While in Israel last week, I went to Matan, the center for women’s Torah study located in the Katamon neighborhood in Jerusalem, to listen to Daniel Epstein a terrific teacher and significant philosopher. He had studied under Emmanuel Levinas, the great Jewish-French philosopher at the Sorbonne. Epstein’s lecture that day focused on Martin Heidegger and Vladimir Jankelevitch, a philosopher entirely unfamiliar to me. These are intellectual luminaries whose writings are scarcely accessible to me when translated into English. Epstein was speaking in Hebrew. I was in over my head. However, the experience had sociological importance and it is this aspect that I focused on.
When I am in Israel, usually three times a year, I visit religious, educational and cultural activities that I can learn from. Invariably, I am bowled over by the richness of what is available, the extraordinary number of study groups, lectures and public events in Jerusalem alone that reach for spiritual and intellectual growth. At Matan, there were about eighty persons seated in a small auditorium. Nearly all were women and most, but not all, were religious, coming from the dati leumi or national religious sector of Israeli Orthodoxy. The average age was about sixty and the audience was there not simply to listen or to take notes. As Daniel Epstein spoke for seventy-five minutes, all but a handful were writing the entire lecture, as they had done in previous weeks and would do in future sessions.
I have never seen anything like this in the U.S. For Israel, the occasion was a tiny slice of the abundant smorgasbord of informal religious education that is the daily fare in Jerusalem alone. Those who came to gain knowledge were simply dressed. A similar profile is evident when perhaps nearly one-thousand mainly seminary-age students come each week to Yeshurun Synagogue on King George Street in Jerusalem to listen to Rabbi Motti Elon. At these occasions, there is an evident feeling of anticipation and joy.
Invariably, those whom I see are ordinary religious Israelis, including persons who made aliyah or their children and not charedim or the fervently Orthodox, although they certainly have an abundance of study opportunities, at least for men. What is also striking is the articulateness of those who lecture. Their skill is constantly on display, not because they are showing off but because they are gifted teachers and that is a large part of the explanation of why many come to listen and learn.
Yet, there is a flip, even sad, side to this picture. The religious community in Israel is blessed with a surfeit of persons with intellectual and spiritual attainments who would like to make their mark. Their ambition is not pointed in the direction of material acquisitions but to a respected place in the educational sphere or communal life. Unfortunately, there apparently are not sufficient opportunities to satisfy this need. One senses among the religious intelligentsia pockets of melancholy and disappointment and only more so because these people are chasing their dreams in the Jewish state. There are feelings of unfulfillment because too many do not and probably cannot receive recognition or positions commensurate with their skill, learning and dedication. I meet people who are flitting from one dream to another, always somewhere over the rainbow.
There are other religious persons whom I see in Israel, younger people in the yeshiva world sector. They are in the main students who are here for a year or two of yeshiva study or kollel families, Israeli and from abroad, living here temporarily or permanently. The picture I have consists entirely of what I see and does not include what these students are doing when they are in the Beth Medrash or study hall. It obviously does not include the far greater number of yeshiva and kollel students whom I never see. Doubtlessly, what I am saying here covers the relatively small number who in my judgment do not display spiritual behavior befitting their status. What I and I believe others see is an instinct for hedonism, a desire to live it up, to have a good time running around and spending.
This is evident in restaurants and hotels and in public places. Instead of modesty, there is boisterousness and what may be described as prostkeit, which I translate as spiritual squalor. Admittedly, these are young people and young people have an excess of energy. These students may simply be out to enjoy life before family responsibilities and other realities induce a settling down. Still, it is not the Torah’s way.
I acknowledge again that I am unfair, that by a comfortable margin yeshiva and kollel students behave appropriately. Yet we cannot ignore the crude behavior that we often come face to face with. It seems that among too many in the yeshiva world the
cellphone is as much an accompaniment as any sacred text.
There is no obligation for young Torah students to live monastic lives or to be steeped in despondency. Joy is a good trait. There is, however, a religious obligation to know who you are and where you are and to be modest in public. Those who study Torah are familiar with the precept of marris ayan, of how onlookers may mistakenly misinterpret certain behaviors. There is a religious requirement to show restraint, to avoid the prospect of misinterpretation.
Those who engage in Torah study need to recognize that acting as big time spenders in a raucous fashion makes an impression on those who are witness to this behavior. Especially in Israel where overwhelmingly Israelis face constant financial pressure and emotional strain arising from the security situation, what are they to think of religious Jews when they see inappropriate activity?
