This Week

Insight

Remember
When

From the pages of the Jewish News
from this week 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
and 60 years ago.

By The Numbers

Following success of last year's joint
outreach efforts between the
Reform and Conservative move-
ments in metropolitan Detroit, a
second series of singles Shabbat
services, including a Rosh
Hashanah service, kicks off this
week at Temple Shir Shalom.
Edwin and Elizabeth Shevin
Schreiber of Grand Blanc establish
a grove of 1,000 trees in the
American Independence Park out-
side of Jerusalem under the auspices
of the Jewish National Fund.

Population study paints a portrait of American Jewry.

49totisqsom.

nON;

Klaus Synagogue in Prague,
Czechoslovakia, is reopened to
tourists. The late-16th century syn-
agogue adjoins Prague's Jewish
cemetery, which has nearly 16,000
tombstones.

1913
Max M. Fisher and Paul
Zuckerman are Detroiters named
to the national committee on con-
trol and authorization of campaigns
of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

19 611111111111111a=

Benjamin D. Burdick, recognized
as one of Detroit's most devoted
Zionists, is appointed by Gov.
Romney to the Wayne County
Circuit Court bench.

19

,

y.

1943

Rabbi Herschel Lymon, minister of
religious education at Temple Beth
El of Detroit, becomes a chaplain
in the Armed Forces.
A special award is presented to
the Jewish Community of Flint by
the Jewish National Fund for con-
tributions raised to fund the Jewish
community now called Nachlath
Flint Colony in Palestine.

— Compiled by Holly Teasdle,
archivist, the Rabbi Leo M. Franklin
Archives of Temple Beth El

9/12

32

New York

D

oes Jewish education corn-
bat intermarriage? Where
do most American Jews
live? How many attend a
seder on Passover?
Answers to these and other ques-
tions can be found in the newly
released National Jewish Population
Survey 2000-01, the $6 million study
commissioned by United Jewish
Communities. The report was made
public this week.
Dubbed "Strength, Challenge and
Diversity," the NJPS offers key find-
ings on demographics, intermarriage,
Jewish "connections" (communal
behavioral trends) and such "special"
topics as the elderly, immigration and
poverty.
The study will be available online as
of Sept. 12 at www.ujc.orginjps
The entire data set will be available at
www.jewishdatabank.com
Among the long-awaited study's key
findings:

Demographics

Detroiter Stuart Pernick of Temple
Israel is elected president of Michigan
State Temple Youth at its annual camp
conclave at Riseman Farm Camp.

2003

JOE BERKOFSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

• There are 5.2 Million Jews in the
United States, down from 5.5 million
counted in the 1990 NJPS. Those
Jews live in 2.9 million homes, with a
total of 6.7 million people. So in
Jewish households, two out of every
nine people are not Jewish.
• Jews are older, on average, than
the American population as a whole.
The median age for Jews is 42, corn-
pared to age 35 for Americans general-
ly. While 14 percent of Americans are
age 9 or younger, only 10 percent of
Jews are. And 23 percent of Jews are
over age 60, compared to 16 percent
of Americans as a whole.
• A majority of Jews — 57 percent
— are married, but they tend to
marry later in life than other
Americans. For instance, while 59 per-
cent of American men in the 25-34
age bracket are married, only 48 per-

cent of Jewish men are. Among
women in that age bracket, 64 percent
of Jews are married, compared to 70
percent of Americans generally.
• Jewish women's fertility rates are
lower than most Americans. Ninety
percent of Jewish women ages 18-24
and 70 percent of those 25-29 do not
have children, compared to 70 percent
and 44 percent of U.S. women in
those age groups. Jewish women had
1.86 children on average overall, ver-
sus 1.93 children by all U.S. women.
• Forty-three percent of Jews live in
the Northeast, 23 percent in the
South, 22 percent in
the West and 13
percent in the
Midwest. But while
77 percent of Jews
born in the West
still live there, only
61 percent of Jews
born in the
Northeast and just
half of those born in
the Midwest do, sig-
naling a continued
migration westward.
• That migration
was offset by immi-
gration to the
Northeast, where
nearly 60 percent of Jews from the
former Soviet Union live.
• Jews are more affluent than
Americans generally. More than one-
third of Jewish households report an
annual income of $75,000 or higher,
compared to just 18 percent of U.S.
households. The median Jewish house-
hold income is $54,000, compared to
$42,000 for Americans generally.
• Only 61 percent of all Jews are
currently working, compared to 65
percent of all Americans, reflecting the
higher median age of Jews.

Intermarriage

• Among all married Jews today, 31
percent are married to non-Jews. The
intermarriage rate, which had been ris-
ing since 1970s, leveled off in the.late

1980s and early 1990s to about 43
percent. Since then, it has climbed
again slightly, with 47 percent of Jews
who wed since 1996 choosing non-
Jewish spouses.
• Intermarriage runs highest among
the young, with 41 percent of Jews
under 35 who marry choosing non-
Jewish spouses. By comparison, only
20 percent of married Jews over 55
have non-Jewish spouses.
• The intermarriage rate is higher
among men than women — 33 per-
cent, compared to 29 percent.
• The greater one's Jewish education,
the less likely one is to
intermarry. Forty-three
percent of those who
lacked any Jewish edu-
cation intermarried,
compared to 29 per-
cent among those who
had one day per week
of Jewish education.
The rate dropped to 23
percent for those who
had part-time Jewish
education, and to 7
percent among those
who attended Jewish
day school or yeshivah.
• Mirroring some
earlier studies, NJPS
also showed that intermarriage breeds
intermarriage, with the children of
intermarried couples three times more
likely to intermarry. Intermarriage was
22 percent among those with two
Jewish parents, versus 74 percent of
those with just one Jewish parent.
• Children of intermarried couples
raised in a Jewish household were less
likely to intermarry, though a majority
still did. Nearly 60 percent of children
raised Jewish by an interfaith couple
intermarried, compared to 86 percent
who were nor raised as Jews. But only-
33 percent of intermarried households
raise their children as Jews, compared
to 96 percent of homes with two
Jewish parents.
• Those who intermarry may experi-
ence alienation from the Jewish com-
munity. Just 24 percent of the inter-