The Road Ahead: How Data Can Inform and Transform our Community

A number of sociological findings point to a major political, demographic, and organizational challenge facing the American Jewish community. How prepared are our communal leaders and religious institutions to address these issues? 

1. By 2040, Muslims will replace Jews as the nation’s second-largest religious group after Christians. And by 2050, the U.S. Muslim population is projected to reach 8.1 million, or 2.1% of the nation’s total population — nearly twice the share of today.
2. What is often not referenced when dealing with the current rise in anti-Semitism is the major generational shifts we are seeing with this new wave of hate. Younger Americans are more anti-Semitic than older ones. Projecting this finding forward, the Jewish community could be in for a significant and extended period of heightened hate and threats. A 2024 AJC survey found that 93% of Jewish people and 74% of US adults surveyed consider antisemitism to be a serious problem. The survey also found that 26% of American Jews have experienced antisemitism in the past year, including in-person remarks, online posts, and physical attacks. 41% of respondents also said they feel less secure than they did a year ago, with 27% citing antisemitic violence and attacks as a reason. 46% of American Jews have also changed their behavior out of fear of antisemitism
3. The effectiveness of campus and community-based organizing by groups hostile to Israel and to “Zionists” has been in the planning for some time and has been effectively executed over the past number of months by a broad coalition of groups. Funded by various foundations and Middle East governments, the campaign to discredit and cancel Israel presents a challenge to Jewish organizers who have now facing a rear-guard action in trying to reframe the case for Israel and Zionism.
4. While Jews are expressing a deep shared concern over contemporary anti-Semitism, based on current polling data, Jews remain deeply divided over Israel, American politics, and Jewish religious practice, with a significant number of younger American Jews demonstrating a deep disconnection from Israel. The impact of such policy divisions weakens Jewish political clout.
5. Jewish communal engagement is in decline! The demographic data is discouraging. Synagogues are losing members, aging, merging, and some are closing. The 72% intermarriage rate between 2010 and 2020 remains a key indicator. In recent Pew Surveys, three quarters of Jewish Americans regard “leading an ethical and moral Jewish life” as core to their Jewishness, while only one-third believe that “being part of a Jewish community” represents an essential value, while Jewish fertility rates remain below replacement levels.

There are other key internal factors significant to our broader understanding of the changing character and composition of American Jewry:

• Jews are among the oldest ethnic, religious groups in this nation. Over half of Jewish Americans are 50 years old and older, with more than half of that group being over 65.
• Jews who are today between the age of 18-29 form the largest percentage of both Orthodox Jews and those who identify as “Just Jewish.” By contrast, older Jews, those over the age of 50, represent the majority of Conservative and Reform Jews. The data here points to the great Jewish religious and generational divide.
• While 1.5% of Americans identify as Jewish by religion, 0.8% of Americans (around one-third of the total) identify as being Jewish by culture only. This includes more than half of Jews under 30. Jewish Americans as among the least connected to their religious tradition.
• Once known as the “people of the book” Jews have lost their educational edge. A new study points to an impressive 34% of Jews who hold postgraduate degrees, by contrast 38% of Hindus and 43% of Unitarian-Universalists hold advanced degrees. Further, 69% of Hindus and 65% of Unitarian-Universalists hold four-year or post-graduate degrees, compared with 61% of Jewish Americans.

Moving Forward:

All these findings raise basic questions of how as a community we will need to confront our new demographic reality. In addition, it begs the question of what type of different schemes will be required, if we believe we can turn around some or all these trends? Moving forward, what kind of leaders will we require?  How we educate and engage new generation of Jews to be conscious of these issues, and more directly, access the implications of such changes on communal practice?

Several operational principles have defined the effectiveness of the Jewish communal order:

Political power is part perception but there is a level of reality, as any structural change can alter a group’s capacity to impact outcomes and exhibit its influence. The Jewish community understood the implications of having power and securing influence.

In the past, our communal system appeared to be proactive, capable of responding to threats and identifying strategies to advance our collective interests. We shared a communal vision and understood the organizing tools required to deliver successful outcomes.

Leadership capacity represents a major ingredient in determing the effectiveness and capacity of the communal system to perform and to be able to manage these emerging challenges.

On Reflection:

We had understood the American Jewish experience to be “exceptional,” and distinctive due in part to how welcoming this nation would be to Jews. We further came to believe that part of our success here was aligned with developing a coherent agenda and mobilizing our community to be actively engaged and informed. In the past we measured our performance, held our leadership accountable, and set both institutional and communal goals to attain.

At best, at this moment, leaders are merely moving the deck chairs, unwilling, and maybe unprepared, to address these fundamental and operational concerns. A normal reaction has been to push the issues down the road, assuming that someone else will manage such considerations.

Either we will figure out a “way forward” for our community or as with earlier Diaspora experiences, will the American Jewish story revert to an earlier timeframe where Jews lose their political, social, and economic clout? The community stands an inflection point, and how we respond or fail to so, will define the Jewish future!