CONTACTSPRING 2003/IYAR 5763 VOLUME 5 NUMBER 3 THE JOURNAL OF JEWISH LIFE NETWORK /

American Jewish Demographics:Decline and Response

SPRING 2003 3

In 1990, the National Jewish PopulationSurvey revealed, among other things,that American Jews were intermarryingat a rate that was possibly as high as 52

percent. Galvanized by the survey, Ameri-can Jewish organizations initiated a seriesof outreach programs that revolvedaround the catch words “continuity” and“renaissance.” Today, with the publicationof the new NJPS, we have an invaluablenew tool to measure the level of Jewishidentity and affiliation in America.

Initial results suggest both a decline inthe size of the core component of thepopulation and a greater diversity of iden-tification with the Jewish community. TheAmerican Jewish population has shrunksomewhat from 5.5 million in 1990 eventhough, during the same period, tens ofthousands of Jews from the former SovietUnion immigrated to the USA. In addi-

tion, the 2000 NJPS revealed that Jewishwomen approaching the end of theirchildbearing years currently have an aver-age of 1.8 children, not enough to ensuregrowth. While no data are yet availablefor intermarriage, the trend is unlikely todecline sufficiently to reduce concernsabout this important factor in decliningJewish populations.

The Jewish community will nodoubt be galvanized by the new NJPS tofind new ways to stem its demographicerosion. From a socio-demographic per-spective I have identified two key issuesthat will contribute to understanding theareas of concern for Jewish institutionsand that will assist in the inevitable andongoing debate about strategies focusedon Jewish identity and continuity.

Defining the Parameters of the PopulationMy father was born in a small village inLithuania. At one seder I asked, “howmany did you have around the seder

The Changing Jewish Population:

IdentityandStructureby VIVIAN KLAFF

Dr. Vivian Klaff is Professor in the Department of

Sociology and Director of the Center for Jewish Stud-

ies at the University of Delaware.

Initial results suggestboth a decline in the sizeof the core component of

the population and agreater diversity of

identification with theJewish community.

American Jewish Demographics: Decline and Response

Many experts have argued recently that Jewish population statistics reveal a

community in the midst of stagnation or decline. Although studies vary

depending on methodology and definitions of Jewishness, the soon-to-be

released National Jewish Population Survey lends support to the view that

our population has been shrinking since 1990. This would be the first population

decline in American Jewish history. If we are to equate demographic strength with

spiritual and cultural vibrancy, the American Jewish community is facing daunting

challenges to its oft-stated goals of renaissance.

There are those who affirm that the Jewish community is becoming “leaner and

meaner” – smaller in number but more vigorous in intensity, as is indicated by the

increasing numbers of day schools and Jewish studies programs on campus. However,

by other criteria – for instance, the levels of Jewish philanthropic giving – Jews no

longer seem to perceive their identity through a chiefly Jewish lens. In this issue of

CONTACT, we examine the question of decline as well as the myriad ways of assessing

the nature and vitality of the Jewish community. We also begin to explore programs

that might increase not only our numbers, but the strength and intensity of American

Jewish life.

Some would argue that the decline in the American Jewish population indicates

the failure of programs created in the last ten years to shore up Jewish identity. Others

assert that Jews, having entered the American mainstream, have adjusted their

birthrates to levels typical of other middle- to upper-class communities. Gone are the

days when women were expected to stay home and raise many children. Indeed,

among an increasing number of young, non-Orthodox Jews, fertility rates are not

seen as any kind of barometer of one’s Jewish commitment or identity. As we strive

for ways to revitalize American Jewry, we should keep in mind that for much of the

community, the content of our religion and culture is more important than the quan-

tity of our population.

Finally, there is the crucial issue of economics. Contemporary families are increas-

ingly led by two working parents who find it logistically and financially difficult to

raise several children. As a result of this and other socio-cultural factors, couples

throughout the developed world are having fewer children. The World Health Organi-

zation recently revealed that fertility rates throughout Western Europe were insuffi-

cient to sustain population growth. Many Jewish couples would like to have large

families, but the costs are simply prohibitive. Add to this the formidable costs of

intensive Jewish educational programs, and it is no wonder that even among Jew-

ishly-committed couples, many young parents are choosing to have small families.

For this reason, if the community is serious about strengthening American Jewry in

numbers and in spirit, now is the time to create a universal system of free or low-cost

Jewish early childhood education.

Eli Valley

2 CONTACT

contactSPRING 2003/IYAR 5763 VOLUME 5 NUMBER 3

JEWISH LIFE NETWORK /

Eli Valley Editor

Erica ColemanCopy Editor

Janet Mann Administration

Yakov WisniewskiDesign Director

J E W I S H L I F E N E T W O R KS T E I N H A R D T F O U N D A T I O N

Michael H. SteinhardtChairman

Rabbi Irving GreenbergPresident

Rabbi David Gedzelman Executive Director

Jonathan J. Greenberg z”lFounding Director

CONTACT is produced and distributed by Jewish Life Network/ Steinhardt Foundation, 6 East 39thStreet, 10th floor, New York, NY 10016.

Phone: (212) 279-2288Fax: (212) 279-1155Email: info@jewishlife.org

Copyright © 2003 by Jewish Life Network.

Jewish Life Network is dedicated tostrengthening and transforming Ameri-can Jewry to ensure a flourishing, sus-tainable community in a fully integratedfree society. We seek to revitalize Jewishidentity through educational, religiousand cultural initiatives that are designedto reach out to all Jews, with an empha-sis on those who are on the margins ofJewish life.

Photographs in this issue appear courtesy of ArtToday.com, Photos.com, and Ilene Vogelstein.

SPRING 2003 3

In 1990, the National Jewish PopulationSurvey revealed, among other things,that American Jews were intermarryingat a rate that was possibly as high as 52

percent. Galvanized by the survey, Ameri-can Jewish organizations initiated a seriesof outreach programs that revolvedaround the catch words “continuity” and“renaissance.” Today, with the publicationof the new NJPS, we have an invaluablenew tool to measure the level of Jewishidentity and affiliation in America.

Initial results suggest both a decline inthe size of the core component of thepopulation and a greater diversity of iden-tification with the Jewish community. TheAmerican Jewish population has shrunksomewhat from 5.5 million in 1990 eventhough, during the same period, tens ofthousands of Jews from the former SovietUnion immigrated to the USA. In addi-

tion, the 2000 NJPS revealed that Jewishwomen approaching the end of theirchildbearing years currently have an aver-age of 1.8 children, not enough to ensuregrowth. While no data are yet availablefor intermarriage, the trend is unlikely todecline sufficiently to reduce concernsabout this important factor in decliningJewish populations.

The Jewish community will nodoubt be galvanized by the new NJPS tofind new ways to stem its demographicerosion. From a socio-demographic per-spective I have identified two key issuesthat will contribute to understanding theareas of concern for Jewish institutionsand that will assist in the inevitable andongoing debate about strategies focusedon Jewish identity and continuity.

Defining the Parameters of the PopulationMy father was born in a small village inLithuania. At one seder I asked, “howmany did you have around the seder

The Changing Jewish Population:

IdentityandStructureby VIVIAN KLAFF

Dr. Vivian Klaff is Professor in the Department of

Sociology and Director of the Center for Jewish Stud-

ies at the University of Delaware.

Initial results suggestboth a decline in the sizeof the core component of

the population and agreater diversity of

identification with theJewish community.

American Jewish Demographics: Decline and Response

Many experts have argued recently that Jewish population statistics reveal a

community in the midst of stagnation or decline. Although studies vary

depending on methodology and definitions of Jewishness, the soon-to-be

released National Jewish Population Survey lends support to the view that

our population has been shrinking since 1990. This would be the first population

decline in American Jewish history. If we are to equate demographic strength with

spiritual and cultural vibrancy, the American Jewish community is facing daunting

challenges to its oft-stated goals of renaissance.

There are those who affirm that the Jewish community is becoming “leaner and

meaner” – smaller in number but more vigorous in intensity, as is indicated by the

increasing numbers of day schools and Jewish studies programs on campus. However,

by other criteria – for instance, the levels of Jewish philanthropic giving – Jews no

longer seem to perceive their identity through a chiefly Jewish lens. In this issue of

CONTACT, we examine the question of decline as well as the myriad ways of assessing

the nature and vitality of the Jewish community. We also begin to explore programs

that might increase not only our numbers, but the strength and intensity of American

Jewish life.

Some would argue that the decline in the American Jewish population indicates

the failure of programs created in the last ten years to shore up Jewish identity. Others

assert that Jews, having entered the American mainstream, have adjusted their

birthrates to levels typical of other middle- to upper-class communities. Gone are the

days when women were expected to stay home and raise many children. Indeed,

among an increasing number of young, non-Orthodox Jews, fertility rates are not

seen as any kind of barometer of one’s Jewish commitment or identity. As we strive

for ways to revitalize American Jewry, we should keep in mind that for much of the

community, the content of our religion and culture is more important than the quan-

tity of our population.

Finally, there is the crucial issue of economics. Contemporary families are increas-

ingly led by two working parents who find it logistically and financially difficult to

raise several children. As a result of this and other socio-cultural factors, couples

throughout the developed world are having fewer children. The World Health Organi-

zation recently revealed that fertility rates throughout Western Europe were insuffi-

cient to sustain population growth. Many Jewish couples would like to have large

families, but the costs are simply prohibitive. Add to this the formidable costs of

intensive Jewish educational programs, and it is no wonder that even among Jew-

ishly-committed couples, many young parents are choosing to have small families.

For this reason, if the community is serious about strengthening American Jewry in

numbers and in spirit, now is the time to create a universal system of free or low-cost

Jewish early childhood education.