Friday, January 25, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
The World of Jewish Day Schools
Cheryl Brown and Chaya Braun – their names have been changed, but the facts are real – are in their second year of elementary school teaching and each is receiving $6,000 this year. For Ms. Brown, the figure represents a salary increase as she goes up a step on the pay scale for New York City public school teachers and also benefits from the raise provided in the new union contract. For Ms. Braun, $6,000 is what she will be paid this year for teaching at a Jewish day school.
There are other distinctions, including Ms. Brown being in a classroom a greater number of hours than Ms. Braun and also having a Masters degree in education, something that the Jewish school teacher does not have. She also receives full medical benefits and is on an attractive pension plan, two vital fringes that do not exist in Ms. Braun’s educational world.
There are, of course, yeshiva and day school faculty who earn considerably more. But the gap between what public school and Jewish school teachers are paid is substantial and it is rapidly expanding. Although certain affluent day schools pay well, they are a small minority. Few Jewish school faculty come even close to what teachers are paid in public school systems, even if they have impressive degrees and credentials.
At boys yeshivas and the religious faculty in day schools, low salaries have a limited impact on the school because there is a substantial recruitment pool of kollel students seeking positions. The story is different on the secular studies side because it is increasingly difficult for our schools to find competent teachers for conventional academic subjects. They used to rely on public school teachers who were moonlighting, but this source is drying up because the low pay has reduced the incentive to take a second job.
Many of our schools rely on recent graduates from the religious seminaries for women. This is becoming more problematic, as increasingly some of the best and brightest of these young women are choosing more lucrative careers. They know that their income will be crucial if they marry a kollel student or yeshiva teacher.
The near penury of many of our schools is evident as they scrimp on everything, including facility maintenance, enhancement for strong students and special attention to those who are weak. Despite their formidable difficulties, yeshivas and day schools do a credible and often a terrific job. This is primarily due to the extraordinary devotion of their faculty, women and men who are greatly dedicated to their students and work, spending a great deal of time preparing for their classroom responsibilities and often making themselves available to their students after the school day is over.
Commitment goes just so far. The penurious condition of most yeshivas and day schools exacts educational and other costs. It also adds to the burden on parents facing high and ever-increasing tuition bills as contributions constitute a declining share of the typical school budget.
There are bright spots. Over the past decade, 200 or one-quarter of all full-time Jewish schools in the U.S. have built new facilities or significantly improved their existing ones, reflecting the need to create additional seats to accommodate enrollment growth and also the willingness of people of means to make significant gifts to capital campaigns. Unfortunately, this generous spirit is scarcely evident on the operating side because the predominant view continues to be that day school education is a consumer product whose costs must be borne by the parents.
In the recent period, in a few communities local philanthropists have stepped up to the plate, making grants specifically to alleviate financial pressure on parents. Boston, Western Massachusetts, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Denver come to mind and I believe that there are others. Such gifts are an appropriate response to the expanding research pointing to day school education as the optimum way to promote Jewish commitment and continuity.
The story is much different in the New York/New Jersey area that constitutes more than two-thirds of all U.S. day school enrollment, with the percentage certain to grow because of the extraordinary high fertility in the chassidic and yeshiva-world sectors of Orthodoxy. The two-thirds statistic provides one explanation for the failure of New York and New Jersey Jewish schools to attract meaningful philanthropic and communal support.
In this area, there are non-Orthodox and Modern Orthodox schools catering to more affluent families that charge high tuition and despite their success at fundraising seem to believe that “scholarships” is a dirty word. In line with the old saying that the rich get richer, the schools that charge the highest tuition and offer the least scholarship assistance are, in general, the most successful at fundraising.
At the other end of the spectrum there are New York and New Jersey schools that average no more than $5,000 per student in annual tuition – and there are those that take in less – and this for a dual curriculum. These institutions and most mainline Orthodox schools that serve families that have a household of children and must meet rising tuition obligations on a limited income need and deserve communal and philanthropic support. The scope of the problem – the number of students and the aggregate cost of their education – is a powerful barrier to any arrangement that might result in meaningful support. But this is no excuse for inaction, for providing no assistance.
There is no way for Federation and private Jewish philanthropy to come up with the many tens of millions of dollars that are needed annually to assist the most hard-pressed schools. This is no justification for the New York Federation terminating basic grants to these schools. There is now widespread agreement that my criticism of Federation was justified. It is time for Federation to do the right thing and to support the institutions that are our best guarantor of Jewish survival.
