GRAYING

from page 17

members, with the aim of getting
people to mix.
"These two poles of the communi-
ty were focused on their own inter-
ests, but we're starting to see them as
part of a whole," Rabbi Ridberg
said.
Anita Steiner, 61, has seen that
bigger picture. Steiner is about to
graduate from the RRC and plans to
return to her adopted hometown of
Ashkelon, Israel, to work in hospice
care.
While in Philadelphia, Steiner
worked with one woman in her 80s
with terminal cancer. Because she
was frail and alone, the woman was
afraid to use matches, so Steiner
brought her a menorah and lit it for
Chanukah.

"I was sitting there, the candles
were between us, and she was just so
appreciative that her Jewish self
could come out," Steiner said. "It
was just so amazing."
Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
said the way the aged are treated is
the truest reflection of a society, but
respect for previous generations also
is key to Jewish survival, said Rabbi
David Gutterman, executive director
of the VAAD: Board of Rabbis of
Greater Philadelphia.
The Fifth Commandment says to
honor your mother and father, but it
really means the "collective parents
of the Jewish people," he said.
"We must have a relationship with
those who came before," Rabbi
Gutterman said. El

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Survey Results

Philadelphia/JTA — What are old
Jews thinking?
According to the National Jewish
Population Survey 2000-01 (NJPS),
the most important Jewish priority is
"remembering the Holocaust," fol-
lowed by "living an ethical and moral
htina anti-Semitism."
life" and "fighting
-
This growing segment of older Jews
— up 2 percentage points since the
last survey in 1990 — also rank a rich
spiritual life, Jewish law and synagogue
among their top Jewish concerns.
The study revealed a great deal of
detail about Jewish seniors. Their
median age had risen to 75 from 71
when the last study was done in
1990.
Of those aged 65 and older, the
study found:
• 60 percent were women, a rise of
11 percent from 1990.
• Half lived alone, up from 37 per-
cent in 1990.
• 36 percent said they were in
"poor" or "fair" health, while 32 per-
cent said they relied on home care on
limited funds.
The study found that the Jewish
attitudes and practices of those aged
65 and older revealed a liberal com-
munity that does not cling to tradi-
tion:
• 54 percent said they were politi-
cally liberal, up from 49 percent in
1990.
• 46 percent affiliated with the

Conservative movement, 30 percent
with the Reform movement, 15 per-
cent with Orthodoxy and 2 percent
with the Reconstructionist move-
ment.
• 14 percent said they believe the
Torah was revealed by God at Mount
Sinai.
• 1.1 percent called themselves
" very religious" and 8 percent "very
observant"; 10 percent said they kept
a kosher home.
• 52 percent said they were "com-
fortable" with the Reform move-
ment.
The survey found. that financial
concerns also ranked high for older
Jews:
• Some 35 percent of senior house-
holds earned less thin $25,000 annu-
ally, though 18 percent earned more
than $100,000 annually.
• 26 percent said they "can't make
ends meet" or were "just managing
financially."
• 20 percent said costs had pre-
vented them from joining a syna-
gogue in the past year, while 18 per-
cent said financial concerns had pre-
vented them from synagogue mem-
bership in the past five years.
• 14 percent said money woes kept
them from joining a Jewish commu-
nity center in the past year.

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