Eli Valley

2 CONTACT

contactSPRING 2003/IYAR 5763 VOLUME 5 NUMBER 3

JEWISH LIFE NETWORK /

Eli Valley Editor

Erica ColemanCopy Editor

Janet Mann Administration

Yakov WisniewskiDesign Director

J E W I S H L I F E N E T W O R KS T E I N H A R D T F O U N D A T I O N

Michael H. SteinhardtChairman

Rabbi Irving GreenbergPresident

Rabbi David Gedzelman Executive Director

Jonathan J. Greenberg z”lFounding Director

CONTACT is produced and distributed by Jewish Life Network/ Steinhardt Foundation, 6 East 39thStreet, 10th floor, New York, NY 10016.

Phone: (212) 279-2288Fax: (212) 279-1155Email: info@jewishlife.org

Copyright © 2003 by Jewish Life Network.

Jewish Life Network is dedicated tostrengthening and transforming Ameri-can Jewry to ensure a flourishing, sus-tainable community in a fully integratedfree society. We seek to revitalize Jewishidentity through educational, religiousand cultural initiatives that are designedto reach out to all Jews, with an empha-sis on those who are on the margins ofJewish life.

Photographs in this issue appear courtesy of ArtToday.com, Photos.com, and Ilene Vogelstein.

6 CONTACT

intermarriage rates. In South PalmBeach, for example, 69 percent of theJewish population is age 65 and over andthe intermarriage rate in this age group isminimal. In Westport, where 31 percentof the population is age 17 and under,the intermarriage rate is 33 percent. But,even looking at the youngest age cohort(couples under age 35), significant varia-tions exist in intermarriage. In placeslike Miami and Bergen County, NJ,which have institutional structures thatattract “serious” younger Jews and wherea reasonably high percentage of the pop-ulation is Jewish (making it easier foryoung Jews to find and marry otheryoung Jews), the intermarriage rate forcouples under age 35 is 18 percent and25 percent, respectively. Similar rates are93 percent for Tidewater (Norfolk/Vir-ginia Beach), and 74 percent for York,PA, where the institutional structures arenot as strong and the percentages of Jewsin these communities are very low.

Donations to Jewish Charities in thePast Year. The percentage of householdswho donated to Jewish charities in thepast year varies between 49 percent inDenver, CO, and 83 percent in AtlanticCounty. Charitable donations to JewishFederations, synagogues and other Jew-ish organizations are, along with volun-teerism, the “fuel” that allows a Jewishcommunity to function. Thus, this meas-ure not only reflects differing levels of“Jewishness” in different communities,but also affects the ability of communi-ties to serve their religious, cultural, edu-cational and social service needs.

As another example of the differ-ences in the extent to which Jewish con-tinuity is an issue, it is useful to contrastBergen County, NJ and Tucson, AZ. Fiftypercent of Jewish households in BergenCounty are synagogue members, com-pared to 32 percent in Tucson. Twenty-nine percent of adults in Bergen Countyattend synagogue services once a month

or more, compared to 21 percent in Tuc-son. Thirty-two percent of households inBergen County always or usually lightSabbath candles, compared to 17 percentin Tucson. Seventeen percent of marriedcouples in Bergen County are intermar-ried, compared to 46 percent in Tucson.Seventy-one percent of households inBergen County donated to Jewish chari-ties in the past year, compared to 56 per-cent in Tucson. Clearly, issues of Jewishcontinuity are more critical in Tucsonthan they are in Bergen County.

While we do not have the space hereto examine demographic differencesamong communities, suffice it to say thatsignificant differences exist among com-munities in such factors as age, householdstructure, household income and lengthof residence in the local community.

So, what does this mean? First, theseresults indicate that some communitiesneed more emphasis on Jewish identity-enrichment programs than others. Insome places, Jewish Federations andother organizations need to face theissue of reducing funding for social serv-ice needs in order to increase fundingfor Jewish revitalization. A place likeTucson needs to seriously address itsemphasis on Jewish continuity and mayneed to begin diverting money from tra-ditional funding areas to meet its Jewishcontinuity needs.

Second, these results mean that, indesigning programming to renew Jewishcommitment and strengthen identity,one size does not fit all. Programmingmust be designed with differences indemographics in mind. Programs thatmay be effective in one community mayfail in another. In South Florida, increas-ing synagogue membership means con-vincing elderly migrants (who havestrong Jewish identities) that synagoguesneed to be a part of their life in theirnew community. In Tucson, increasingsynagogue membership means convinc-ing young couples that being Jewish isbeneficial to their lives.

Thus, while national studies providesignificant guidance concerning Jewishidentity issues and have resulted inimportant programmatic developments,most programs to increase Jewishinvolvement will be undertaken by Jew-ish Federations, synagogues and otherlocal Jewish organizations and must bedesigned with local community charac-teristics in mind.

Worcester 1986 60%Tidewater 2001 58%Essex-Morris 1998 56%St. Louis 1995 56%Rochester 1999 54%Hartford 2000 53%Baltimore 1999 52%Cleveland 1996 52%Detroit 1989 52%Dallas 1988 52%Atlantic County 1985 52%Houston 1986 51%Bergen 2001 50%Columbus 2001 50%Palm Springs 1998 49%Charlotte 1997 49%Harrisburg 1994 49%

Monmouth 1997 48%Milwaukee 1996 48%Toronto 1990 48%Boston 1995 47%Westport 2000 46%Wilmington 1995 46%Sarasota 2001 45%York 1999 45%Richmond 1994 45%Chicago 1990 44%Rhode Island 2002 43%St. Petersburg 1994 40%New York 1991 39%Washington, D.C. 1983 39%West Palm Beach 1999 37%Denver 1997 37%Philadelphia 1997 37%

Atlanta 1996 37%Miami 1994 37%Martin-St. Lucie 1999 36%South Palm Beach 1995 36%Los Angeles 1997 34%Buffalo 1995 34%Las Vegas 1995 34%Orlando 1993 34%SF Bay Area 1986 33%Phoenix 1983 33%Tucson 2002 32%Phoenix 2002 29%Broward 1997 27%South Broward 1990 27%Seattle 2000 21%

Tidewater 2001 93%York 1999 74%Las Vegas 1995 72%Richmond 1994 63%West Palm Beach 1999 61%Denver 1997 60%Orlando 1993 58%Broward 1997 57%Sarasota 2001 56%Wilmington 1995 54%

Palm Springs 1998 53%Martin-St. Lucie 1999 52%Atlanta 1996 51%Harrisburg 1994 51%Westport 2000 50%St. Petersburg 1994 47%Tucson 2002 44%Charlotte 1997 43%Hartford 2000 43%Rhode Island 2002 40%

Milwaukee 1996 36%Rochester 1999 36%Monmouth 1997 32%Philadelphia 1997 30%South Broward 1990 29%South Palm Beach 1995 29%Bergen 2001 25%Miami 1994 18%Atlantic County 1985 15%

For a full list of communities and results from these studies presented in 124 tables, see Sheskin, Ira M. How Jewish Communities Differ: Variations in the Findings of Local Jewish Demographic Studies (2001) (New York: City University ofNew York, North American Jewish Data Bank). Available from www.jewishdatabank.com.

TTAABBLLEE 11.. CCUURRRREENNTT SSYYNNAAGGOOGGUUEE MMEEMMBBEERRSSHHIIPP Base: Jewish Households

TTAABBLLEE 22.. CCOOUUPPLLEESS IINNTTEERRMMAARRRRIIAAGGEE RRAATTEE BBYY AAGGEE OOFF HHEEAADD OOFF HHOOUUSSEEHHOOLLDD Base: Married Couples Under Age 35 in Jewish Households

SPRING 2003 7

By all accounts, American Jews con-tinue to be philanthropicallyinclined. Although authoritativefigures on giving do not exist, the

evidence of Jewish generosity is every-where. The public record, in the form of990 tax filings, indicates a stunningincrease in recent years in the numbersof family foundations established bypeople with Jewish-sounding names andwith some record of giving to Jewishcauses. On the mass level, surveyresearch in 1990 found that approxi-mately two-thirds of all American Jewsclaim to have made a charitable contri-bution during the previous year. Andthen there is the intriguing item, in arecent article on American politicaldonations, that some 1.8 million Jewsappear on lists of potential donors topolitical campaigns, a staggering figurefor a population numbering some five

and a half million souls. It has been esti-mated, too, that in the 1990 presidentialcampaign, over 20 percent of moneyraised by the Gore-Lieberman campaigncame from Jews, and millions moreswelled the coffers of Bush-Cheney —all this from a population that consti-tuted no more than 4 percent of votersin the national election.

There is also ample evidence of con-tinued giving to Jewish causes. In 2001,the federations of Jewish philanthropy inthe United States raised over $850 mil-lion in their regular campaigns, whilesimultaneously adding over a billion dol-lars to their endowment funds and col-lecting hundreds of millions of dollars inan emergency campaign for Israel. All thewhile, other Jewish institutions continueto attract significant funding to supportcapital and operating expenditures forJewish schools, synagogues, Jewish com-munity centers, summer camps, socialwelfare agencies, cultural institutions andarts programs, and defense organizations.In addition, American Jewish largess eas-

Dr. Jack Wertheimer is Provost and Professor of

American Jewish History at the Jewish Theological

Seminary.

A Matter of Prioritiesand Proportions

BY JACK WERTHEIMER

It is hard to escape theconclusion that moneyis hemorrhaging from

the Jewish communityand flowing to causes

that do not benefitJewish life directly.

JewishGivingToday:

8 CONTACT

ily accounts for a billion dollars a yearthat flows to Jewish institutions abroad,especially in Israel. In the mid-1990s,some 4.2 to 4.4 billion dollars were raisedannually by the American Jewish com-munity, a figure that has grown apace inthe past few years.