There are other distinctions, including Ms. Brown being in a classroom a greater number of hours than Ms. Braun and also having a Masters degree in education, something that the Jewish school teacher does not have. She also receives full medical benefits and is on an attractive pension plan, two vital fringes that do not exist in Ms. Braun’s educational world.
There are, of course, yeshiva and day school faculty who earn considerably more. But the gap between what public school and Jewish school teachers are paid is substantial and it is rapidly expanding. Although certain affluent day schools pay well, they are a small minority. Few Jewish school faculty come even close to what teachers are paid in public school systems, even if they have impressive degrees and credentials.
At boys yeshivas and the religious faculty in day schools, low salaries have a limited impact on the school because there is a substantial recruitment pool of kollel students seeking positions. The story is different on the secular studies side because it is increasingly difficult for our schools to find competent teachers for conventional academic subjects. They used to rely on public school teachers who were moonlighting, but this source is drying up because the low pay has reduced the incentive to take a second job.
Many of our schools rely on recent graduates from the religious seminaries for women. This is becoming more problematic, as increasingly some of the best and brightest of these young women are choosing more lucrative careers. They know that their income will be crucial if they marry a kollel student or yeshiva teacher.
The near penury of many of our schools is evident as they scrimp on everything, including facility maintenance, enhancement for strong students and special attention to those who are weak. Despite their formidable difficulties, yeshivas and day schools do a credible and often a terrific job. This is primarily due to the extraordinary devotion of their faculty, women and men who are greatly dedicated to their students and work, spending a great deal of time preparing for their classroom responsibilities and often making themselves available to their students after the school day is over.
Commitment goes just so far. The penurious condition of most yeshivas and day schools exacts educational and other costs. It also adds to the burden on parents facing high and ever-increasing tuition bills as contributions constitute a declining share of the typical school budget.
There are bright spots. Over the past decade, 200 or one-quarter of all full-time Jewish schools in the U.S. have built new facilities or significantly improved their existing ones, reflecting the need to create additional seats to accommodate enrollment growth and also the willingness of people of means to make significant gifts to capital campaigns. Unfortunately, this generous spirit is scarcely evident on the operating side because the predominant view continues to be that day school education is a consumer product whose costs must be borne by the parents.
In the recent period, in a few communities local philanthropists have stepped up to the plate, making grants specifically to alleviate financial pressure on parents. Boston, Western Massachusetts, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Denver come to mind and I believe that there are others. Such gifts are an appropriate response to the expanding research pointing to day school education as the optimum way to promote Jewish commitment and continuity.
The story is much different in the New York/New Jersey area that constitutes more than two-thirds of all U.S. day school enrollment, with the percentage certain to grow because of the extraordinary high fertility in the chassidic and yeshiva-world sectors of Orthodoxy. The two-thirds statistic provides one explanation for the failure of New York and New Jersey Jewish schools to attract meaningful philanthropic and communal support.
In this area, there are non-Orthodox and Modern Orthodox schools catering to more affluent families that charge high tuition and despite their success at fundraising seem to believe that “scholarships” is a dirty word. In line with the old saying that the rich get richer, the schools that charge the highest tuition and offer the least scholarship assistance are, in general, the most successful at fundraising.
At the other end of the spectrum there are New York and New Jersey schools that average no more than $5,000 per student in annual tuition – and there are those that take in less – and this for a dual curriculum. These institutions and most mainline Orthodox schools that serve families that have a household of children and must meet rising tuition obligations on a limited income need and deserve communal and philanthropic support. The scope of the problem – the number of students and the aggregate cost of their education – is a powerful barrier to any arrangement that might result in meaningful support. But this is no excuse for inaction, for providing no assistance.
There is no way for Federation and private Jewish philanthropy to come up with the many tens of millions of dollars that are needed annually to assist the most hard-pressed schools. This is no justification for the New York Federation terminating basic grants to these schools. There is now widespread agreement that my criticism of Federation was justified. It is time for Federation to do the right thing and to support the institutions that are our best guarantor of Jewish survival.
