USA's 2% Jewish Population's Makeup

 Nadene Goldfoot

Danny and I in 1980 at our Aliyah party at my mother's home.  We're leaving for Israel.  What we didn't know was that we would be there for over 5 years.  

I'm part of the USA's 2.3%'s Jewish population.  That's a very small group, and I also have dual citizenship with Israel, which most do not have. I had to leave Israel for personal reasons that had nothing to do with Israel, becoming what is called a Yored.

Noticably, since I had made the decision to move to Israel in 1980 because of anti-Semitism, this hatred of Jews has been growing.  Lately, it has been showing its ugly head far more than before, always just under the surface.  Living in Portland, Oregon on the West coast is far different than life of the East Coast, and I'm joined by 93% of other Jewish Americans who say they feel less safe, obviously referring to anti-Semitism. 

                                                                    

                                      In my new home, an apartment, in Safed, Israel, and we're waiting for our lift to arrive with all our things.  This is a ground floor apartment so it has protection on our living room window, protection from terrorists trying to get in, and /or rocket pieces, I suppose.  When we arrived, we passed places that had been hit by rockets only 2 weeks before.  

I'm one who is more than proud of my cultural heritage being I'm a teacher and an Israeli who also taught English in a junior high in Safed, Israel.  I have 3 blogs devoted to teaching about Israel; our ancient historic past and our  recent condition, so I live with it every day.  I started with teaching Sunday school at Neveh Zedek Conservative Synagogue when a teen ager after attending since age 5 in kindergarten.  That led to my career as a public school teacher.  

Pew did a survey of 4.17% of Jewish Americans between November 2019 and June 2020, and I wasn't involved, but see that we are an older group than most other minorities, have higher levels of education and income and most live in the Northeast.  I'm not surprised with the education element for Jews have learned that we might have to run, and education isn't heavy but necessary.  We've been educated since the very beginning of our existence, you might say, coming from the part of the world that developed writing early on in Mesopotamia, and the big city of Ur.  

The USA saw attacks on Jewish people in 2018 and 2019 when the synagogue, the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh was attacked, and Chabad Synagogue in Poway, California was hit, and the kosher grocery store in Jersey City, New Jersey.  Anti-Semitism has been growing in the last 5 years, felt by at least 3/4 of American Jews.  The first to feel unsafe are the Orthodox whose attire make them different and easier to spot and attack.

We are made of about  7.5 million Jewish people or 2. 3% of the American population, and have been here when New York was called New Amsterdam when a small boatload of Jews arrived as refugees and begged admittance and didn't get it right away.  When a few Jews made it out of Germany in 1939, they had to have someone take responsibility of all their monetary expenses and be responsible for them before they were allowed to enter.

In the USA, there are 3 groups of Jews;  the Orthodox making up 9%, Reform 37% , and Conservative 17%.   Most Orthodox live on the East coast, and lots of Reform are on the West coast.  My husband and I were from the Conservative childhood background who did make aliyah, but then we were both teachers and were most knowledgeable of our people's history.  That was the highlight of my life and a great privilege to be able to live and teach in Israel.  I hated to leave. One in 4 Jews and more may not belong to any of these 3 branches officially but do consider themselves to be Jewish ethnically, culturally or by family background.  

The event that has happened a great deal in America is interfaith marriage.  It's become commonplace, starting around the 1930s.  42% of married Jewish adults said they had a gentile spouse according to Pew.  My own parents are a good example, but my mother did convert to Judaism since her husband was Jewish.  Their children were then considered as Jewish by our law system, and we were raised as Jewish.  My brother was bar-mitzvahed.  

My recognition of Jews is that many have not been educated in our history enough at all.  They may all know about our observant holidays and may or may not be taking part.  Our history is lost to them when not a part of  their life celebrated with importance such as Halloween, 4th of July and/or even Christmas is to the extent it is in schools.  

Along with this complaint is that politics is taking its toll on Jews, and many are led away from Israel by a new group, J Street, saying they mean well, but they don't in my estimation.  They criticize Israel while being safe on their sofas in the USA and have no idea what is going on in our mother country.  The much older group that are advocates of Israel and are into knowing their history and bothers to teach about it is AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.  They do not tell Israel what to do in their estimation, but bother to find out what's going on and why Israel needs to do the things they do.  

Right now Israel is in the beginning of a war.  It needs all the prayers and help it can get.  This is horrible and I feel at a loss, and pray for Israel.   I pray that the Jews in America realize what can happen and know and feel for their roots and understand their religion better.  

Resource;

Add-on, about AIPAC; 10:51pm, 5/12/2021

Oregonian, 5/12/2021, page A14, David Crary, AP

Letters from Israel, by Nadene Goldfoot, on amazon.com