Although these and other data sug-gest the continuing “miracle of Jewishgiving” (as Fortune magazine once put it),a number of worrisome trends haveemerged in recent years. One is the pre-cipitous drop in the sheer number of giftsto Jewish causes. The donor base of thefederations has plummeted in the pastthree decades by almost one third, result-ing in a net loss of some 300,000 gifts.(Many organizations, including federa-tions of Jewish philanthropy, claim thedecline in numbers of gifts reflects adeliberate decision not to invest in raisingmoney from small givers, since too littleis raised to warrant such an investment.)Overall, only 51 percent of Jews surveyedin 1990 claimed they had given to anyJewish cause during the previous year.

Moreover, the size of gifts to Jewishcauses is quite low. The National JewishPopulation Survey of 1990 found thatonly 11 percent of Jews donated $1000or more to Jewish causes annually. Amore recent survey conducted in 2001 inthe Connecticut Jewish communities ofWestport, Weston, Wilton and Norwalkdramatizes the nature of the problem: themedian income of Jewish households inthese cities came to $132,000—perhapshigher than in any other Jewish commu-nity. Whereas 87 percent claimed to havemade a charitable donation that year,only 37 percent gave to the federation —and only 3 percent contributed $1000 ormore. The consequence of such givingpatterns has been that Jewish institutionsrely ever more on gifts from big givers tomake up for the decline in the numberand size of smaller gifts.

And what are the trends among biggivers? Simply put, big donors directmost of their largess to causes that arenot directly connected to the health andvitality of Jewish life. In a 2000 study Iundertook in cooperation with the nas-cent United Jewish Communities, welooked at the 990 tax filings of 232 familyfoundations that had sufficient meansand interest to donate minimally$200,000 in 1998 to a Jewish cause,thereby eliminating from considerationthe many foundations that gave less ornothing to Jewish institutions. Collec-tively, these foundations gave nearly two-thirds of their allocations to non-sectariancauses. In dollar terms, these foundationsallocated $773 million in grants, of whichJewish causes received $274 million. It ishard to escape the conclusion that moneyis hemorrhaging from the Jewish commu-nity and flowing to causes that do notbenefit Jewish life directly.

The reasons for this trend are complex.Some of it has to do with the decline ofdiscrimination against Jews in elite circles:High status institutions, such as museums,symphony orchestras, universities andhospitals that had once kept Jews off theirboards or had severely limited their num-bers, began to court Jewish philanthro-pists. In addition, much of the shiftconcerns a change in the psychology ofJewish giving: many Jews simply do notidentify with the Jewish community, aprocess fueled by spiraling rates of inter-marriage and by a drift away from Jewishneighborhoods, friends, ritual observanceand identification with both Israel and theJewish people on the part of successorgenerations that manage the fortunes ofwhat were once Jewish family foundations.And then there is the growing convictionamong many well-to-do donors that needsin the Jewish community pale in compari-son with other worthy causes: it is onething to aid Jews victimized by anti-Semi-tism or impoverished by misfortune; it isanother to support institutions — dayschools, summer camps, synagogues, edu-cational and cultural centers — that bene-fit the middle class individuals who formthe preponderant majority of the Ameri-can Jewish community.

Finally, many Jews are cutting back ontheir gifts to Jewish causes because theybelieve that all worthy causes fulfill theobligation of Jewish giving. Jewish teach-ings have been so stripped of their specificcontent that many Jews see no difference

between support for universal causes andspecifically Jewish ones. All are subsumedunder the catch-phrase Tikkun Olam(improving the world), and therefore allmust be Jewish causes, no matter how dis-tant they are from making a direct impacton the health and vitality of Jewish life.

What is to be done? It is hard to besanguine about reversing these deeplyentrenched habits of thinking, but if weare to convince more Jews to give toJewish causes, we must embark on aneducational program that includes thefollowing messages:

1 Jewish philanthropy today is not onlyabout giving to the needy, but about

supporting a vital Jewish communitythat can enrich the lives of all Jews, thepoor and the rich, the Jewishly well-edu-cated and the Jewishly ignorant. Jewishphilanthropy today is about us livinghere in America, not some far-off themliving in distant lands.

2 Judaism is not only about beinggood, but about doing the right thing

from the perspective of Jewish valuesand teachings. Not every cause thatmeans well is a Jewish cause. Jewishteachings have a particular understand-ing of what is good — and quite a fewcauses that seem worthy are antitheticalto Jewish teachings.

3 If we truly believe that Jewish valuesinform our giving, why would we not

support those educational institutionsthat will shape the next generation ofJewish givers? If we feel that Judaism isthe wellspring that nurtures Jewish giv-ing, we are obligated to maintain thatfountainhead so that there will be Jewishfunders in the future.

4 There is nothing wrong with Jewscontributing to the improvement of

the world. Indeed, it is perfectly under-standable why Jews should seek to playsuch a role. But it is irresponsible whenthese same Jews short-change Jewishinstitutions.

The challenge to Jewish giving todaycomes down to a matter of balance. Whenat least two thirds of Jewish philanthropyflows to causes outside of the community— and when important institutions arestarved for funds — the proportions andpriorities are all wrong. We need to beginreeducating our donors so that theybehave as informed Jewish givers.

Many Jews are cutting backon their gifts to Jewish causesbecause they believe that allworthy causes fulfill theobligation of Jewish giving.

SPRING 2003 9

The news should have set off a CodeOrange for Jewish organizations. InOctober 2002, preliminary data fromthe 2000 National Jewish Population

Survey revealed that, for the first time inAmerican Jewish history, our populationnumbers had gone down over the courseof a decade. In 1990 we were 5.5 million,and in 2000 we were 5.2 million. Somescholars have disputed these numbers,indicating that rather than falling, the pop-ulation has stagnated. Even if this is thecase, it does not explain away the fact thatthe Jewish community is not growing. Allwould agree that Jews in America (andthroughout the Diaspora) are demographi-cally endangered. In addition to the usualsuspects of assimilation and intermarriage,the survey revealed that Jews in Americaare getting married later and having fewerchildren — so few that we are experienc-ing negative population growth. Had it not

been for the immigration of hundreds ofthousands of Jews from the former SovietUnion, and, alas, tens of thousands ofIsraelis as well, the population drop wouldhave been even more precipitous.

The communal decline is especiallypronounced among the vast majority ofAmerican Jews who are not Orthodox.There exists a keen relationship betweenreligiosity and strong demographics amongJews. Simply put, Orthodox Jews havemuch larger families than the rest of us.Although they are a minority, the Orthodoxinflate the general population statistics forAmerican Jewry. When we remove theOrthodox from the statistical equation, thepicture becomes that much bleaker forthose American Jews who are most at risk.

In the wake of the study, one wouldhave hoped to find a leadership galvanizedto change. The NJPS, after all, revealedpalpable evidence of a crisis. But the com-munity largely ignored the bad news, justi-fying its complacency by disputing thestudy’s methodology. The community’s

Michael H. Steinhardt is Chairman of Jewish Life

Network/Steinhardt Foundation.

For the first time inAmerican Jewish history,

our population numbershad gone down over the

course of a decade

On the Questionof Crisis

by MICHAEL H. STEINHARDT

leadership focused instead on the bogey-man of European anti-Semitism — a sure-fire way to increase contributions, but anineffective strategy to stem the demo-graphic and cultural decay.

One possible reason for its complacencyis that the Jewish organizational world hasstopped viewing the vast majority of Ameri-can Jews as its constituency. One oftenhears the rationale that we are soon tobecome a smaller but more intensely Jewishcommunity. That may be true, but thepremise sugarcoats the central fact that weare declining. The least affiliated are invari-ably the first to disappear; given that thereare few replacements, the result, howeverameliorated, is decline. When our commu-nal outreach, mostly Orthodox-sponsored,“reaches out,” it mostly doesn’t connectbeyond the observant, near-Orthodoxminority. In the freest society in the world,why do Jewish institutions continue to beinsular? Our organizations consider theirnarrow mailing lists and donor pools as theonly turf worth fighting for. They do noth-ing to project an image of contemporaryJewish life to those who are unaffiliated orunengaged. The Mormon Church spendsmillions of dollars on savvy, polished televi-sion ads for the New York media market.The Jewish community, by contrast, doesnot present itself to the more than 90 per-cent of American Jews who do not readJewish publications and are largely cut offfrom what’s going on Jewishly. Non-Ortho-dox synagogue affiliation rates probablyreflect no more than a quarter of non-Orthodox Jewry, and although many indi-vidual synagogues are “points of light,” in

total, they too areinsufficient tochange the picture.

In this pluralis-tic age, there existmany experimentsin Jewish life, butvery few if anyhave sustainedlong-lasting appeal.In the area of out-reach and engage-ment of youngadults, Jewish LifeNetwork created agroundbreakingmodel in Makor.Opened in 1999,Makor achievedunprecedented suc-cess in reachingunaffiliated Jews in

their 20s and 30s. By integrating cultural,educational and social programming andby targeting young adults, the center dis-tinguished itself from typical Jewish pro-gramming. However, it is expensive,sophisticated and risky. Thus far, no othercommunity in the country has shown thewill — let alone the commitment andmoney — that would be necessary to repli-cate this model.

In the area of day schools, too, wemust embrace a broader strategy of out-reach. Currently, the community targetsfamilies who are already involved in syna-gogue and community life, without payingheed to the hundreds of thousands of fam-ilies who exist outside the community’sradar. The vast majority of day schoolsremain acutely religious in orientation,whereas the vast majority of AmericanJews are decidedly secular. Why are we notbuilding a network of secular day schoolsto reach out to this untapped con-stituency? The community is projectingthe message that only those Jews who areactively involved are worth educating.

In order to draw in the untapped con-stituency, we must spread our net wide, andwe must start as early in the life cycle aspossible. The Jewish organizational worldcan create meaningful connections for thefamilies of 75,000 Jewish infants born inNorth America each year with a compre-hensive system of quality preschool centers.

I would also propose a program by whichevery young family receives a gift from thecommunity at the time of childbirth. Thegift could be a down payment, for instance,on a future educational trip to Israel.