Monday, January 07, 2008
RJJ Newsletter - January 2008
Without exception, surveys of American Jewry indicate that the number who were born Orthodox and are no longer observant exceeds the number who were raised non-Orthodox and have become Orthodox and by a wide margin. I use the term “indicate” rather than the more definitive “show” because serious methodological issues undermine the reliability of our population studies. There are reasons to believe that there is an overcounting of those who have abandoned Orthodoxy and an undercounting of American Jews who have become observant.
The overcounting of those who are no longer religious results from the inclusion in population studies of persons who were only nominally Orthodox, Jews who because of family ties or other circumstances were affiliated with an Orthodox synagogue but who in practice were not Orthodox as they deviated significantly from halachic requirements. For decades, these nominal or marginal Orthodox constituted a substantial part of American Orthodoxy and although they no longer do, they have had a major impact on the statistics of Orthodox abandonment.
The undercounting of returnees to Judaism arises primarily from the number that has settled in Israel, so that neither they nor their families appear in our population surveys.
Still, those who have left outnumber the returnees and perhaps by a wide margin. Some of us doubtlessly question this claim and regard it as counterintuitive and contrary to what they see or have experienced. We all have stories to tell about the beneficial fruit of kiruv activity. In fact, those who have become observant are on our radar screen. Those who have walked away from religious life often are not, except when those who have left Judaism are relatives or others to whom we have been close.
It remains that we are losing more than we are gaining. This is terribly disturbing, especially at a time when Orthodox life is flourishing and has so much to offer, a time when Torah study has expanded and when being religious is comfortable behavior, while within our community religious abandonment can be like a sore thumb sticking out. Certainly, the economic and ideological factors to which religious abandonment has been attributed in the past are no longer the potent factors that they once were.
How can we be losing more in the present period than we are gaining? There is no simple or ready explanation. To an extent, the subject is a mystery. Explanations are offered and they may provide clues. Yet, we are often in the dark about a complex phenomenon that can happen in a blink of the eye, leaving those who thought that they knew well someone who stopped being religious perplexed as to why so profound a behavioral and attitudinal change has taken place.
In some instances, it seems that a combination of factors contributed to the change. In others, it just happened. We can prepare a roster of possible explanations encompassing the home situation, what happened in school, economic circumstances, friendship patterns, a traumatic experience and much else. More often than not, we are still left with a mystery.
I believe that the single most compelling circumstance is modernity and especially American society and the choices and mobility that it offers. There are opportunities to change one’s lifestyle, there is an extraordinary degree of geographic mobility and even social mobility and all of this is abetted by the American ethos of tolerance and choice. As we hear often enough, this is a free country and people are free to choose how they identify themselves. In a sense, religious identity is a membership experience, something that people can sign up for or resign from. There is an abundance of opportunities for most of us to wander outside of our religious sphere.
We are, in a word, influenced by the American environment which in behavior and attitude has an impact on nearly all of the Orthodox. Some take all of the bait and are lost.
Although the lion’s share of religious abandonment is attributable to the world around us and not to the inner circumstances of our religious life, that doesn’t get our community entirely off the hook. To an extent that cannot be measured or even estimated, we are responsible for the bad statistics. We have become expert in talking about kiruv rechokim, as if conventions and speeches are surrogates for activity. Along the way, we have embraced the operational concepts of what I referred to as far back as twenty years ago as richuk kerovim, the alienation of those who are close.
We talk a good game about at-risk children, without doing much to address the problem, even as the at-risk phenomenon grows. This is also our mode of operation regarding the tuition crisis and other troubling issues facing our community. Talk serves as a substitute for activity and, in a way, as a barrier to doing anything concrete about difficult problems because after the speeches and talk we convince ourselves that we have actually done something. Those who believe that convention speeches or kiruv conferences in luxury hotels meaningfully affect what happens in our community are engaged in self-delusion and in deluding others. It may be that the starting point for meaningful activity is to stop having conventions. In what the Bikur Cholims do or what Hatzalah does and much else that we can be proud of as religious Jews, talk has not served as a substitute for action. People of vision and courage have taken steps. It is only in chinuch and kiruv where talk is mistaken for addressing a problem.
As I have said frequently in this newsletter and elsewhere, we are comfortable with admission and retention policies at yeshivas and day schools that add to the at-risk phenomenon. Our strategy for those who do not fit in as perfectly as we would like them to is to cast them out.
