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there's been no talk of another local
study, said Marion Freedman, senior
staff associate in the planning and
allocations department of the
Bloomfield Township-based central
fund-raising and planning agency for
Detroit Jewry. "There might be some-
thing in the future, but they'll have to
have time to look at it and digest it
and see where they want to go."
While the NJPS is aimed primarily
at federations, others, including reli-
gious leaders, are also paying close
attention to the data — at least for
parochial purposes. "I don't think
there was that much shocking" in
NJPS, said Rabbi Jerome Epstein,
executive vice president of the United
Synagogue of Conservative Judaism,
the movement's congregational arm.
Of the 5.2 million Jews it counted
overall, NJPS showed that 46 percent
of 4.3 million more Jewishly connect-
ed Jews claimed to be synagogue
members, and 33 percent of those said
they were Conservative — down 8
percent from one decade ago.
Of all synagogue members, 39 per-
cent identified as Reform, 4 percent
more than 1990; 21 percent were
Orthodox, up 5 percent from 1990, 3
percent Reconstructionist, up 2 per-
cent from 1990; and 4 percent as
"other," such as Sephardic.
But "it's not enough to talk about
the numbers of those who affiliate.
What about growth in terms of spiri-
tuality, in terms of depth?" Rabbi
Epstein said.
Nevertheless, a United Synagogue
official in charge of long-range plan-
ning will more closely study NJPS for
potentially useful information, Rabbi
Epstein said.
Sifting Data
For Reform officials, NJPS "feels like
an affirmation of what we've been
doing," said Dru Greenwood, director
of outreach and synagogue community
for the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations, Reform's synagogue
arm. The Reform movement has been
perhaps the most aggressive at recruit-
ing marginal and intermarried Jews.
Greenwood said that NJPS findings
such as 33 percent of interfaith couples
raise their children as Jews provide a "a
tremendous opportunity" Ultimately,
NJPS "will have an impact on the dis-
course" about American Jewry's future
overall, she said.
UAHC will present the study to lay
leaders trained in fields that interpret
such data, she added, and examine the
analyses for impact on policy.
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Also assembling a panel of experts to
sift through NJPS will be the Orthodox
Union, said OU's executive vice presi-
dent, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb. While
the OU has its own concerns about the
Jewish people, such as a low birth rate,
Rabbi Weinreb said that no single
group can address all of the concerns
NJPS raises. This survey can serve as a
shofar to wake us up," he said.
Jewish professionals in other areas say
they are looking for very specific data
that NJPS may not provide. Jonathan
Woocher, president of the Jewish
Education Service of North America,
said the raw data NJPS offers "gives us
a valuable baseline portrait." But "the
real issue," he said, "is not how many
we count in different areas, but how do
we impact those we do reach?"
For his part, Rabbi Rami Arian, exec-
utive director of the Foundation for
Jewish Camping, said he would like to
see a study "that looks in a serious way
at the various kinds of Jewish education
experiences" in camps "and tracks their
impact" over time.
NJPS was never designed to assess
the quality of specific services, its back-
ers say, but was aimed at offering a "sta-
tistical snapshot" of American Jewry
"This is a UJC report; therefore, what
we highlighted were areas our con-
stituents were looking for," said
Lorraine Blass, NJPS project director.
Bruce Phillips, a sociologist at
Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles,
author of a study on intermarriage and
an NJPS consultant, added that NJPS
avoids examining the implications of
the data and presents an overview
instead. That said, he added, "you
would be crazy to ignore it; it's a very
solid study"
Publicizing Facts
Meanwhile, Rabbi Herring, who
chairs the NJPS data utilization com-
mittee, said the next six months will
prove crucial in getting the facts out.
After the previous NJPS in 1990,
Herring warned that local federations
were not sufficiently schooled in how
to actually use the data.
Now, given the past year's controver-
sy over the study's methods, NJPS
"will always be haunted with credibili-
ty issues," he said, "and that fact is
something any utilization plan should
take into account."
Others, such as Miami's Solomon,
say that ultimately, a survey is just a
survey. "We can count Jews for a min-
yan, and that's about it," he said. "You
can make predictions about what the
Jewish future's going to look like?
Gimme a break!" I I