The community’s narrowminded focusis evident in the area of philanthropy aswell. Time and again, Jewish institutionsreturn to the usual suspects for funding.When it comes to cultivating non-tradi-tional philanthropic sources, the commu-nity’s efforts add up to a resoundingfailure. Although Jewish teaching stressesthe crucial importance of tzedakkah, eachpassing generation gives a greater propor-tion of its charity to non-sectarian causes.One cannot argue that we lack the funds,for the American Jewish community is thewealthiest in the history of our people.What we lack is the sense of priority. Jewsare major donors to universities, muse-ums, orchestras and hospitals, but when it

comes to the vitality of our own people,we fall short. Today, only 20 percent of ourgiving goes to Jewish causes. In the middleof the 20th century, the figure stood atabout 50 percent. Even those who give toJewish causes give smaller amounts toJewish charity than to secular causes. TheChronicle of Philanthropy recentlyannounced the largest individual philan-thropic gifts of 2002. The gifts rangedfrom $100 million to $375 million. Of theten philanthropists, six were Jewish. Not asingle one gave anything meaningful to aJewish cause. Meanwhile, without a majorinfusion of younger funders, the commu-nity of Jewish philanthropists has becomeincreasingly geriatric. Let it be clear: Wewill not change the direction of the com-munity unless there is a meaningful rise infunding directed at the Jewish world.

The 2000 NJPS revealed that the Jew-ish people are at a critical juncture. Ourcommunity is shrinking, and it will con-tinue to do so unless we rethink ourstrategies of engagement and philanthropicleadership. It is time to implement a visionof American Jewish renaissance thatengages the majority of secular, unaffili-ated American Jews who are currentlyignored by Jewish institutions. There is notime to waste. Based on our actions today,future population studies will reveal acommunity in continuing disarray — or inthe midst of renaissance.

10 CONTACT

Our community is shrinking, and it will continue to do so unless werethink our strategies of engagement and philanthropic leadership.

IIn the 1950’s, when I was studying to be an American historian, Iread a book, Men to Match My Mountains, by Irving Stone. Stone’sthesis was that the American character was shaped decisively bythe fact that the United States was a nation with unprecedented

opportunities and undeveloped land everywhere. The wide-opencountry crystallized a new personality type: the aggressive, searchinghigh-achiever who would not allow himself to be held back by status-quo thinking or social stratification. When hemmed in by entrenchedinterest, or checked by the play-it-safe community, the American set-tler would move on in order to push forward. Over time, this nationattracted the adventurous immigrants and the restless pioneers whoovercame the obstacles, climbed the mountains, cut the forests, foughtthe health and safety risks and created a dynamic, affluent and freesociety. Thus, America developed men to match its mountains.(Women also, but in the Fifties no one mentioned them.)

The American Jewish community faces unprecedented freedom andeconomic opportunity that dwarfs all past history, and a unique culturalenvironment of total openness and an exposure to every religion andalternative lifestyle. In the past, Jewish identity and values were shel-tered by the fact that communities were isolated from one another, bythe wall of anti-Semitism or discrimination, and by financial constraintswhich limited choices. The protective shelter operated, in somewhatdifferent ways, for every community and religion. Today, all retainingwalls are eroding under the challenge of choice, i.e., the access to everylifestyle, career and value system in the world. In their book One NationUnder God, Seymour P. Lachman and Barry Kosmin estimate that 25 to30 percent of Americans switch their religious affiliation denomination-ally — an extraordinary ratio by any historical measure. Jews, as aminority, are doubly vulnerable to these trends. American Jews are dis-proportionably affluent, and this further increases their options. Ninetypercent of Jewish youth enter higher education, which stimulates adesire for personal expression and intensifies alternative values. Theresult is an inexorable bleeding away of loyalty and identity. The sameopenness generates an environment for people to choose Jewishness aswell as to bring Jewish identity and commitment into the highestrealms of achievement (witness Joe Lieberman in American public life,Steven Spielberg in popular culture, Timberland’s Jeff Swartz in busi-ness). The critical question is: which choice will individual Jews make?

Unfortunately, America’s wide open society has not yet crystallizeda new Jewish personality, or even a reconfiguration of the communityto meet the challenge. Alarmed by rising intermarriage and assimila-tion, as documented in the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey,American Jewry has taken important steps toward a renewal of Jewish

PhilanthropiststoMatch My

Mountainsby RABBI YITZ GREENBERG

Rabbi Yitz Greenberg is President of Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation.

To thrive, American Jewry must create an infrastructure – atJewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foundation, we call it the

infrastructure of freedom – that can nurture American Jewish souls and win the commitment of the next generation.

SPRING 2003 11

4 CONTACT

The 1990 and 2000 NationalJewish Population Surveyshave garnered significant atten-tion among those who provide

guidance concerning the conditionof the American Jewish communitynationally. The 1990 NJPS movedthe issue of Jewish continuity to theforefront of the communal agenda,resulting in such programs asbirthright israel and the Partnershipfor Excellence in Jewish Education(PEJE). Both studies contain invalu-able information that provide cluesto the types of programming thatmight make being Jewish a morecompelling choice in a countrywhere everyone is a Jew-by-Choice.

Yet, another source of data isavailable for examining issuesrelated to Jewish continuity locally.Since 1983, more than 50 scientificlocal Jewish community studieshave been completed. These studieswere sponsored by local JewishFederations and, collectively, pro-vide information on more than 85percent of the American Jewishcommunity. Because of method-ological differences betweennational and local studies, localstudies tend to paint a somewhatmore positive picture of AmericanJewry than do certain nationalstudies. But even that “more posi-tive picture” does not portend well

for those concerned about thefuture of American Jews.

It becomes clear from an exami-nation of these local data that sig-nificant differences exist fromcommunity to community in theextent to which Jewish continuityis an issue. To illustrate these dif-ferences, three critical issues areexamined: synagogue membership,intermarriage and donations toJewish charities.

Synagogue Membership. Synagoguemembership ranges between 21percent of households in Seattle,WA and 60 percent of householdsin Worcester, MA. Many communi-ties with low membership rates areretirement communities, particu-larly those in Florida, and westerncommunities. Many communitieswith high membership rates arelocated in the Northeast and have ahigh percentage of households whowere born in the local area. Thus,the migratory nature of AmericanJews results in migrants breakingtheir institutional ties in the com-munity in which they were raisedand not re-establishing ties in theirnew community.

Intermarriage. The percentage ofmarried couples who are intermar-ried ranges from 3 percent in SouthPalm Beach to 55 percent in Seattle.Much of the variation in the inter-marriage rate by community can beexplained by age variations amongcommunities. The Florida retire-ment communities have the lowest

Dr. Ira M. Sheskin is Professor of Geography

and the Director of the Jewish Demography

Project of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center

for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the Uni-

versity of Miami.

JewishDemographics on the LocalLevel

by IRA M. SHESKIN

These results mean that, in designing programming to renew Jewishcommitment and strengthen identity, one size does not fit all.

table, and how many were Jews?” Hereplied indignantly, “they were all Jews.That’s all we had in our village — Jews.”Needless to say, they all attended a seder.In our home this year, we expect to have about 25 people around the sedertable. They will include those who wereborn Jewish and who profess Judaism as religion; those who were born Jewish,but profess to have no religion; non-Jewish spouses; non-Jewish parents ofan intermarried spouse; and childrenbeing raised as Jews at various levels ofritual and tradition. This is a small sam-pling of the possible identity permuta-tions. It is no longer my father’s Jewishpopulation.

With this in mind, the first issue thatfaces organizational policy makers is“who falls within the scope of our defi-nition of the community.” It is clear thatways of identifying who is a Jew varywidely, as is suggested in the followinganalysis of the NJPS data:

• There are about 3.5 million adultswho can be classified as Jewish byhalakhah (i.e., mother was Jewish),but a smaller number who are also“practicing” Jews in terms of religion.

• There are between 5.2 and 5.4 millionpersons who are either Jews by reli-gion; who define themselves as secularbut ethnically Jewish; or who definethemselves as both Jewish and a non-competing “other” religion.

• There are close to 7 million peoplewho can be categorized as havingsome current Jewish identity, asdefined above, as well as those withsome past connection to being Jewishand who live in homes with Jewishlyidentified people.

On the assumption that organiza-tions fulfill needs, that resources are lim-ited and that the potential clientele forJewish organizations has a variety ofneeds, which of the potential 7 millionclients are “your” constituency and howare the critical resources available to thecommunity to be used?

Dynamics of Change Within a PopulationThe second issue focuses on the dynam-ics of change within a population. Howdoes the population size change, andwhat are the factors contributing to thischange? A population such as AmericanJews can change in two ways.

The Demographic ComponentThe first is in the demographic size ofthe population, as determined by fertil-ity (addition by births), mortality (sub-traction by deaths) and migration (thenet result of immigrants minus emi-grants). The 2000 NJPS points to a birthrate among Jewish women that is con-siderably below the rate required toreplace a population. For example, 52percent of Jewish women aged 30-34have no children, compared to 27 per-cent of women in the general popula-tion, and on average Jewish women inthe total childbearing age group are hav-ing less than 2 children each. It isunlikely that social policy will lead to anincrease in birth rates, but it is impor-tant to understand that the pattern andlevel of fertility in a society such as theUnited States is dependent on an inter-active combination of factors. Theseinclude contraceptive use, marital status,age at marriage, level of education andwomen’s participation in the labor force— each of which indicates a trendtoward lowered fertility among Jewishwomen.

Jewish mortality tends to be fairlysimilar to the general population. Thekey differences are attributable to higherlevels of elderly in the Jewish populationand a higher level of socio-economic sta-tus leading to greater access to medicalfacilities. For example, the median age ofthe Jewish population is currently about41 years, as compared to 35 years for thetotal United States white population.

