As Ora has rightly perceived, my doomsday tone continues to be in evidence, though it is in line with similar others, whilst, as she says, “we’re still here!”

A continuing Jewish history is not a safe prediction for Jewish Continuity into the future, and I would expect the Israeli government to be alarmed at the prospect of Congress over-ruling the President and having US troops leave the Middle East entirely by, say, April 2008.

The Middle East would then be Israel surrounded by Islamic nation after nation. Historically, that has happened before but this time, there are ballistic missiles with nuclear bombs attached. This is what is historically different!

I predict that when the US troops leave the Middle East next year, there will be a multiplying exodus of Jews with dual passports back to the Diaspora.

What’s the point of going on about this? Perhaps not much point, I grant! Except for the little children in Israel! Please, please bring them out and don’t risk their little lives! For, after all, they possess within themselves solutions to Jewish Continuity, which are “simple to implement, inexpensive, and widely acceptable”.

What is missing are solutions that will facilitate Jewish Continuity.

Such solutions should be:
a. simple to implement
b. inexpensive
c. widely acceptable.

There should also be a website where readers can describe their own theories.

The main point, though, is that you’re simply too negative. The doomsday tone you have is one that some might consider justified, but then again it’s been justified throughout Jewish history and we’re still here.

Still, I think your post is very important. If young Jews look at Jewishness as a historical burden or an ethnicity, as you seem to, then you’re right, it’s not worth the risk. The main thing is to instill a sense of Jewish responsibility and Jewish pride in our children, and to teach them the joy of Jewish life. Kathy is so right, a huge obstacle in this is mundane financial reality. Tuition is expensive, synagogues are expensive, etc. Hopefully outreach groups like Chabad and Aish will be able to help. Also, parents need to take individual responsibility to pass Jewishness on to their kids even if they can’t afford day school/what have you.

The director of Jewish education in the Jewish Agency, David Harman, said, “We are fighting a losing battle. There will not be significant Jewish communities in Europe in the early part of the 21st century. In the US, they will meander a little longer because of the sheer bulk involved.”

In regard to the former Soviet Union, Harman stated that “there are eleven Jewish deaths for every one Jewish birth.”

Figures given to Silver in 1996 from the Jewish Agency included the statistic that “there are only 1,550,000 children of school age in all the countries of the Diaspora. The total Diapora population is about 10 million.” Harman commented that “this is a population that is not being replenished.”

Some US studies indicate that about half of marriages involving Jews are mixed, and Jonathan Sacks, UK Chief Rabbi, has asked, “Will we have Jewish grandchildren?”

In the whole Diaspora, only about half of the Jewish children receive any kind of Jewish education. Educational tours to Israel for teenagers fell from a peak of 12,000 in 1987 to 5,000 in 1996.

Silver surmises that the only viable Jewish communities will soon be found in Israel and pockets of extreme orthodoxy.

This leaves the current (2007) population of Jews in Israel which is 5,750,000. Israel was not nearly so surrounded by armed camps in 1996 when Silver wrote his article as it is now. Dr Dan Ben David of Tel Aviv University writes in Haaretz (19.6.07) that decisions in Israel and/or the US will need to be made in the next twelve months in regard to Iran, because that country will have attained nuclear weapons over the next thirty months.

So, whilst the Disapora is fading away, the Jewish population of about 6 million is facing an existential threat, one nuclear-generated possibility of which is the end of the state itself.

Perhaps it’s no wonder that Jewish-born teenagers don’t want to hitch the flag of their young lives to what appears to be a sinking ship. And perhaps, loving parents don’t want to coerce their teenagers to get on board a ship of titanic proportions!

Seems to me that each of the above have touched on important aspects.

What I have seen is that
1) the role of women– careers, later marriages is crucial
2) affluence and the limiting of children due to cost of raising them “properly” and educating them
3) less focus on family, home and more on travel, mobility, eating out, etc.
4) fewer positive role models showing how one can manage 3-5 children and still live a meaningful life
5) influence of liberal politics– Zero population growth, not understanding demographics as a key aspect of future world politics (e.g. Muslim population in Europe) in a sensible manner

JD

You are 100% wrong. Parents are the problem, parents who encourage their children to treat Judaism as a subculture in which to dabble, to date non-Jews, to avoid major life commitments such as marriage until receiving their Ph.D, and to remain at the “set table” of prosperous and educated Diaspora life instead of moving into a Jewish community or to Israel. In essence, parents who tell their children to pursue all their dreams besides the Jewish ones.

I tell you these things as an 18-year-old Jewish male. I hope to make aliyah after college, and plan to spend much of my remaining time before that in Israel.

Not having to wear the “Assimilated Minority” mask for once would be nice. But I suppose olim constitute their own minority…

The Preface to his book begins, “The Jews are vanishing from Europe - and not only because of Hitler.” He details population figures such as the fall from 9.6 million in 1939 to 1.8 million in 1994 so that his projection of 1 million in 2000 might have been optimistic.

“Since Hitler”, he says,”the story of Jews is not as victims of the hatred of their neighbours but, rather, as victims of their kindness. It is a story of the processes of integration and assimilation that have succeeded to such a degree as to threaten the collective survival of Jews, at least in Western Europe” (pxiii).

My view is that, since Judaism looks back to about the 10th century BCE, and depends on prophecies from that time onwards, it is too anachronistic to survive in a modern and secularised society.

The birhtright israel initiative is bringing tens of thousands of young Jews to Israel. If birthright can be used a teaching tool to encourage these young Jews to have Jewish families (and sooner than later), we may have some leverage in changing the status quo.

It is worth researching why Jews exhibit these characteristics in greater magnitude. I predict that research will find at the root of the problem is an endemic selfish indulgence, where one’s goals in life are dominated by materialism and sexual freedoms. We have been raising spoiled, affluent children who feel its their right to “have it all” without regards to their religious and communal obligations. That is why no one wants to talk about it. The truth will be very ugly indeed.