World Jewry is sustained by the prolific reproduction rate amongst the ultra-orthodox Jewish community, a new study has shown—a development which means that the most religiously extreme element of Judaism is setting the tone for that community.
Pini Herman, Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, in an article titled “Will your great-grandchildren be Jewish?” published in the Jewish Journal, said that the “just-released Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011 clearly shows that the Jewish population decline in New York has been stemmed by large numbers of babies born to Orthodox families in America.
“The heroic fertility and educational efforts of Orthodox Jews is legendary,” the article continued.
Herman went on to explain that although large numbers of ultra-orthodox Jews move into more conservative Judaism as they get older, enough remain of this core community to keep on producing large numbers of Jews so that their race will not be absorbed away by intermarriage.
“Ironically, it is historically the Conservative and Reform Jewish movements that have unintentionally benefited from this Orthodox Jewish investment,” Herman wrote.
“In 1990, 44 percent of American Jewish adults had shifted from their childhood denomination. Just 10 years later, in 2000, denominational switching increased to 59 percent of American adults. According to the recent study, now only a minority has stayed in the Jewish denomination in which they were raised. The greatest shifts are away from Conservative and Orthodox Judaism.
“While this has greatly worried the Conservative movement’s rabbis, the denominational shift has always affected Orthodox Judaism proportionally to a far greater extent.
“Historically, Conservative and Reform Judaism owe their very existence and phenomenal growth to the vast Orthodox Jewish migration to America prior to 1924 and the massive shift away from Orthodox Judaism, primarily to Conservative Judaism.
“Orthodox Judaism has traditionally served as the feeder denomination for Conservative as well as Reform Judaism. Conservative Judaism gets the majority of adult denominational shifters from Orthodox Judaism, but Reform Judaism currently has in its pews about one in 10 adults who were raised by Orthodox parents.
“It is in the self-interest of the Conservative and Reform movements to encourage the flowering of the Orthodox American Jewish community, for they are the ultimate beneficiaries of the adult choices of Orthodox-raised children.
“In spite of the best efforts of the Orthodox community, data shows that many of them will choose to live adult lives as something other than Orthodox Jews. In the same manner, it is in the best interests of Reform Jews to support the flowering of Conservative Judaism.
“So, American Jews of all stripes, be nice to the Orthodox Jews, who comprise about one-tenth of the community. When Orthodox polemicists ask: Will your grandchildren be Jewish? The answer is: Probably.”
What Hermann did not add, of course, is that fact that the ultra-Orthodox Jews, as the most strictly religious, are the most vehemently anti-Gentile and make up the most extreme element of the Jewish Supremacists who regard Gentiles as little better than beasts made to serve Jews.