The third segment of the demo-graphic equation is migration. Duringthe last two decades, relatively largenumbers of Jews from the former SovietUnion immigrated to the United States,reaching an estimated peak of 46,000 in1992 and then declining to about 16,000in 1997. It is not unreasonable to predictthat with some exceptions, the Jewishnet migration on an annual basis mayfall below 10,000 in the near future. Insum, while researchers will argue withlevels and rates, there is clear evidencethat as a result of these changes, thedemographic momentum is in the direc-tion of a declining Jewish population.

The Social Mobility ComponentThe second component is the process ofsocial mobility into or out of a popula-tion sub-group. Social mobility variablesmay be defined as the behaviors and

attitudes that individuals manifest andthe exposure to environmental or orga-nizational conditions that tend toweaken or strengthen a person’s desireto remain connected to the group. Thefactor that has particularly disturbed thecommunity in recent years has been theincreasing rate of intermarriage. In 1990,the intermarriage rate was estimatedsomewhere between 45 percent and 52percent, depending on assumptionsmade about the definition of who is aJew. Even if social action campaignshave had some success, this rate is notlikely to have been greatly reduced bythe year 2000. Other variables contribut-ing to potential dynamics of Jewish con-nection are internal migration —movement out of the Northeast to areasin the South and West; denominationalswitching; the changing role of the fam-ily, as secular institutions take overmany of the socialization roles of thefamily; the developments in organizedJewish education such as day schoolsand camps; attitudes toward Israel, inwhich religious and political viewsimpact on trans-national identity; meth-ods of communication, including theuse of the internet and other media; anda move among younger Jews to becomepart of the increasing diversity of Ameri-can society. Each of these factors canhave a positive or negative impact onJewish identification.

ConclusionThe Jewish community is undergoing adynamic process of examination of itsplace in the social mosaic that is emerg-ing in 21st century America. Accordingto the historian Lloyd Gartner, “The pos-sibilities of Judaism and Jewish life inAmerica under the regime of free option,state aloofness, and automatic emancipa-tion were to be explored by every genera-tion of Jews who came to America.” Howwill Jewish institutions react to the needsof the current heterogeneous mosaic ofJewish identities? Determining demo-graphic conditions is difficult but man-ageable. Determining social mobilityconditions is extremely complex andmay not be quantifiable. Nonetheless,the examination of demographic andsocial mobility characteristics of the Jew-ish population are important in ourefforts to evaluate and implement strate-gies of increasing Jewish identity andcommitment in the United States.

SPRING 2003 5

4 CONTACT

The 1990 and 2000 NationalJewish Population Surveyshave garnered significant atten-tion among those who provide

guidance concerning the conditionof the American Jewish communitynationally. The 1990 NJPS movedthe issue of Jewish continuity to theforefront of the communal agenda,resulting in such programs asbirthright israel and the Partnershipfor Excellence in Jewish Education(PEJE). Both studies contain invalu-able information that provide cluesto the types of programming thatmight make being Jewish a morecompelling choice in a countrywhere everyone is a Jew-by-Choice.

Yet, another source of data isavailable for examining issuesrelated to Jewish continuity locally.Since 1983, more than 50 scientificlocal Jewish community studieshave been completed. These studieswere sponsored by local JewishFederations and, collectively, pro-vide information on more than 85percent of the American Jewishcommunity. Because of method-ological differences betweennational and local studies, localstudies tend to paint a somewhatmore positive picture of AmericanJewry than do certain nationalstudies. But even that “more posi-tive picture” does not portend well

for those concerned about thefuture of American Jews.

It becomes clear from an exami-nation of these local data that sig-nificant differences exist fromcommunity to community in theextent to which Jewish continuityis an issue. To illustrate these dif-ferences, three critical issues areexamined: synagogue membership,intermarriage and donations toJewish charities.

Synagogue Membership. Synagoguemembership ranges between 21percent of households in Seattle,WA and 60 percent of householdsin Worcester, MA. Many communi-ties with low membership rates areretirement communities, particu-larly those in Florida, and westerncommunities. Many communitieswith high membership rates arelocated in the Northeast and have ahigh percentage of households whowere born in the local area. Thus,the migratory nature of AmericanJews results in migrants breakingtheir institutional ties in the com-munity in which they were raisedand not re-establishing ties in theirnew community.

Intermarriage. The percentage ofmarried couples who are intermar-ried ranges from 3 percent in SouthPalm Beach to 55 percent in Seattle.Much of the variation in the inter-marriage rate by community can beexplained by age variations amongcommunities. The Florida retire-ment communities have the lowest

Dr. Ira M. Sheskin is Professor of Geography

and the Director of the Jewish Demography

Project of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center

for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the Uni-

versity of Miami.

JewishDemographics on the LocalLevel

by IRA M. SHESKIN

These results mean that, in designing programming to renew Jewishcommitment and strengthen identity, one size does not fit all.

table, and how many were Jews?” Hereplied indignantly, “they were all Jews.That’s all we had in our village — Jews.”Needless to say, they all attended a seder.In our home this year, we expect to have about 25 people around the sedertable. They will include those who wereborn Jewish and who profess Judaism as religion; those who were born Jewish,but profess to have no religion; non-Jewish spouses; non-Jewish parents ofan intermarried spouse; and childrenbeing raised as Jews at various levels ofritual and tradition. This is a small sam-pling of the possible identity permuta-tions. It is no longer my father’s Jewishpopulation.

With this in mind, the first issue thatfaces organizational policy makers is“who falls within the scope of our defi-nition of the community.” It is clear thatways of identifying who is a Jew varywidely, as is suggested in the followinganalysis of the NJPS data:

• There are about 3.5 million adultswho can be classified as Jewish byhalakhah (i.e., mother was Jewish),but a smaller number who are also“practicing” Jews in terms of religion.

• There are between 5.2 and 5.4 millionpersons who are either Jews by reli-gion; who define themselves as secularbut ethnically Jewish; or who definethemselves as both Jewish and a non-competing “other” religion.

• There are close to 7 million peoplewho can be categorized as havingsome current Jewish identity, asdefined above, as well as those withsome past connection to being Jewishand who live in homes with Jewishlyidentified people.

On the assumption that organiza-tions fulfill needs, that resources are lim-ited and that the potential clientele forJewish organizations has a variety ofneeds, which of the potential 7 millionclients are “your” constituency and howare the critical resources available to thecommunity to be used?

Dynamics of Change Within a PopulationThe second issue focuses on the dynam-ics of change within a population. Howdoes the population size change, andwhat are the factors contributing to thischange? A population such as AmericanJews can change in two ways.

The Demographic ComponentThe first is in the demographic size ofthe population, as determined by fertil-ity (addition by births), mortality (sub-traction by deaths) and migration (thenet result of immigrants minus emi-grants). The 2000 NJPS points to a birthrate among Jewish women that is con-siderably below the rate required toreplace a population. For example, 52percent of Jewish women aged 30-34have no children, compared to 27 per-cent of women in the general popula-tion, and on average Jewish women inthe total childbearing age group are hav-ing less than 2 children each. It isunlikely that social policy will lead to anincrease in birth rates, but it is impor-tant to understand that the pattern andlevel of fertility in a society such as theUnited States is dependent on an inter-active combination of factors. Theseinclude contraceptive use, marital status,age at marriage, level of education andwomen’s participation in the labor force— each of which indicates a trendtoward lowered fertility among Jewishwomen.

Jewish mortality tends to be fairlysimilar to the general population. Thekey differences are attributable to higherlevels of elderly in the Jewish populationand a higher level of socio-economic sta-tus leading to greater access to medicalfacilities. For example, the median age ofthe Jewish population is currently about41 years, as compared to 35 years for thetotal United States white population.

The third segment of the demo-graphic equation is migration. Duringthe last two decades, relatively largenumbers of Jews from the former SovietUnion immigrated to the United States,reaching an estimated peak of 46,000 in1992 and then declining to about 16,000in 1997. It is not unreasonable to predictthat with some exceptions, the Jewishnet migration on an annual basis mayfall below 10,000 in the near future. Insum, while researchers will argue withlevels and rates, there is clear evidencethat as a result of these changes, thedemographic momentum is in the direc-tion of a declining Jewish population.

The Social Mobility ComponentThe second component is the process ofsocial mobility into or out of a popula-tion sub-group. Social mobility variablesmay be defined as the behaviors and

attitudes that individuals manifest andthe exposure to environmental or orga-nizational conditions that tend toweaken or strengthen a person’s desireto remain connected to the group. Thefactor that has particularly disturbed thecommunity in recent years has been theincreasing rate of intermarriage. In 1990,the intermarriage rate was estimatedsomewhere between 45 percent and 52percent, depending on assumptionsmade about the definition of who is aJew. Even if social action campaignshave had some success, this rate is notlikely to have been greatly reduced bythe year 2000. Other variables contribut-ing to potential dynamics of Jewish con-nection are internal migration —movement out of the Northeast to areasin the South and West; denominationalswitching; the changing role of the fam-ily, as secular institutions take overmany of the socialization roles of thefamily; the developments in organizedJewish education such as day schoolsand camps; attitudes toward Israel, inwhich religious and political viewsimpact on trans-national identity; meth-ods of communication, including theuse of the internet and other media; anda move among younger Jews to becomepart of the increasing diversity of Ameri-can society. Each of these factors canhave a positive or negative impact onJewish identification.

ConclusionThe Jewish community is undergoing adynamic process of examination of itsplace in the social mosaic that is emerg-ing in 21st century America. Accordingto the historian Lloyd Gartner, “The pos-sibilities of Judaism and Jewish life inAmerica under the regime of free option,state aloofness, and automatic emancipa-tion were to be explored by every genera-tion of Jews who came to America.” Howwill Jewish institutions react to the needsof the current heterogeneous mosaic ofJewish identities? Determining demo-graphic conditions is difficult but man-ageable. Determining social mobilityconditions is extremely complex andmay not be quantifiable. Nonetheless,the examination of demographic andsocial mobility characteristics of the Jew-ish population are important in ourefforts to evaluate and implement strate-gies of increasing Jewish identity andcommitment in the United States.

