of domestic violence
is to blame the
victim
. This consists of
claiming that the victim spends too much money, or is flirting or even sexually
involved with someone else even when there is no evidence for such a claim.
The disintegration of the American Jewish family is
further enhanced by horizontal or geographic mobility and vertical or social
mobility
. These drives to
abandon the family is related to the obsession among upper middle class
families
to send their
eighteen year old high school graduates to an out of town college.
Indeed there are those who learn a useful occupation during four years.
There are nevertheless some who enter so-called “party schools
” whose purpose
is not academic. In such colleges students learn little but “party” every
night. For example, a student at
San Francisco State University was so drunk one night that he attempted to
enter an apartment not his own. The tenant inside believed he was subject to a
home invasion and shot the student, who died. A
girl at another university drank to excess and then drove home.
She drove into a ditch when her car door opened and she fell out with the
car falling on top of her. She was found dead in the ditch the next morning. A
drunk male student climbed on a water tower and promptly fell to his death from
that great height. There are innumerable other such events occurring every
school year in American colleges and universities. Devon
Arnold, 22, was found dead along a railroad track. Arnold was a student at
Colorado State University studying mechanical engineering. He attended a game in
the company of his fraternity brothers and other students when he disappeared.
He had left his companions several times and finally did not return to his seat.
It appears that Devon Arnold committed suicide after jumping on a train. Arnold
was extremely intoxicated and was asked to leave the auditorium for that reason.
He was hit by an oncoming train. His body was later found by a railroad
employee. Twenty
year old University of Minnesota student Dylan Fulton died on September 12,
2018, in a fraternity house near the campus of the university. The cause of
death was asphyxia with aspiration. At once the national organization of Alpha
Gamma Rho suspended the University of Minnesota’s chapter. Fulton was a
sophomore majoring in animal science. His death was also related to ethanol
intoxication. Fulton was a sophomore. These
cases demonstrate that the alcohol culture
in the United
States is threatening millions of Americans who have learned that the ordinary
pressures of everyday life cannot be faced nor resisted in a sober and rational
manner. Jewish families were and
still are the support needed to deal with daily problems experienced by
everyone. However, as the Jewish family breaks up and becomes scattered all
over the country, they face their problems alone. Then Jews also drink to
excess, and also use drugs
. As the Jewish
family is no longer in a position to help, Jews behave like other Americans and
suffer the same consequences. In
any event, many college students who have spent four years elsewhere do not
return to their parental home but remain in a faraway state where they found a
job and/or where they married. As time goes by, the children
of these former
adolescents now grow up not knowing their grandparents. Then the next
generation repeats this conduct and the family, Jewish or not, is no more. Few
Jewish senior citizens have all their children in town, and many seldom see
their adult children. For
example, two Jewish grandparents in their eighties have three sons. One lives
nearby and is married to a Catholic wife who has raised their two children
as Catholics.
Another son lives in Oregon, three thousand miles from New York
where he was born,
and his brother lives in Maine. Only one son married Jewish. Another
Jewish senior couple have four children
. Not one lives
near them. Their daughter is married to a lesbian woman in California, although
her parents live in an east coast city. One son lives in South Carolina where
he married a man, and another lives in Las Vegas
, Nevada, with his
family. The fourth son live in New York
City, far from his
parents, who now entered a home for the aged. They cannot drive anymore and are
confined to that home, seldom seeing visitors. A
widower lives alone in a nursing home in the midwest. His only son lives in
Atlanta, Georgia, his one daughter lives in California, and his other daughter
lives in New Jersey.
No one visits him except on rare occasions. The
Future of the American Jewish Family According
to Alan Dershowitz
, the greatest
threat to the survival of the American Jewish family is individual Jewish
success. He wrote that Jewish history is the history of unending persecution
and victimization
and that now the American population “would kill us with kindness.” This
includes marrying Jews and electing
Jews to political offices. It
also means assimilating Jews to become as addicted to drugs
and alcohol as all
other Americans. Dershowitz discusses the so-called “tzores” (troubles)
theory
of Jewish survival,
which holds that Judaism survives only when Jews are maltreated and
marginalized. Although anti-Jewish haters shoot at synagogues
and deny the
Holocaust
, these people are
viewed as criminal outsiders in the United States and do not have the political
power they had in Europe. Dershowitz lists a number of changes American Jews
could make in order
to insure survival in America. He includes more openness to converts, welcoming
non-Jewish spouses in intermarriages
, and supporting
secular Judaism. Supporting
lay Jewish “leaders” other than rabbis
is another of
Dershowitz’s suggestions. He
also advocates including non-Jewish students in Jewish day schools
and teaching
Judaism to Christians. Ellen Jaffe McClain, a Jewish woman married to a
Christian, wrote Embracing the Stranger. She
claims that Jewish men believe that Jewish women
are utterly
materialistic and will marry only doctors, lawyers, and wealthy businessmen.
She writes that Jewish women believe Jewish men are arrogant and unwilling to
be compliant and both authors write that Jewish men believe that Jewish women
are not as “sexy as shickses
” (Shickse refers
to a non-Jewish woman). Both authors are unconvincing. The American Jewish family is gradually leaving Reform, Conservative, and Reconstruction, so that by 2050 a more liberal orthodox Judaism will be the only form of Jewish religious observance. Shalom u'vracha. Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including 30 books and 45 journal articles. |