Who Are We Today?

A survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute in February and March 2012 found the following breakdown of the American Jewish community: 35% Reform, 26% Conservative, 8% Orthodox, 1% Reconstructionist, and 29% who said they were “just Jewish.” Regarding the latter category, the survey findings were in line with other surveys — that younger Americans of all faiths are likely to be less religiously affiliated than their elders.

The survey found that 59% of American Jews said religion is at least somewhat important in their lives, with women at 66% and men at 50%. Younger Jews are twice as likely as older Jews to say they do not believe in God (27% to 13%), with only 35% of American Jews belonging to a synagogue.

Belief in God is not uniform. While 18% of Jews of all ages do not believe in God, 26% say they believe in a God with whom they can have a relationship, and 40% say they believe in an “impersonal God.” Many rabbis have contended that a Judaism without a strong belief in God and theology would collapse (see the article on “How Judaism Became a Religion”).

Concerning the qualities Jews feel are most important to their sense of Jewish identity, 46% identified social issues (a commitment to social equality), 20% support for Israel, 17% religious observance, 6% cultural heritage, and 11% other. 87% said the Holocaust was somewhat or very important in determining their political beliefs and activities.

Another survey found that 50% of non-Orthodox couples are intermarried and that most of the children of these marriages receive no Jewish schooling at all. Only 7% of young intermarried couples (ages 18-34) feel “very attached to Israel,” which is frightening, because caring about Israel is the one thing that unites most Jews.

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