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The Jewish people in the first decade of the third millennium: Nearly 3,000 years after the first Jews were expelled from their land, the majority of the Chosen People don't live in the land, as a matter of choice. There are 13.3 million Jews in the world today in approximately 100 countries around the world. Only 41% of Jews today live in Israel. A very similar number lives in the United States (40%). Estimates indicate, however, that in another two decades, the balance of power will have shifted and the Jewish center of gravity will be in Israel. It is expected that by then, half of the Jews of the world will be living here.
At the end of the first decade of the third millennium, the Jews of the Diaspora are not similar to the Jews of the Babylonian exile who wept when they remembered Zion. Nowadays, they weep more easily over the latest American television drama series. And it is likely that the modern Jew watched that drama with his non-Jewish spouse, in light of the constantly rising rates of assimilation since the beginning of the 20th century. At the same time, their identification with the Holy Land continues to decline.
Jewish education in Russia (Photo: Israel Bardugo)
What these opposite diagrams show is communities unraveling at the margins and an identity that is not necessarily tied to its Jewish DNA, but rather more so to the realities in which the communities live. Their future ties to Judaism and the State of Israel are more linked by the political situation than by their personal identities.
How many are assimilating and where?
"In every country of the world, the rate of intermarriage by Jews is on the upswing," Prof. Sergio della Pergola, an expert on the demography of the world's Jewish communities, who holds the Shlomo Argov chair on Israel-Diaspora Relations at Hebrew University, explains to YNET. "At the same time, there are significant differences among Jewish communities in various countries. Today, the highest rate of intermarriage is in the republics of the former Soviet Union, where more than 75% of the Jews are marrying non-Jews. In the United States the figures are close to 55%, in France and Britain more than 40%, in Canada about 35%, in Australia about 25%, and in Mexico perhaps 10%.
"An important explanation for these differences is found on the one hand in the strength of Jewish identity with which they are instilled through the Jewish educational system, among other means, and on the other hand, the extent of integration of ethnic groups in the majority society of the country. Between these two explanations, there is no doubt that the openness of the majority society, in which, from the Jewish standpoint, there are aspirations for integration and societal advancement, involve a not insubstantial sacrifice of unique characteristics in their own way of life. They ultimately also involve sacrifices regarding their basic system of values. One shouldn't get swept up in generalities, however. The Jewish public is comprised of various strata which represent a whole spectrum from those who preserve the unique Jewish system of behavior and faith and, on the other extreme, those who have no interest in belonging to the strand of memory, culture and history of their ancestors."
Jewish Agency emissaries in South Africa.
At a meeting more than a year ago of the Herzliya Conference [an annual Israeli policy conference], Prof. Yehezkel Dror, president of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, warned about the growing disconnect between Diaspora Jews and Jews in Israel. He argued that the experience and significance of being Jewish in Israel is very different from that in the Diaspora. He called for radical changes, including changes in accepted assumptions, such as the view of Israel as the state at the center of the Jewish people and Jerusalem as its capital.
Spot the Differences
Despite the generalities about a remoteness of sorts on the part of Diaspora Jewry towards the State of Israel, it must be understood that the picture is complex. On one hand, there are those who warn of increasing distance between the two. On the other hand, there are many agencies working to preserve the connection between the two communities. Religious and social organizations from Israel and the United States are energetically working to keep the Jewish flame burning and the result is that communities that preserve the link with the Jewish people and Israel lose their distinctiveness from one another.
Conference of Jewish Communities in the U.S. (Photo: Diana Zinkler)
"In the Diaspora there is a notable process of emulation among communities," explains Della Pergola, "while in the past there were considerable differences among Jews in various countries, now those differences are gradually disappearing. An organization such as Chabad is everywhere now. The influence in Eastern Europe and Latin America of the Joint Distribution Committee and the Conservative and Reform movements is also significant and at the same time the presence of Shas [an Israeli Sephardic political movement], the Jewish Agency and other Israeli organizations is also significant. In Western Europe, too, despite the desire for an independent Jewish organizational identity within the European Union, the organizations that are most influential on the character of substantive day-to-day Jewish opportunities have roots primarily in America and Israel."
In any event, such a phenomenon may ensure that communal evolution will not bring about the disappearance of Jewish communities, even if they decline
"Usually there is no such phenomenon as 'Jewish community disappearance,' absent the emigration of all of its members, as happened in well-known instances throughout history, including the 20th century. There are isolated instances of small communities that disappeared, when the last of its members died. The presence of Jews in various countries is a reflection of history, meaning the presence of Jews in that place to one extent or another in the past, which to the most significant extent is influenced by social, economic and political factors that create positive or negative conditions for collective Jewish life.
"Jews are usually members of a highly educated community requiring a livelihood in the context of an appropriate personal and institutional framework. That explains why the vast majority of Jews today are found in 38 of the most developed of the approximately 200 countries in the world, including Israel, which is in 23rd place. Changes in the infrastructure of the countries have and will bring about changes in the Jewish geographic map of the world."
Practically speaking, the Jewish people, which has survived a considerable number of political upheavals, is still dependent on those developments
"A very significant part of the Jewish future is dependent upon macro-political factors, including developments in the Middle East. It's clear that there will also be implications connected to the culture clash which has surfaced involving the United States, other segments of the Western world, fundamentalist Islam, and other emerging powers, particularly in Asia, such as China and India. Practically speaking, the question of Diaspora Jewry is very much dependent upon social and political conditions in the countries in which the Jews are living. If conditions are tranquil, the tendency to emulate the local population will increase. If, however, there are pressures from outside, such as have occurred in recent years in France, Jewish identity will become stronger.
"At the same time, the relative portion that the State of Israel constitutes of all of the Jewish people will continue to increase as a result of demographic developments, but concurrently the portion of the Israeli population that is Jewish is declining as a result of the same developments. Those permutations will to a great extent determine Israeli society's position in the world and its Jewish character. A fair solution will have to be found to the problem of the status (and conversion) of more than 300,000 immigrants to Israel who are not registered as Jewish. Their civil marriage to other Jewish Israelis is today considered, at least from a technical standpoint, as intermarriage and their percentages will continue to increase in the future, including a situation in which there is a revival of immigration to Israel, which is currently low. The reality of the Jewish world at the end of the first decade [of the 21st century] requires in-depth consideration. Policymakers must grapple with developments that are not simple and that will have an influence on the future of Jews in Israel and the world."
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