Sad reality about
Jewish identity

By Eric Fingerhut
Washington Jewish Week

(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com) AT A TIME when many experts think that the greatest threat to Jews in America comes from within, a new survey shows many American Jews feel the outside force of anti-Semitism is a much greater menace.

That was just one of the interesting findings in the American Jewish Committee’s 1999 Survey of American Jewish Opinion. Telephone interviews were conducted with 1,000 American Jews between March 29 and April 18, 1999; the margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

By a margin of close to two-to-one, American Jews said anti-Semitism is a greater threat to Jewish life in America than intermarriage --- 62 to 32 percent. Those numbers also reflect an increase from last year’s survey, in which the split was 57 to 38 percent.

"It’s very hard to understand the answer," said David Harris, executive director of the AJCommittee. He said the best explanation for the numbers is that "American Jews continue to be very conscious of Jewish history and vulnerability," and that recent attention to the Holocaust, due to the many museums and memorials throughout the country, has "reinforced lurking dangers and the constant need for Jewish alertness."

Pamela Nadell, director of the Jewish studies program at American University, said a large factor in the results may have been the response to another question in the survey --- 64 percent of those with married children have at least one child who is intermarried.

While no breakdown of results for that particular subgroup was available, those respondents with Jewish spouses themselves still chose anti-Semitism as a greater threat, by a margin of 54 to 39 percent. The margin among those with a non-Jewish husband or wife was much wider, 84 to 11 percent.

Even considered apart from intermarriage, though, anti-Semitism is seen as a significant problem by the group of American Jews surveyed. Thirty-four percent said anti-Semitism is currently a "very serious problem" and 63 percent said it is "somewhat of a problem."

Even more startling, when asked to look ahead over the next several years, 10 percent thought anti-Semitism in the United States would "increase greatly" and 35 percent said it would "increase somewhat," while 44 percent felt it would "remain the same" and only 8 percent said it would "decrease somewhat."

In addition, 44 percent of respondents disagreed with the statement, "Virtually all positions of influence in the United States are open to Jews."

(Unlike other questions, there was a marked difference in response to that question depending on age, with only 27 percent of those under 40 disagreeing with the statement.)

"I just don’t get it," said Nadell. "Anti-Semitism is so negligible [now] as to not be a significant threat," she said, noting the remarkable transformation of attitudes in America over the last half-century.

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Elliott Abrams, author of the book Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America, which argues that intermarriage is the biggest problem facing American Jews today, agreed. While acknowledging that surveys of Jews have shown similar findings for the last few decades, "the level of anti-Semitism has decreased very much over the last 25 years."

"I find it really bizarre, and bad for the American Jewish community to the extent that they are organized to deal with imaginary threats instead of threats from within," said Abrams, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Aaron Breitbart, senior researcher for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said that while less anti-Semitism exists today, it is "much more vocal" and evident, due to the rise of the Internet and what he perceives as a greater tolerance of intolerance, or "society’s relaxation of 'rules' " on what one should say in public. "There are fewer people [who are anti-Semitic], but it sounds like there are more in the U.S."

Breitbart said that while there will "always be anti-Semites," the more insidious danger is assimilation. "We should make sure we don’t give Hitler a posthumous victory," he said.

Another aspect of the survey which raised eyebrows was the finding that "remembrance of the Holocaust" is the primary measure of identity for many Jews. Twenty-four percent of American Jews rated it "extremely important" to their Jewish identity, while 54 percent said it was "very important." The only response that had anywhere close to similar numbers was "celebration of Jewish holidays," with 17 percent calling it "extremely important" and 50 percent "very important." Other choices "participation in synagogue services, Jewish study, travel to Israel and Jewish organizational activity" were much less popular, all garnering less than 10 percent of respondents who said such factors were "extremely important" and anywhere from 19 to 31 percent who called them "very important." (Jewish study received the highest numbers, travel to Israel the lowest.)

"As a child of Holocaust survivors, I would be the last person to suggest that the Holocaust is not the central event in our lifetimes," said the AJCommitee’s Harris. "But it can’t be allowed to become the alpha and omega of Jewish identity."

Nadell felt similarly. "It’s clear that since 1967, American Jews engage in remembering the Holocaust much more," she said, pointing out the ubiquitousness of Holocaust remembrance in contemporary American culture, from Holocaust education courses in schools to movies such as Schindler’s List and the numerous Holocaust memoirs which have been published.

But she was troubled that so many Jews place such great importance on Holocaust remembrance as a factor in their Jewish identity. "I don’t think it’s healthy. Jews can’t hang their identity on that forever,” she said.

A related question found that close to one-half of those surveyed consider "being part of the Jewish people" the quality most important to their Jewish identity. Twenty-one percent said "commitment to social justice" was the most important quality, and three percent said "support for Israel."

Only 15 percent responded "religious observance."

Eric Fingerhut is a staff reporter for Washington Jewish Week. Let him know what you think by clicking here.

©1999, Washington Jewish Week