Even when our schools do not act in a purposeful and wrongful fashion to reject students, showing patience towards those who are below the expected norm, the heightened emphasis on and intensity of limudei kodesh or religious studies in yeshivas serve to make it difficult for some students to remain. The hours devoted to religious studies have been increased, a process that is continuing in many schools, and this is a problem for students who are not strong in limudei kodesh and/or cannot concentrate on religious texts for hours on end. Our schools now expect more of students. In the past, those who were weaker could still have a comfort zone within the yeshiva. This is far less the case today. This adds up to self-esteem issues and the collateral issue faced by parents of whether they should continue to enroll their children in the school that they attend.
Yeshivas and also their parents and students are accordingly caught on the horns of a dilemma as our schools seek to attain the admirable goal of improving limudei kodesh standards and achievements.
It may be of note that the at-risk phenomenon and drop-out from Judaism rate are greater problems in Israel than here and this may arise from the significantly greater limudei kodesh intensity in Israeli yeshivas than in ours. In a recent article, Jonathan Rosenblum wrote that the perception that the at-risk and drop-out phenomenon among charedim or the fervently Orthodox is more pronounced in places like Betar and Kiryat Sefer which are homogeneous fervently Orthodox communities than in localities that have heterogeneous populations has been confirmed by recent research. The obvious explanation is that in the latter places, religious youngsters have more slack and feel less pressure if they do not excel or do not fit in perfectly than they do in the localities where the norm is for success in Torah study and complete adherence to behavioral standards.
As our schools have become more risk averse, fearing the possible harmful influence of those who do not fit in as well as we would like them to, they have also declined as instrumentalities for kiruv. This is a major change from what once was in the yeshiva/day school world. In view of the powerful outside conditions that impel too many away from religious commitment, we may not be able to do very much to stem the tide of loss. But we can do much more, particularly in North America, to attract Jews who are not observant to religious life. We have much to offer in our religious life, in the sanctity of our homes and the nobility of our obligations. There is no justification for the de-linking of kiruv and chinuch, for the dangerous attitude and practice that somehow the former can be successfully conducted even as we neglect the latter.
I believe that the yeshiva world contributes directly to the disparity between those whom we lose and those whom we gain by neglecting the powerful lesson taught in an earlier period of yeshiva/day school development, the lesson that there is no better way to attract families to Judaism than through providing children with a meaningful Torah education.
Not long ago, day schools and yeshivas were recognized as the primary instrumentalities of kiruv. The transformation of American Orthodoxy into a vibrant and more confident community is largely attributed to this role which was nurtured and encouraged by Torah leaders. What exists today is a pale shadow of what once was and the consequences of this abandonment are evident in the declining achievements of kiruv.
The situation in Israel is different. Although the losses from Judaic abandonment are substantial, kiruv activities are far more successful than they are here. Much of the explanation is in the significant efforts to recruit children to religiously oriented elementary schools and high schools. These efforts receive major backing from American sources, including yeshiva deans and lay leaders. This dwarfs what is attempted on these shores and that is why we are not gaining many who could be brought closer to Judaism.
The overcounting of those who are no longer religious results from the inclusion in population studies of persons who were only nominally Orthodox, Jews who because of family ties or other circumstances were affiliated with an Orthodox synagogue but who in practice were not Orthodox as they deviated significantly from halachic requirements. For decades, these nominal or marginal Orthodox constituted a substantial part of American Orthodoxy and although they no longer do, they have had a major impact on the statistics of Orthodox abandonment.
The undercounting of returnees to Judaism arises primarily from the number that has settled in Israel, so that neither they nor their families appear in our population surveys.
Still, those who have left outnumber the returnees and perhaps by a wide margin. Some of us doubtlessly question this claim and regard it as counterintuitive and contrary to what they see or have experienced. We all have stories to tell about the beneficial fruit of kiruv activity. In fact, those who have become observant are on our radar screen. Those who have walked away from religious life often are not, except when those who have left Judaism are relatives or others to whom we have been close.
It remains that we are losing more than we are gaining. This is terribly disturbing, especially at a time when Orthodox life is flourishing and has so much to offer, a time when Torah study has expanded and when being religious is comfortable behavior, while within our community religious abandonment can be like a sore thumb sticking out. Certainly, the economic and ideological factors to which religious abandonment has been attributed in the past are no longer the potent factors that they once were.
How can we be losing more in the present period than we are gaining? There is no simple or ready explanation. To an extent, the subject is a mystery. Explanations are offered and they may provide clues. Yet, we are often in the dark about a complex phenomenon that can happen in a blink of the eye, leaving those who thought that they knew well someone who stopped being religious perplexed as to why so profound a behavioral and attitudinal change has taken place.
