Viewing entries tagged
America

Where do we fit?

"Are Jews White?" - The Atlantic takes on the question of what a post-election America with people like Stephen Bannon in high offices will look like for the Jewish community.

From the article:

These are rough sketches of two camps, concentrated at the margins of U.S. political culture. On the extreme right, Jews are seen as impure—a faux-white race that has tainted America. And on the extreme left, Jews are seen as part of a white-majority establishment that seeks to dominate people of color. Taken together, these attacks raise an interesting question: Are Jews white?

“Jewish identity in American is inherently paradoxical and contradictory,” said Eric Goldstein, an associate professor of history at Emory University. “What you have is a group that was historically considered, and considered itself, an outsider group, a persecuted minority. In the space of two generations, they’ve become one of the most successful, integrated groups in American society—by many accounts, part of the establishment. And there’s a lot of dissonance between those two positions.” 

Read the full discussion here: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/are-jews-white/509453/

Reform Jews in America

After the Pew Center's 2013 study of American Jewry, the Times of Israel published an interesting fact sheet about Reform Jews in America. I underwent a Reform conversion before my Orthodox conversion, and my husband is Jewish, so numbers about intermarriage and conversion tend to interest me. Here are some points I wanted to share:

One in three American Jews identifies as Reform; the movement constitutes America’s largest Jewish religious denomination.

Half of all married Reform Jews have non-Jewish spouses. The movement has moved away from discouraging intermarriage and has focused instead on welcoming intermarried families.

Every year, at least 800-900 people undergo Reform conversions to Judaism.

9 percent of all Reform Jews were raised as non-Jews.

About 10,000 campers attend the Reform movement’s 15 summer camps!

About half of new Reform rabbis are women! The gender breakdown of newly ordained Reform rabbis is about 50-50 these days, according to HUC. 

Read the article in the Times of Israel here: http://www.timesofisrael.com/9-things-to-know-about-reform-jews/