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Friday October 9, 1998

Study warns diaspora Jewry could soon shrink by half

ARYEH DEAN COHEN
Jerusalem Post Service

Of the 13.5 million, about one million are Orthodox.

WJC director Dr. Avi Becker noted that developments in Jewish history sometimes "reject demographic trends."

"Right now assimilation is something that worries Jewish communities around the world, and the concept of Jewish continuity is the motto in many of them, but I think it's been proven that there are forces in Jewish society which can come and really change these trends," he said. He noted that there is a "polarization" in many communities, with growing assimilation but also increasing "haredization."

Some Orthodox Jews "are really going outside the mainstream of the community and are no longer part and parcel of it," he said. This is sometimes to meet their religious needs, "but it goes beyond this, because many haredim around the world are no longer part of the day-to-day life of the Jewish community."

In many communities, the situation is paradoxically "good for the Jews, but bad for Judaism," Becker said, with diaspora Jews' outstanding success in their home communities in various fields leading to increased assimilation.

"This is part of the success story of world Jewry today," Becker said. "Jews are so much accepted, it is so popular to be Jewish in so many communities, particularly in North America, that we are being hugged by the society around us.

"They accept us and we enjoy equal opportunity, sometimes even more than that, so we are not looking anymore for our separate identities. This is the interesting dialectic of modern emancipation. For us as Jews, the biggest challenge today is how to maintain a Jewish life in a post-emancipated society in the West."

According to the report, anti-Semitism is down worldwide. Interest in the Holocaust peaked with the reports in the past year regarding the looting of Jewish assets by the Nazis and their sympathizers, and the Swiss bank accounts story.

Jews today are found in more than 100 countries, the report said. Large communities include France (600,000), Russia (400,000), Canada (360,000), Ukraine (280,000), Great Britain (280,000), and Argentina (220,000).

Outside of Israel, there has been no natural growth in any Jewish community, and in some, the number of births is less than the number of deaths, the report said.

"In Western societies today, Jews are known to be more modern than their society around them. Jews today in Western societies are among the less married with less children than the people around them.

"The growing rate of divorce and the growing number of singles in Jewish communities contributes to negative growth, in addition to growing assimilation," Becker explained.

Some communities have grown thanks to immigration over the past 20 years, including Canada and Brazil. The renaissance in Jewish life in Germany continues, largely due to the arrival of Jews from the former Soviet Union. Some 70,000 Jews currently live there.

An estimated 2,500 Jews live in Hong Kong and about 7,000 in Panama, representing what the report said are new economic opportunities for Jews in those places.

The assimilation rate in some U.S. and European cities has reached 80 percent, with the average there about 50 percent, the report said.

There are almost no Jews in distress, and even the 25,000 Jews of Iran are able to carry on a Jewish life. Some 400 Jews remain in Yemen, about 100 in Syria, and about 650 on Gibraltar.

According to the report, some 500,000 Israelis have left the country since its establishment. Most (350,000) live in the United States, Canada (40,000), France (40,000), Great Britain (30,000), South Africa (10,000), Germany (8,000), and Australia (5,000). Many take no part in community activities, the report said.

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