In some instances, it seems that a combination of factors contributed to the change. In others, it just happened. We can prepare a roster of possible explanations encompassing the home situation, what happened in school, economic circumstances, friendship patterns, a traumatic experience and much else. More often than not, we are still left with a mystery.
I believe that the single most compelling circumstance is modernity and especially American society and the choices and mobility that it offers. There are opportunities to change one’s lifestyle, there is an extraordinary degree of geographic mobility and even social mobility and all of this is abetted by the American ethos of tolerance and choice. As we hear often enough, this is a free country and people are free to choose how they identify themselves. In a sense, religious identity is a membership experience, something that people can sign up for or resign from. There is an abundance of opportunities for most of us to wander outside of our religious sphere.
We are, in a word, influenced by the American environment which in behavior and attitude has an impact on nearly all of the Orthodox. Some take all of the bait and are lost.
Although the lion’s share of religious abandonment is attributable to the world around us and not to the inner circumstances of our religious life, that doesn’t get our community entirely off the hook. To an extent that cannot be measured or even estimated, we are responsible for the bad statistics. We have become expert in talking about kiruv rechokim, as if conventions and speeches are surrogates for activity. Along the way, we have embraced the operational concepts of what I referred to as far back as twenty years ago as richuk kerovim, the alienation of those who are close.
We talk a good game about at-risk children, without doing much to address the problem, even as the at-risk phenomenon grows. This is also our mode of operation regarding the tuition crisis and other troubling issues facing our community. Talk serves as a substitute for activity and, in a way, as a barrier to doing anything concrete about difficult problems because after the speeches and talk we convince ourselves that we have actually done something. Those who believe that convention speeches or kiruv conferences in luxury hotels meaningfully affect what happens in our community are engaged in self-delusion and in deluding others. It may be that the starting point for meaningful activity is to stop having conventions. In what the Bikur Cholims do or what Hatzalah does and much else that we can be proud of as religious Jews, talk has not served as a substitute for action. People of vision and courage have taken steps. It is only in chinuch and kiruv where talk is mistaken for addressing a problem.
As I have said frequently in this newsletter and elsewhere, we are comfortable with admission and retention policies at yeshivas and day schools that add to the at-risk phenomenon. Our strategy for those who do not fit in as perfectly as we would like them to is to cast them out.
Even when our schools do not act in a purposeful and wrongful fashion to reject students, showing patience towards those who are below the expected norm, the heightened emphasis on and intensity of limudei kodesh or religious studies in yeshivas serve to make it difficult for some students to remain. The hours devoted to religious studies have been increased, a process that is continuing in many schools, and this is a problem for students who are not strong in limudei kodesh and/or cannot concentrate on religious texts for hours on end. Our schools now expect more of students. In the past, those who were weaker could still have a comfort zone within the yeshiva. This is far less the case today. This adds up to self-esteem issues and the collateral issue faced by parents of whether they should continue to enroll their children in the school that they attend.
Yeshivas and also their parents and students are accordingly caught on the horns of a dilemma as our schools seek to attain the admirable goal of improving limudei kodesh standards and achievements.
It may be of note that the at-risk phenomenon and drop-out from Judaism rate are greater problems in Israel than here and this may arise from the significantly greater limudei kodesh intensity in Israeli yeshivas than in ours. In a recent article, Jonathan Rosenblum wrote that the perception that the at-risk and drop-out phenomenon among charedim or the fervently Orthodox is more pronounced in places like Betar and Kiryat Sefer which are homogeneous fervently Orthodox communities than in localities that have heterogeneous populations has been confirmed by recent research. The obvious explanation is that in the latter places, religious youngsters have more slack and feel less pressure if they do not excel or do not fit in perfectly than they do in the localities where the norm is for success in Torah study and complete adherence to behavioral standards.
As our schools have become more risk averse, fearing the possible harmful influence of those who do not fit in as well as we would like them to, they have also declined as instrumentalities for kiruv. This is a major change from what once was in the yeshiva/day school world. In view of the powerful outside conditions that impel too many away from religious commitment, we may not be able to do very much to stem the tide of loss. But we can do much more, particularly in North America, to attract Jews who are not observant to religious life. We have much to offer in our religious life, in the sanctity of our homes and the nobility of our obligations. There is no justification for the de-linking of kiruv and chinuch, for the dangerous attitude and practice that somehow the former can be successfully conducted even as we neglect the latter.
