will the Synagogue Survive?
TOBIN, GARY A.
Will the Survive? GARY A. TOBIN Who would have imagined five years ago that the Berlin Wall would be dismantled and sold for souvenirs? Can we conceive of Jewish life in America in which many...
...In that case, membership makes sense...
...For those on the outside, the Jewish organizational and institutional network is a vast mystery...
...In our generation we have already seen the rebirth of modern Orthodox Judaism...
...A large percentage does not know that the Jewish federation raises money for Israel...
...Most Jews are middle class and upper middle class, with enormously high socio-economic status...
...Or they used to belong but no longer belong...
...9 Photos from the book The Story of the Synagogue by Geoffrey Wilder...
...It's an expected response...
...Today Jews think as consumers rather than as members, which explains why polls tend to exaggerate the extent of synagogue membership...
...People who belong to a synagogue in the community where they were born and raised may have great familial and institutional loyalty and may maintain membership for that reason...
...About one in five children lives in either single parent families or blended families in most Jewish communities...
...We have also seen soaring marriage rates between Jews and nonjews...
...The once average Jewish family is now the atypical Jewish family...
...So they tell the interviewer they belong when, in fact, they don't...
...Photos reprinted try permission of Harper CoUms Publishers...
...those who are connected but uninvolved don't know much more...
...No matter how little synagogues change, they will continue to attract the Jews that are most interested in participating in Jewish life...
...To meet the needs of new constituencies, synagogues must expand as human service agencies...
...The rate of increase has leveled off in the last five years, but the number of interfaith marriages is higher than it has ever been...
...Being single is a stage in American Jewish life, not just a transfer station between the time one leaves one's parents' household and one marries...
...Or they're thinking about belonging...
...Synagogues will also have to come to grips with the growing number of interfaith couples...
...True, Jewish organizational and institutional life survives—at least most of it...
...In some communities 90 percent do not know what a Jewish community relations council is...
...But a revision of the dues structure may encourage short-term affiliation...
...The more people in a family who use the services and the more services used, the greater the value of the package...
...But the traditional Jewish family is an image of a reality that has radically changed...
...Competing successfully may mean incorporating recreational activities into synagogue life...
...Single parents are yet another...
...Our latest estimates from a national Gallup poll show that only one of three Jews has a current affiliation with a synagogue...
...In the 1950s, the interfaith marriage rate was about 2 percent in most communities...
...It's well known that synagogue affiliation is highest among parents of school-age children who want their children to get a Jewish education...
...Jews who make poor members, however, may make good consumers because most Jews are not poor or even low income...
...But for an individual who only wants to play racquetball, a membership may not make sense...
...The availability of life cycle religious services must be expanded for nonmembers on a pay-for-service basis...
...For those who give to a federation campaign, for example, the vast majority does not know in which campaign year they are giving...
...They feel the social pressure to belong, so they say they belong...
...Or their parents belong...
...Half do not know what programs are offered at the Jewish community center...
...Of course the synagogue will not disappear as an institution...
...Marriages, funerals, b'nai mitzvah and other functions are sometimes offered only to members...
...Jewish households also consist of people who are widowed, divorced or separated, gays, couples who live together but are not married, older adults who share housing and adult children living with parents...
...Informal experiences, such as field trips or parties, experiential learning, trips to Israel, working in a soup kitchen and other intense, high quality programs outside the institutional setting, such as in campgrounds or parks, should be developed...
...As it is structured today, the synagogue is designed to appeal to the traditional Jewish family—a married couple (both for the first time) with kids...
...We are now experiencing an upsurge in membership that comes from the baby-boomers...
...They may attend services on the high holy days or for b'nai mitzvah...
...Congregations for singles—not programs or dances for singles— should be established...
...Bu 'they must choose to pay for them...
...Consumers may feel they belong if they attend occasionally or have some other sense that the synagogue is theirs, even if they are not members...
...So while more couples have intermarried, fewer non-Jewish spouses have converted...
...But we must focus on the kind of survival...
...Buildings may become almost empty monuments in which active Judaism has all but passed away...
...Most Jews now require a different kind of synagogue if they are to affiliate and stay affiliated...
...Without a congregation specifically for them, many singles are unlikely to join...
...The same patterns hold for synagogues...
...For those on the inside, it is only a little less of a mystery...
...If the organizations and institutions survive without the highest levels of quality and without the vibrancy that should characterize Jewish life, then survival itself becomes an empty achievement...
...In the next 10 years Jewish lifestyles will change again...
...They can be coordinated with a Jewish community center and a federation...
...The level of knowledge about Jewish organizations and institutions is dismal...
...Another constellation of Jewish households consists of couples that have not yet had children...
...At some point, synagogues will have to decide whether they are willing to serve nonaffiliates more fully...
...Most parents evaluate their children's education from the positive attitudes their children derive from the experience, at least as much as on the facts children learn...