SPRING 2003 5

SPRING 2003 13

“The children are our future.” It’sa slogan we hear often in boththe Jewish and general commu-nity. However, reality belies the

sentiment, and has for decades. In 1984,for example, demographer Samuel Pre-ston noted that fertility rates weredeclining dramatically in the UnitedStates while the elderly enjoyed propor-tional growth (Preston, 1984). Accord-ing to Preston, this posed a seriousproblem. He argued that, given thegrowing scarcity of children, the UnitedStates needed each and every one to

grow into a responsible and productivemember of society. He posited that chil-dren should be seen as communalresources, not as private responsibilities,and, as such, they warrant serious publicinvestment — which they were not get-ting at the time. Partly as a result ofdemographic warnings such as Preston’s,and partly due to the increasing percent-age of mothers with young childrenentering the labor force, local, state andfederal governments increased theirinvestments in children. To date, 42states require districts to offer full- orpart-time kindergarten programs and 46states fund programs for four-year-olds.

Almost twenty years later, the Jewishcommunity finds itself in a similardemographic situation. According to the2000 National Jewish Population Survey,the fertility rate of American Jewish fam-ilies is low — lower than that of the

United States as a whole, and below therate necessary to keep the populationstable. This may not seem like a crisis;some argue that we will simply havefewer, more committed Jews. On theother hand, in 20 years we could end upwith both fewer Jews and less commit-ted Jews, as well as fewer vibrant Jewishcommunities and a weaker voice repre-senting Jewish interests in United Statesand world politics. The recognition ofthese dangers presents significant oppor-tunities to maintain, enliven andstrengthen our community. Capitalizingon these opportunities would require acommitment to a range of interventionsin Jewish communal life. However, eachnew initiative will have to be compre-hensive as well as strategic and, to thegreatest extent possible, based on datathat promise both high utilization andprobable effects.

Ilene C. Vogelstein is Coordinator of the Early

Childhood Department at the Coalition for the

Advancement of Jewish Education. Dr. Francine

Jacobs is an Associate Professor in the Eliot-Pearson

Department of Child Development and the Depart-

ment of Urban and Environmental Policy and Plan-

ning at Tufts University.

Universal Jewish Early Care and Education:

AWorthySolutionto our DemographicWoes

by ILENE C. VOGELSTEIN and FRANCINE JACOBS

12 CONTACT

life, especially through increased education,both formal and informal. Individual philan-thropists have given important contributionsto strengthen institutions. The danger growsin that individual projects will flourish, butthe dynamics of the new situation of Ameri-can Jewry will be missed. The successes ofindividual institutions and experiences areoften undone by the relentless impact ofmedia and societal opportunities. To thrive,American Jewry must create an infrastructure— at Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foun-dation, we call it the infrastructure of free-dom — that can nurture American Jewishsouls and win the commitment of the nextgeneration.

This infrastructure is the central mecha-nism needed to raise a whole generation ofJews to choose Judaism and Jewishness vol-untarily. We must create an all-encompassingfabric of Jewish life in which individualsundergo a series of life experiences andlearning as they grow up — so as to internal-ize Jewish values and memories and exercisethem in all of their life’s work and choices.

Building an infrastructure of freedomwould assure that from childhood on, theindividual would grow up in a framework ofvital Jewish experiences and learning. Theinfrastructure must incorporate a total envi-ronment (so the Jewish messages come fromevery direction and at an optimum level); avital community (so the individual feels partof something larger than him/herself);intense, preferably joyous experiences(which evoke loyalty and commitment); per-suasive, credible learning; and powerful rolemodels (so the individual identifies withJews past, present and future, and learns howto apply Jewishness to all aspects of life).The institutions that communicate theseexperiences have repeatedly been identified.They are day schools (starting with preschoolnursery), youth movements (especially forthe teenage years of exploration), camps,Israel travel and learning (for the formativehigh school and college years), and adultintensive retreat/learning experiences. Ideally,synagogues should also serve as communitiesand total environments, a source of vitallearning experiences. Unfortunately, too fewdo so now, but this outcome is the goal ofprojects like STAR and Synagogue 2000. In

the interim, most vital synagogues useretreats to generate such effects.

Individual institutions cannot create theneeded effect alone. We must provide allthese institutions in local communitiestogether with a comprehensivefunding/access program so that there can beuniversal participation. High tuition detersday school enrollment, so there must becommunity-wide funding to enable broaderaccess. Small budgets and skimpy institu-tional support weaken youth movements.Camps need comprehensive help with capitalbuilding campaigns and counselor recruit-ment programs. Not until the entire networkis in place will the next generation be so sat-urated with experiences and understandingthat it will overwhelmingly choose to live aJewish life, in and out of the community.

To create a national infrastructure of free-dom, we need a cohort of leaders willing tothink holistically — to expand each institu-tion to be universally available, and to gener-ate the funding to fill in the necessary piecesin each community’s mosaic. We need a newgeneration of philanthropists willing to planfor the overall community’s well-being. Thekey shift is for philanthropists to stop think-ing narrowly by focusing only on specificprojects. A leadership cohort must emergethat is willing to take responsibility for theoutcome of this generation’s response to thechallenge of freedom and choice. Such agroup would map the lacunae in the commu-nity’s safety net, then put up its ownresources and recruit others to fill the void.People say that we cannot afford a commu-nity cap on day school tuition, or a universalticket to birthright israel, so we must contentourselves with individual outstanding insti-tutions operating in a communal frameworkthat is declining. But, in the long term, onlya comprehensive community can competesuccessfully for loyalty in the open society.This is the wealthiest Jewish community ofall time. The resources needed to fund thenew infrastructures are here, but they mustbe aggressively solicited at a much higherlevel. The status quo spells a continualbleeding away of identity, in which succes-sive generations give less and less to Jewishcauses. This further weakens the community.

Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Founda-

tion has drawn much attention as a sponsorof successful new renaissance programs (Hil-lel and the Steinhardt Jewish Campus ServiceCorps, birthright israel), of educationalenrichment (Partnership for Excellence inJewish Education) and of new forms of out-reach (Makor). But JLN’s true vision — andseriousness — has been widely missed. JLNis challenging the community to create aninfrastructure of freedom. Mega-givers mustpush the community to stop preserving thestatus quo (in which Jewry is declining) andto prioritize the comprehensive institutionalframework that can sustain Jewish life. Phil-anthropic leaders can move up the timetableand redirect priorities. In the end, after suc-cesses prove the point, the community musttake over, out of recognition that the totalinfrastructure must become the standard inAmerican Jewish life. When that time comes,the Federations will treat a program such asbirthright israel as the breakthrough which itis, and will not consider it to be a “hassle”when such a program demands greater finan-cial effort than the status quo has allowed.

Here is the call of the hour. We need phi-lanthropists to match — and master — themountains of freedom and assimilation, ofacceptance and exposure to alternatives.Freedom and choice constitute the frontieron which the Jewish future will be won orlost. In a free society, private philanthropysupplies the oil which runs the system. Whowill recognize that possessing unusualresources brings with it a responsibility forthe entire community, and not just for indi-vidual good deeds? Which individuals arewilling to subordinate the autonomy theyearned by wealth, and join a collective teamof leaders committed to transforming theJewish community? Who is ready to step upgiving levels sufficiently to enable Judaism tobe a vital competitor in the marketplace offree ideas and faiths?

The tasks before us are daunting, expen-sive, creative, exhilarating and sometimesfrustrating, but the reward will be inscriptionin the book of Jewish history as leaders ofhistoric proportions. To paraphrase PirkeiAvot, theirs (yours) is not the obligation tocomplete this historic transformation, butyou are not exempt from the mission of start-ing the redemption. Now.

Here is the call of the hour.We need philanthropists to match —and master — the mountains offreedom and assimilation, of acceptanceand exposure to alternatives.

SPRING 2003 13

“The children are our future.” It’sa slogan we hear often in boththe Jewish and general commu-nity. However, reality belies the

sentiment, and has for decades. In 1984,for example, demographer Samuel Pre-ston noted that fertility rates weredeclining dramatically in the UnitedStates while the elderly enjoyed propor-tional growth (Preston, 1984). Accord-ing to Preston, this posed a seriousproblem. He argued that, given thegrowing scarcity of children, the UnitedStates needed each and every one to

grow into a responsible and productivemember of society. He posited that chil-dren should be seen as communalresources, not as private responsibilities,and, as such, they warrant serious publicinvestment — which they were not get-ting at the time. Partly as a result ofdemographic warnings such as Preston’s,and partly due to the increasing percent-age of mothers with young childrenentering the labor force, local, state andfederal governments increased theirinvestments in children. To date, 42states require districts to offer full- orpart-time kindergarten programs and 46states fund programs for four-year-olds.

Almost twenty years later, the Jewishcommunity finds itself in a similardemographic situation. According to the2000 National Jewish Population Survey,the fertility rate of American Jewish fam-ilies is low — lower than that of the

United States as a whole, and below therate necessary to keep the populationstable. This may not seem like a crisis;some argue that we will simply havefewer, more committed Jews. On theother hand, in 20 years we could end upwith both fewer Jews and less commit-ted Jews, as well as fewer vibrant Jewishcommunities and a weaker voice repre-senting Jewish interests in United Statesand world politics. The recognition ofthese dangers presents significant oppor-tunities to maintain, enliven andstrengthen our community. Capitalizingon these opportunities would require acommitment to a range of interventionsin Jewish communal life. However, eachnew initiative will have to be compre-hensive as well as strategic and, to thegreatest extent possible, based on datathat promise both high utilization andprobable effects.

