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Here are significant quotes from the research study “Traditional Judaism: The Conceptualization of Jewishness in the Lives of American Jewish Post-Boomers” by Ari Y. Kelman, Tobin Belzer, Ilana Horwitz, Ziva Hassenfeld, Matt Williams. Jewish Social Studies, (Volume 23, Number 1, Fall 2017, pp. 134-167- requires subscription) (1)<\/p>\n
As secular\/non-theistic Jews who are very traditional in our ritual behaviors, it is important to take note of the ramifications and the opportunities that this study presents to us within the non-institutionalized Jewish communities. Especially when being presented with and addressing formerly “highly religious” Jews who have gone off the derech (“OTD”) to embracing the loneliness of a secular life that is separated from community, and encouraging an atmosphere that encourages them and their wealth of “traditional” knowledge into our less than “religious” secular Jewish communities.<\/p>\n
“Both the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) and the 2013 Pew report on American Jews used religion as a key indicator for determining whether a possible interviewee might qualify for inclusion in the study. The Pew Research Center foregrounded distinctions between \u201cJews by religion\u201d and \u201cJews not by religion,\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the persistence of religion as a term that might describe them, on the whole American Jews do not actively or regularly participate in activities or institutions that look terribly religious. Just over one-quarter (26 percent) of American Jews say that religion is very important in their lives, whereas 56 percent of the general public makes that claim. American Jews also attend religious services with far less frequency than do other Americans; only 23 percent of Jews attend religious services once a month or more, whereas 62 percent of Americans in general claim to do so.<\/p>\n
As incoming college students, Jews were among the least likely to score strongly on measures of both religious commitment and religious engagement, scoring in the single digits, alongside Buddhists, Unitarian Universalists, and those incoming students who have no religious preference\u2026 Sociologist Nancy Ammerman found that Jews were also outliers in the use of theistic and spiritual discourse\u201d, in which only 30% used theistic language. The next lowest group was at 60%….”<\/p>\n
“Regardless of whether our interviewees described themselves as religious or not religious, they all generally rejected the notion of a meaningful framework emerging from their understandings of faith, law, the Bible, and direct divine intervention.<\/p>\n
[T]hey referred to religion as something abstract, judgmental, and irrational. They shared a common sense that religion had limited authority over their lives, regardless of how personally meaningful they found it. To be not religious was to reject the authority of rabbis and Bible, liturgy, Hebrew, obligatory laws, empty rituals, and unrealistic expectations of prayer and the like. Yet rejecting religion did not require them to abandon Jewish rituals, holidays, or other practices that they called tradition.”<\/p>\n
Out of the numerous Jews who participated in this study, the following testimonials we believe highlight the nature of Jewish observance across the nation today.<\/p>\n
“For Elizabeth, the ritual of a Friday night dinner proved especially appealing. Friday night marks the onset of the Jewish Sabbath, and Elizabeth approached the ceremonial dinner as an opportunity for socializing and education but not for religion.<\/p>\n
For us [her and her husband], a lot of it is educating our friends, both Jewish friends and our non-Jewish friends. We are sort of that couple that always has like people over for like Shabbat dinners and holidays, and like I said, Jewish and non-Jewish. It\u2019s not meant to be like an outreach kind of thing or try to make people religious because we\u2019re not religious. It\u2019s just like a way to sort of make everybody stop for a second and put down their phones and like have a proper dinner and have like proper conversation.”<\/p>\n
“Penelope and Sally pointed to their affinity for synagogues as important sites for connecting to Jewishness, though not necessarily with religion. Both women described themselves as not religious, yet both explained that they seek out synagogues and their communities when traveling for work. Penelope enjoys the \u201ccultural traditions\u201d of Jewish life, \u201cbut not necessary the organized religion aspects of it.\u201d Still, \u201cwhen I go to places where I don\u2019t know anyone,\u201d she said, \u201cI still go to the Jewish community. That\u2019s my way of meeting people.\u201d Likewise, Sally, who used to travel for work a great deal, made a habit of going to synagogue on Saturday mornings no matter where she was.”<\/p>\n
“Brian shared one of the most illustrative stories of someone whose commitment to tradition rests not on religion but on his connection to the future:<\/p>\n
To give you an example, my girlfriend\u2019s not Jewish. The other day for Hanukkah, I decided to light the candles. She asked me, \u201cWhy are you lighting the candles?\u201d I said, \u201cWell, it\u2019s Hanukkah.\u201d She\u2019s like, \u201cI know it\u2019s Hanukkah, but you\u2019re not really religious.\u201d I said, \u201cI want to do it for myself. I just want to know that I know the tradition, the ritual. I want to do it for myself just to reinforce it.\u201d I\u2019m not doing it because I want to make sure that God is listening, that He knows that I care. I\u2019m doing it because I want to be able to tell my kids, \u201cThis is how you light the candles on Hanukkah.\u201d I guess that\u2019s kind of how I look at it.<\/p>\n
Despite the good-natured teasing of his girlfriend, Brian lit Hanukkah candles with all of the religious overtones and content intact, provided\u2026 that he made sense of his performance as tradition and did not take the formulaic blessing or its theological content to heart.”<\/p>\n
The study achieves a corrective understanding of what Jews, who have inherited an ancestral ethno-religion, mean when declaring themselves as “Jews by religion” or “Jewish, but not religious.”<\/p>\n
“First, the preference for the language of tradition suggests that the sociological distinction between Jews by religion and Jews of no religion emphasized in studies like the 1990 NJPS and the 2013 Pew report creates a sharp distinction between groups that are, in reality, more fluid.<\/p>\n
This argument against the use of religion as a meaningful way to understand distinctions among American Jews should not be taken as a case for the rise of secularism. What appealed to so many of our interviewees was not an explicitly or independently secular realm of Jewish life but a way of making Jewish life enjoyable and meaningful. Casting such occasions as traditional instead of religious allowed our interviewees to activate those associations while disregarding any theological overtones or moral finger-wagging.<\/p>\n
Similarly, their almost total avoidance of the term ethnicity suggested that it had even less significance in their conceptualization of Jewishness, insofar as they did not offer it as a meaningful or useful term to describe their Jewishness.<\/p>\n
For post-boomers, tradition may offer a way of conceptualizing \u201cthe only authentic response to the past,\u201d but it should not be mistaken for a weak version of a strong central Jewish religious authority. Instead, it should be understood as a mechanism for retaining connections to Jews and Jewishness over time, within which change is a reasonable expectation and adherence is flexible.”<\/p>\n
We believe it is in this (the study’s conclusion) that explains the strong shifting worldwide from historically “traditional” institutions of Judaism to more ad hoc community oriented social Judaism – whether religious oriented (aka, theistic) or secular oriented (aka, non-theistic). The outreach to Jews these days is personal value based, non-ritual pressuring, and inviting without theological expectations within these meetings of Jewish minds and hearts.<\/p>\n
Read the full study. It is worth wide Jewish discussion! Link is below.<\/p>\n
(1) – Traditional Judaism: The Conceptualization of Jewishness in the Lives of American Jewish Post-Boomers – https:\/\/muse.jhu.edu\/article\/671594<\/a><\/p>\n