Many Reducing Their Religious Involvement : Jews Gain Range of Options for Spiritual Expression

American Judaism, undergoing “far-reaching” change over the last two decades, has more options than ever for spiritual expression--yet most Jews are reducing their religious involvement to a minimum or drifting away entirely from the faith.

That paradox has not gone unobserved in recent times, but few have outlined the religious trends among U.S. Jews as comprehensively as historian Jack Wertheimer has done in the just-published 1989 American Jewish Year Book.

“A bipolar model is emerging, with a large population of Jews moving toward a religious minimalism and a minority gravitating toward greater participation and deepened concern with religion,” Wertheimer wrote. His 100-page article was the longest ever included in the resource book published annually by the American Jewish Committee.

Wertheimer is associate professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City.

‘Diversity of Options’

Currently expanding his analysis into a book-length manuscript, Wertheimer said in a telephone interview that the two trends are not limited to American Judaism. As Christians and Jews become dissatisfied with established denominations, “a diversity of options” develops, he said.

In the case of Judaism, among other changes, small groups called havurot have formed into religious, quasi-extended families; some Orthodox movements have taken hold among young professionals; homosexual-oriented synagogues have appeared, and once radically progressive Reform temples have reintroduced skullcaps, prayer shawls and Hebrew readings in services.

At the same time, surveys indicate, the majority of Jews are limiting their religious observances to a few annual or infrequent rituals, such as attending a Passover dinner, lighting candles at Hanukkah, fasting on Yom Kippur and attaching a mezuza , a parchment of biblical inscriptions, on the front-door frame of a new home.

Compared to two decades ago, studies show, “lower percentages of Jews attend synagogues with any regularity, keep kosher (diets) or light Sabbath candles weekly,” Wertheimer wrote.

The historian, who is also a rabbi in Judaism’s centrist Conservative branch, indirectly raised the question of whether the religiosity of the 1950s and 1960s was atypical.

Striving for Acceptance

Before the 1940s, being “Jewish” in America did not call for joining a synagogue, Wertheimer said. It primarily meant to associate with other Jews while striving to become fully accepted as Americans, he said.

With the scattering to suburbs in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Jews could maintain Jewish ties by joining synagogues while simultaneously participating “in the larger revival of institutional religion that characterized mid-century America,” Wertheimer said.

Wertheimer said academic colleagues have given insufficient attention to the influence of World War II military service on second-generation American Jews, whose heritage was largely East European Orthodoxy.

“When Jewish veterans returned from the war,” Wertheimer said, “they were eager to participate in the same kind of Americanized religious services that they had encountered in military chapels--services led by an American-trained rabbi, who worked with a liturgy that incorporated both traditional and English readings.”

Upon starting new synagogues in the suburbs, many Jews saw the moderate Conservative branch as a suitable compromise between the extremes of strict Orthodoxy and the liberal Reform movement, he said. In a key departure from Orthodoxy, Conservative leaders ruled in the 1950s that it was permissible to drive to a synagogue on the Sabbath. The approximately 350 synagogues affiliated with the Conservative wing in 1945 rose to 800 by 1965.

Defining the Center

But the Conservative rabbinate and the synagogues have struggled to hold and define the center during the changes of the last two decades, Wertheimer noted.

The biggest culprit, most Jewish leaders say, is mixed marriage, or “intermarriage” in the parlance of Judaism.

“Intermarriage has exploded on the American Jewish scene since the mid-1960s, rapidly rising in incidence to the point where as many as two out of five Jews who wed marry a partner who was not born Jewish,” Wertheimer observed. He called the rates “ominous.”

Sometimes when the non-Jewish partner converts to Judaism, both husband and wife practice enthusiastically. But the odds tend to be weighted, many rabbis say, toward couples striking religious compromises and treating each faith superficially.

Since the mid-1960s, Judaism and Christianity alike have been faced by the challenges of the sexual revolution, the civil rights movement, the rise of feminism and, lately, a combined political and religious swing to the right in American life.

Beyond the impact of this country’s social turmoil, Jewish communities have either been drawn together or pulled apart by crises in Israel.

Virtual Transformation

As times have changed, religious leaders have tried to change with them. “Articulate and vocal Jews have virtually transformed American Judaism during the past two decades,” Wertheimer said, and the most dynamic moves have taken place at opposite ends of the Judaic spectrum.

One obvious change was the unprecedented ordinations of women rabbis by the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist organizations. The Conservative movement has come close to joining the Reform and Reconstructionist denominations in approving women cantors as well.

Although most descriptions of American Judaism routinely speak of three major branches, Wertheimer gives the Reconstructionists equal treatment as a significant fourth denomination.

Reconstructionism, espoused by the late Prof. Mordecai Kaplan of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, was an influential philosophy emphasizing Jewish communal life and critical of supernatural beliefs. After Kaplan retired in 1963, his followers formed it into a denomination with affiliated congregations.

“They make up only about 2% of American Jewry,” Wertheimer conceded in an interview. “But Reconstructionists claim to be a fourth body and they’ve established their infrastructure, including a rabbinical college. I also think the challenge they pose to the other movements is noteworthy.”

His Observations

Wertheimer also had observations on the big three groupings in U.S. Judaism:

REFORM--”Whereas Reform was formerly a movement that on principle said ‘no’ to some aspects of the Jewish tradition, it is now . . . open to all Jewish possibilities, whether traditional or innovative. . . . In the past two decades, Reform has transformed itself from an insecure movement, uncertain of its agenda and viability, into a self-assured movement convinced that it represents for most Jews the authentically American expression of Judaism.”

CONSERVATIVE--”The Conservative movement, as the party of the center, has found itself caught in a cross fire between two increasingly antagonistic foes, and hard pressed to justify its centrism.” A joint ideological statement issued in 1988 speaks of the “indispensability” of Jewish law but Conservative Judaism “distances itself from Orthodoxy” by declaring that Jewish law undergoes “development” through history. It “affirms the right of Conservative religious authorities to act independently to interpret and adjust Jewish law.”

ORTHODOX--”To a greater extent than any other denomination, Orthodoxy has been able to project itself as a movement attractive to young people. . . . (It) has been the beneficiary of much media coverage and has learned to encourage and shape it in a positive direction. . . . Both the emergence of a stronger Orthodoxy and the movement’s shift to the right have reshaped relations between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews.” Once the poorest, least-worldly segment of Jewish communities, a new affluence among its members has enabled Orthodox Jews “to insulate themselves more effectively from the rest of the Jewish community.”

THE SPECTRUM OF U.S. JUDAISM Conservative: 34% Reform: 29% Orthodox: 9% Reconstructionist: 2% “Just Jewish” / other: 26% SOURCE: 1989 American Jewish Year Book