Ilene C. Vogelstein is Coordinator of the Early

Childhood Department at the Coalition for the

Advancement of Jewish Education. Dr. Francine

Jacobs is an Associate Professor in the Eliot-Pearson

Department of Child Development and the Depart-

ment of Urban and Environmental Policy and Plan-

ning at Tufts University.

Universal Jewish Early Care and Education:

AWorthySolutionto our DemographicWoes

by ILENE C. VOGELSTEIN and FRANCINE JACOBS

12 CONTACT

life, especially through increased education,both formal and informal. Individual philan-thropists have given important contributionsto strengthen institutions. The danger growsin that individual projects will flourish, butthe dynamics of the new situation of Ameri-can Jewry will be missed. The successes ofindividual institutions and experiences areoften undone by the relentless impact ofmedia and societal opportunities. To thrive,American Jewry must create an infrastructure— at Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Foun-dation, we call it the infrastructure of free-dom — that can nurture American Jewishsouls and win the commitment of the nextgeneration.

This infrastructure is the central mecha-nism needed to raise a whole generation ofJews to choose Judaism and Jewishness vol-untarily. We must create an all-encompassingfabric of Jewish life in which individualsundergo a series of life experiences andlearning as they grow up — so as to internal-ize Jewish values and memories and exercisethem in all of their life’s work and choices.

Building an infrastructure of freedomwould assure that from childhood on, theindividual would grow up in a framework ofvital Jewish experiences and learning. Theinfrastructure must incorporate a total envi-ronment (so the Jewish messages come fromevery direction and at an optimum level); avital community (so the individual feels partof something larger than him/herself);intense, preferably joyous experiences(which evoke loyalty and commitment); per-suasive, credible learning; and powerful rolemodels (so the individual identifies withJews past, present and future, and learns howto apply Jewishness to all aspects of life).The institutions that communicate theseexperiences have repeatedly been identified.They are day schools (starting with preschoolnursery), youth movements (especially forthe teenage years of exploration), camps,Israel travel and learning (for the formativehigh school and college years), and adultintensive retreat/learning experiences. Ideally,synagogues should also serve as communitiesand total environments, a source of vitallearning experiences. Unfortunately, too fewdo so now, but this outcome is the goal ofprojects like STAR and Synagogue 2000. In

the interim, most vital synagogues useretreats to generate such effects.

Individual institutions cannot create theneeded effect alone. We must provide allthese institutions in local communitiestogether with a comprehensivefunding/access program so that there can beuniversal participation. High tuition detersday school enrollment, so there must becommunity-wide funding to enable broaderaccess. Small budgets and skimpy institu-tional support weaken youth movements.Camps need comprehensive help with capitalbuilding campaigns and counselor recruit-ment programs. Not until the entire networkis in place will the next generation be so sat-urated with experiences and understandingthat it will overwhelmingly choose to live aJewish life, in and out of the community.

To create a national infrastructure of free-dom, we need a cohort of leaders willing tothink holistically — to expand each institu-tion to be universally available, and to gener-ate the funding to fill in the necessary piecesin each community’s mosaic. We need a newgeneration of philanthropists willing to planfor the overall community’s well-being. Thekey shift is for philanthropists to stop think-ing narrowly by focusing only on specificprojects. A leadership cohort must emergethat is willing to take responsibility for theoutcome of this generation’s response to thechallenge of freedom and choice. Such agroup would map the lacunae in the commu-nity’s safety net, then put up its ownresources and recruit others to fill the void.People say that we cannot afford a commu-nity cap on day school tuition, or a universalticket to birthright israel, so we must contentourselves with individual outstanding insti-tutions operating in a communal frameworkthat is declining. But, in the long term, onlya comprehensive community can competesuccessfully for loyalty in the open society.This is the wealthiest Jewish community ofall time. The resources needed to fund thenew infrastructures are here, but they mustbe aggressively solicited at a much higherlevel. The status quo spells a continualbleeding away of identity, in which succes-sive generations give less and less to Jewishcauses. This further weakens the community.

Jewish Life Network/Steinhardt Founda-

tion has drawn much attention as a sponsorof successful new renaissance programs (Hil-lel and the Steinhardt Jewish Campus ServiceCorps, birthright israel), of educationalenrichment (Partnership for Excellence inJewish Education) and of new forms of out-reach (Makor). But JLN’s true vision — andseriousness — has been widely missed. JLNis challenging the community to create aninfrastructure of freedom. Mega-givers mustpush the community to stop preserving thestatus quo (in which Jewry is declining) andto prioritize the comprehensive institutionalframework that can sustain Jewish life. Phil-anthropic leaders can move up the timetableand redirect priorities. In the end, after suc-cesses prove the point, the community musttake over, out of recognition that the totalinfrastructure must become the standard inAmerican Jewish life. When that time comes,the Federations will treat a program such asbirthright israel as the breakthrough which itis, and will not consider it to be a “hassle”when such a program demands greater finan-cial effort than the status quo has allowed.

Here is the call of the hour. We need phi-lanthropists to match — and master — themountains of freedom and assimilation, ofacceptance and exposure to alternatives.Freedom and choice constitute the frontieron which the Jewish future will be won orlost. In a free society, private philanthropysupplies the oil which runs the system. Whowill recognize that possessing unusualresources brings with it a responsibility forthe entire community, and not just for indi-vidual good deeds? Which individuals arewilling to subordinate the autonomy theyearned by wealth, and join a collective teamof leaders committed to transforming theJewish community? Who is ready to step upgiving levels sufficiently to enable Judaism tobe a vital competitor in the marketplace offree ideas and faiths?

The tasks before us are daunting, expen-sive, creative, exhilarating and sometimesfrustrating, but the reward will be inscriptionin the book of Jewish history as leaders ofhistoric proportions. To paraphrase PirkeiAvot, theirs (yours) is not the obligation tocomplete this historic transformation, butyou are not exempt from the mission of start-ing the redemption. Now.

Here is the call of the hour.We need philanthropists to match —and master — the mountains offreedom and assimilation, of acceptanceand exposure to alternatives.

It is time the Jewish community gaveserious consideration to a proposal foruniversal Jewish early childhood educa-tion for every Jewish family, whether itis affiliated or not, disaffected or not,intermarried or not, and well educatedJudaically or not. Why universal Jewishearly childhood education? There arethree broad lines of argument in supportof this proposal: research on secularearly childhood education that estab-lishes its effectiveness; Jewish identitydevelopment theory that supports early,sustained engagement in Jewish life; andthe current demographics of work/familylife that documents the existence of aready market for this programming.

Research on early childhood education Although for decades practitioners andparents have claimed that early child-hood education promotes child develop-ment, recent research now unequivocally

supports thisassertion (Shon-koff & Phillips,2000). Preschoolchildren profitacross develop-mental domains(e.g., cognition,language, socialdevelopment,etc.) from high-quality programs.These environ-ments are charac-terized by warmand supportiveteachers/caretak-ers who offerstimulating anddevelopmentally-appropriate activi-ties and materials.Parents and fami-lies can benefitfrom participationas well, both inthe acquisition ofnew knowledgeand skills, and inthe developmentof mutually sup-portive communi-ties. Thepossibility ofdeveloping thesenurturing, endur-

ing communities of young Jewish fami-lies is a particularly appealing aspect ofthis proposal.

Jewish identity development theory Early childhood Jewish education is lessconcerned with stimulating specificdevelopmental skills, or even transmit-ting discrete bits of knowledge, thanwith developing a Jewish identity — asense of affiliation and belonging. Thereis no research that describes theprocesses by which Jewish identificationdevelops in young children, or which

aspects of early childhood programsmight best stimulate it. However, in herprovocative 2000 study of Jewish iden-tity development, Bethamie Horowitzfound that Jewishness in adulthoodappears related to a strong orientationtowards Jewish life in childhood. Whenconveyed in the early years, the messageabout the importance of being Jewishpersists into adulthood. As one wouldexpect, then, to the extent that parentsof young children are Jewishly identi-fied, their children appear more likely tobe so as adults as well.

Demographics of work/family lifeIn 2001, almost 60 percent of Americanmothers with children under age fiveand 50 percent of mothers of infants oneyear old or less were in the paid laborforce. The average number of hours in awork week has risen as well. The limitedsupply of quality early childhood careand education programs, particularly forchildren under age three, is well-docu-mented across the country. Even wherethey exist, early childhood programs areoften prohibitively expensive. Finally,even families in which mothers do notwork are increasingly seeking earlychildhood experiences for their children.The market for these programs is largeand growing, and is not being filled byprograms in the secular world.

What specific steps might we take?Universal, low-cost or free Jewish care

and education for children, from birththrough kindergarten, sounds like a tallorder, but many countries strugglingwith declining birth rates do it to vary-ing degrees. Below are several ways tostructure this service:

• Provide a sliding fee scale for childrensix weeks to three years of age. Thisservice will be particularly crucial forsingle parent families or two-parentworking families with young children.What better way to ensure the nextgeneration than to have very young

SPRING 2003 15

children cared for by skilled, Jewishearly childhood professionals who will sing Jewish songs as they rock the infants to sleep, play ShimoneOmer (Simon Says) in Hebrew, tellJewish stories during story time andsay the blessings over the food at mealtime?

• Provide free programs for four- and five-year-olds. Vogelstein and Kaplan (2002)noted a general trend of enrollmentpeaking at four years of age, with fewerchildren enrolled as they approachedkindergarten. According to Beck(2002), 72 percent of children whocomplete a Jewish preschool experienceafter the age of four go to publickindergarten. Only 53 percent continuetheir Jewish education in synagogue-based religious school the year after“graduating” from preschool. As notedearlier, universal public kindergartenfor five-year-olds will likely be a realityin most states within the next fewyears, and many states are currentlydesigning or offering programs forfour-year-olds. Although a positivedevelopment in secular education, thistrend poses a threat to enrollment inJewish programming, especially sincethe Jewish content in Jewish preschoolsis not a powerful draw for parents.Why, then, would Jewish parents pay

for early care and education when theycan secure it locally for free?