...Jews are intelligent and discriminating consumers, but synagogues still focus largely on members...
...What programs attract people who are interested in social activism, feeding the hungry, expressing Judaism in an active way...
...And there is worse to come...
...The synagogue must prepare for the future or face a future of mediocrity and stagnation...
...In most Jewish communities that particular constellation is no more than one of four Jewish families...
...These and other demographic changes have important implications for the synagogue as an institution...
...At the other end of the spectrum are the ever-growing number of empty nesters, people primarily in their 50s and 60s...
...Many Jews who don't belong feel they ought to...
...A family may want to use tennis courts, a camp, a health club and three or four other services...
...Synagogue dropout rates are very high, partly because of high mobility...
...many will join in the future...
...Member/nonmember is a strategy that does not allow maximum participation...
...Lunch and Learn" could be held not only at the synagogue but also at a workplace or in the park...
...One last point is critical...
...Most Jews do not belong to a synagogue...
...Being single is now a period of one's adult life that may extend as long as the time that one is married...
...At the same time, conversion rates have dropped precipitously...
...Many Jews will participate in some activities, pay for some activities, volunteer for some activities and at some point become much more active members of a congregation if fee structures are developed to get them involved on a pay-for-ser-vice basis...
...Many Jewish community centers provide good examples of member-friendly fee structures...
...Without some change, many congregations may find themselves with too few members to operate a synagogue...
...These Jews can afford to pay for the synagogue services they use...
...Can we conceive of Jewish life in America in which many synagogues close their doors because there is no longer any need for them...
...In the way they conduct their activities, plan their programs and locate their facilities, many synagogues are structured as if it were still the 1950s and 1960s...
...But a prospective member who comes from someplace else and whose children are grown may resist joining if there is little need for most of a synagogue's benefits...
...The Jewish world is evolving and changing rapidly...
...some may stay open with "skeleton crews...
...We have seen new Jewish communities mushrooming in the far reaches of the outer suburbs while the old neighborhoods are abandoned...
...Interfaith marriage rates have soared in the last 20 years...
...Such congregations may be jointly sponsored by two or more family-oriented congregations...
...Moreover, synagogues have to be upscale in their programming to fit into contemporary Jewish lifestyles...
...Synagogues can remain the core of what Judaism is about only if they are responsive to these changes...
...1986 by Beth Hatefutsoih, The Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jruiish Diaspora, Tel Aviv...
...The vast majority of intermarriages resulted in conversions of the non-Jewish spouses in the 1940s-1960s but less than 20 percent resulted in conversions in the 1980s...
...When it does, synagogue affiliation can be expected to drop still further...
...But most Jews now require a different kind of synagogue if they are to affiliate...
...We cannot assume that people who belong to organizations know what those organizations are really about or what programs they make available...
...But like other population booms, this one, too, will end...
...The unconnected and the unaffiliated know next to nothing...
...We have seen Jews moving in ever increasing numbers away from their communities in the Northeast and Midwest to the burgeoning Jewish communities of the South and West...
...Synagogues, like other Jewish organizations, are going to have to become more user-friendly in terms of their fee structures...
...Synagogues must find ways to incorporate interfaith couples into their spheres or an ever increasing proportion of Jews will drift away permanently from the synagogue and from Judaism, taking their children with them...
...The actual percentage of members is probably considerably lower than Gallup's statistical estimate because many Jews say they are affiliated when they are not...
...In many communities today the interfaith marriage rate is 33 percent and in some places it tops 50 percent, especially in the West...
...When all of these "others" are added together, the traditional Jewish family does not loom as large a constituency as synagogues would like to believe...
...Earlier in their lives, many Jews belonged but dropped out...
...Some have already begun such programs, offering preschool or Meals on Wheels, for example...
...For these reasons, the one-third figure is probably exaggerated...
...Knowledge about synagogues is no higher...
...Only about 15 percent of the Jewish population has either a low or moderate income...
...Why do people say they belong when they don't...
...But an even more basic change is needed in the concept of membership...
...A demographic revolution has occurred in American Jewish life for which most organizations—particularly synagogues—are ill-prepared...
...Blended families—households where one spouse brings the children of a previous marriage into the second or third marriage—are another growing family constellation...
...Adult education courses, for example, might take place on a cruise...
...Many singles do not feel welcome in contemporary synagogues because they feel uncomfortable in settings focusing on traditional Jewish families...
...In just one generation the traditional Jewish household is now the minority, constituting a very small proportion of Jewish households...
...If an individual is only interested in a synagogue to attend services on the high holy days, send children to a pre-school program or for a bar/bat mitzvah, membership may not make sense...
...Singles now are an important household type...
...The Jewish family today is radically different from what it has ever been before...
...Increased attention must also be paid to improving the quality of Jewish education...
Vol. 15 • August 1990 • No. 4