• Create community-wide “parents-to-be”programs. Teach Lamaze and introducefamilies to the Jewish community andto Judaism. Participants might receiveone year of free or reduced fee earlychildcare and education in a Jewishearly childhood program of theirchoice.

If the idea of universal early care andeducation is too daunting, there are lessradical options available for investing inexisting early childhood programs.

• Make available 1 percent of the UnitedJewish Communities’ annual allocationto all communities, to be matched inpart by 1 percent of each local federa-

tion’s annual allocation.

• Develop indicators forexcellence and an accredi-tation program to ensureevery Jewish early child-hood center is high quality.

• Integrate more familyprogramming into earlychildcare and educationprograms. According toBeck, “Nearly 70% offamilies interviewedclaimed they were doingsomething different interms of their Jewishobservance or Jewishlifestyle as a result oftheir child attending aJewish preschool.” Devel-opmental milestones canbe placed in a Jewishcontext and celebrated,documented and sharedproudly with other fam-

ily members. Let’s create communaland personal celebrations of the lifeand development of each and everyJewish child from their birth (b’tzelemelokim, or in the image of God), totheir first words (berachot, or bless-ings), to their first steps (gemilutchasadim, or acts of loving kindness).

A large Jewish community recentlyran a legacy and endowment advertise-ment that pictured a three-year-old anda four-year-old sliding down a slidingboard with the caption, “Their Jewishfuture is in YOUR hands.” The slogancould not be more accurate, yet virtuallyno money is earmarked, by that commu-nity or by any other, for early childhoodJewish education. A Jewish futurerequires Jewish children; let’s start earlyto ensure that future.

14 CONTACT

It is time the Jewish community gave serious consideration

to a proposal for universal Jewish early childhood education

for every Jewish family.

References cited in this article:Beck, Pearl (2002). Jewish Preschools as Gateways to Jewish Life: A Survey of Jewish Preschool Parentsin Three Cities. Baltimore: Jewish Early Childhood Education Partnership.

Horowitz, Bethamie (2000). Connections and Journeys: Assessing Critical Opportunities for Enhanc-ing Jewish Identity. New York: UJA-Federation of New York.

Preston, Samuel H. (1984). Children and the Elderly: Divergent Paths for America’s Dependents.Demography, 21(4), 435-357.

Shonkoff, Jack P. & Phillips, Deborah, editors (2000). From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science ofEarly Childhood Development. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Vogelstein, Ilene, & Kaplan, David. (2000). Untapped Potential: The Status of Jewish Early ChildhoodEducation in America. Baltimore: Jewish Early Childhood Education Partnership.

It is time the Jewish community gaveserious consideration to a proposal foruniversal Jewish early childhood educa-tion for every Jewish family, whether itis affiliated or not, disaffected or not,intermarried or not, and well educatedJudaically or not. Why universal Jewishearly childhood education? There arethree broad lines of argument in supportof this proposal: research on secularearly childhood education that estab-lishes its effectiveness; Jewish identitydevelopment theory that supports early,sustained engagement in Jewish life; andthe current demographics of work/familylife that documents the existence of aready market for this programming.

Research on early childhood education Although for decades practitioners andparents have claimed that early child-hood education promotes child develop-ment, recent research now unequivocally

supports thisassertion (Shon-koff & Phillips,2000). Preschoolchildren profitacross develop-mental domains(e.g., cognition,language, socialdevelopment,etc.) from high-quality programs.These environ-ments are charac-terized by warmand supportiveteachers/caretak-ers who offerstimulating anddevelopmentally-appropriate activi-ties and materials.Parents and fami-lies can benefitfrom participationas well, both inthe acquisition ofnew knowledgeand skills, and inthe developmentof mutually sup-portive communi-ties. Thepossibility ofdeveloping thesenurturing, endur-

ing communities of young Jewish fami-lies is a particularly appealing aspect ofthis proposal.

Jewish identity development theory Early childhood Jewish education is lessconcerned with stimulating specificdevelopmental skills, or even transmit-ting discrete bits of knowledge, thanwith developing a Jewish identity — asense of affiliation and belonging. Thereis no research that describes theprocesses by which Jewish identificationdevelops in young children, or which

aspects of early childhood programsmight best stimulate it. However, in herprovocative 2000 study of Jewish iden-tity development, Bethamie Horowitzfound that Jewishness in adulthoodappears related to a strong orientationtowards Jewish life in childhood. Whenconveyed in the early years, the messageabout the importance of being Jewishpersists into adulthood. As one wouldexpect, then, to the extent that parentsof young children are Jewishly identi-fied, their children appear more likely tobe so as adults as well.

Demographics of work/family lifeIn 2001, almost 60 percent of Americanmothers with children under age fiveand 50 percent of mothers of infants oneyear old or less were in the paid laborforce. The average number of hours in awork week has risen as well. The limitedsupply of quality early childhood careand education programs, particularly forchildren under age three, is well-docu-mented across the country. Even wherethey exist, early childhood programs areoften prohibitively expensive. Finally,even families in which mothers do notwork are increasingly seeking earlychildhood experiences for their children.The market for these programs is largeand growing, and is not being filled byprograms in the secular world.

What specific steps might we take?Universal, low-cost or free Jewish care

and education for children, from birththrough kindergarten, sounds like a tallorder, but many countries strugglingwith declining birth rates do it to vary-ing degrees. Below are several ways tostructure this service:

• Provide a sliding fee scale for childrensix weeks to three years of age. Thisservice will be particularly crucial forsingle parent families or two-parentworking families with young children.What better way to ensure the nextgeneration than to have very young

SPRING 2003 15

children cared for by skilled, Jewishearly childhood professionals who will sing Jewish songs as they rock the infants to sleep, play ShimoneOmer (Simon Says) in Hebrew, tellJewish stories during story time andsay the blessings over the food at mealtime?

• Provide free programs for four- and five-year-olds. Vogelstein and Kaplan (2002)noted a general trend of enrollmentpeaking at four years of age, with fewerchildren enrolled as they approachedkindergarten. According to Beck(2002), 72 percent of children whocomplete a Jewish preschool experienceafter the age of four go to publickindergarten. Only 53 percent continuetheir Jewish education in synagogue-based religious school the year after“graduating” from preschool. As notedearlier, universal public kindergartenfor five-year-olds will likely be a realityin most states within the next fewyears, and many states are currentlydesigning or offering programs forfour-year-olds. Although a positivedevelopment in secular education, thistrend poses a threat to enrollment inJewish programming, especially sincethe Jewish content in Jewish preschoolsis not a powerful draw for parents.Why, then, would Jewish parents pay

for early care and education when theycan secure it locally for free?

• Create community-wide “parents-to-be”programs. Teach Lamaze and introducefamilies to the Jewish community andto Judaism. Participants might receiveone year of free or reduced fee earlychildcare and education in a Jewishearly childhood program of theirchoice.

If the idea of universal early care andeducation is too daunting, there are lessradical options available for investing inexisting early childhood programs.

• Make available 1 percent of the UnitedJewish Communities’ annual allocationto all communities, to be matched inpart by 1 percent of each local federa-

tion’s annual allocation.

• Develop indicators forexcellence and an accredi-tation program to ensureevery Jewish early child-hood center is high quality.

• Integrate more familyprogramming into earlychildcare and educationprograms. According toBeck, “Nearly 70% offamilies interviewedclaimed they were doingsomething different interms of their Jewishobservance or Jewishlifestyle as a result oftheir child attending aJewish preschool.” Devel-opmental milestones canbe placed in a Jewishcontext and celebrated,documented and sharedproudly with other fam-

ily members. Let’s create communaland personal celebrations of the lifeand development of each and everyJewish child from their birth (b’tzelemelokim, or in the image of God), totheir first words (berachot, or bless-ings), to their first steps (gemilutchasadim, or acts of loving kindness).

A large Jewish community recentlyran a legacy and endowment advertise-ment that pictured a three-year-old anda four-year-old sliding down a slidingboard with the caption, “Their Jewishfuture is in YOUR hands.” The slogancould not be more accurate, yet virtuallyno money is earmarked, by that commu-nity or by any other, for early childhoodJewish education. A Jewish futurerequires Jewish children; let’s start earlyto ensure that future.

14 CONTACT

It is time the Jewish community gave serious consideration

to a proposal for universal Jewish early childhood education

for every Jewish family.

References cited in this article:Beck, Pearl (2002). Jewish Preschools as Gateways to Jewish Life: A Survey of Jewish Preschool Parentsin Three Cities. Baltimore: Jewish Early Childhood Education Partnership.

Horowitz, Bethamie (2000). Connections and Journeys: Assessing Critical Opportunities for Enhanc-ing Jewish Identity. New York: UJA-Federation of New York.

Preston, Samuel H. (1984). Children and the Elderly: Divergent Paths for America’s Dependents.Demography, 21(4), 435-357.

Shonkoff, Jack P. & Phillips, Deborah, editors (2000). From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science ofEarly Childhood Development. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Vogelstein, Ilene, & Kaplan, David. (2000). Untapped Potential: The Status of Jewish Early ChildhoodEducation in America. Baltimore: Jewish Early Childhood Education Partnership.

Jewish Life Network6 East 39th Street10th floorNew York, NY 10016

Non-Profit Org.U.S. PostagePaidRockville, MDPermit No. 800

he 2000 National Jewish Population Surveyrevealed that the Jewish people are at a criticaljuncture. Our community is shrinking, and it willcontinue to do so unless we rethink ourstrategies of engagement and philanthropicleadership. It is time to implement a vision ofAmerican Jewish renaissance that engages themajority of secular, unaffiliated American Jewswho are currently ignored by Jewish institutions.There is no time to waste. Based on our actionstoday, future population studies will reveal acommunity in continuing disarray — or in themidst of renaissance.

— MICHAEL H. STEINHARDT