I believe that the yeshiva world contributes directly to the disparity between those whom we lose and those whom we gain by neglecting the powerful lesson taught in an earlier period of yeshiva/day school development, the lesson that there is no better way to attract families to Judaism than through providing children with a meaningful Torah education.
Not long ago, day schools and yeshivas were recognized as the primary instrumentalities of kiruv. The transformation of American Orthodoxy into a vibrant and more confident community is largely attributed to this role which was nurtured and encouraged by Torah leaders. What exists today is a pale shadow of what once was and the consequences of this abandonment are evident in the declining achievements of kiruv.
The situation in Israel is different. Although the losses from Judaic abandonment are substantial, kiruv activities are far more successful than they are here. Much of the explanation is in the significant efforts to recruit children to religiously oriented elementary schools and high schools. These efforts receive major backing from American sources, including yeshiva deans and lay leaders. This dwarfs what is attempted on these shores and that is why we are not gaining many who could be brought closer to Judaism.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Who’s Afraid of Yechiel Eckstein?
Making Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a voting member of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency for Israel is a significant issue only if the Jewish Agency is significant. In some ways it is. JAFI has a huge budget, projects in perhaps several dozen countries and lots of valuable property in Israel, including its impressive fortress-like headquarters on King George Street in Jerusalem. Yet, it is no more than an organization and while on occasion it acts as if it is the government of and for the Jews, it isn’t. Its primary role was permanently transferred to the government of Israel on that eventful day in Iyar 5708, sixty years ago. In recent years, its decline has accelerated.
It is, however, a crown jewel in the crowded world of Jewish macherdom, a world where people with titles covet additional titles, as well as trips, meetings, photo ops and being briefed on Israeli security and diplomatic developments that any of us can read in the newspaper. I have this fantasy that the machers who have risen to the top of the bureaucratic heap will before they have breathed their last wonder whether it was all worthwhile, whether they could have done more with their resources and talent than accumulate titles.
While they are alive and still kicking they obviously cherish the transient glitter. With the tens of millions of dollars of Evangelical funding at his disposal each year – he apparently has broad discretion – Rabbi Eckstein purchased a major role in JAFI, to the consternation of some Israelis and also American Jewish leaders who worry about tainting the yichus of the Jewish Agency through association with the Evangelicals. They also claim not to like the notion of Jewish Agency seats being open for sale. In fact, Rabbi Eckstein is a bona fide Jew and the path that he has taken has been well trodden by wealthy Jews who have purchased indulgences in the Jewish Agency or elsewhere in Jewish life.
I doubt that the arrangement will open the door for the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells to sit amongst the Jewish elite. It is interesting that in marriage and other loci of Jewish sanctity there is no comparable concern about keeping non-Jews out. To the contrary, in this post-intermarriage phase of American Jewish development there is overwhelming sentiment for putting out a welcome mat to non-Jews, including at Reform synagogues where according to Jonathan Sarna about one-quarter of those who come to the services are not Jewish by any standard. Why are organizations different?
It’s also appropriate to ask whether the overheated reaction to Rabbi Eckstein arises from his association with Evangelicals, they being Christians who, as we well know, are extreme in their social and political conservatism. Suppose he was involved with Christians at the other end of the social/political spectrum, with Episcopalians (or Anglicans) or the World Council of Churches, groups that have well-advertised their hostility toward the Jewish State. Suppose that miraculously they repented their wrongful ways and accepted biblical teachings about Israel being the homeland of Jews, would we still be so critical of Rabbi Eckstein?
There is a necessary question about what Evangelicals hope to achieve via their large investment in Israel and Jewish life elsewhere. A collateral question is Rabbi Eckstein’s motivation. At the least, his path is singular and strange. For years, the Rabbi Eckstein gravy train assisted Jewish activities in the Former Soviet Union. I remember meeting him in Kiev where I learned of the support that he was providing to Jewish orphanages and other projects in Ukraine. He struck me as sincere, yet he apparently craves attention and is inordinately devoted to self-promotion and this is troublesome. So far as I know, he has not spelled out how he fits into the Evangelical scheme of things.
He should because there are suspicions – they may be unfair – that the Evangelical investment of political and financial capital is driven by conversion goals and other theological calculations that Jews cannot be comfortable with. About two years ago, the Jewish Observer, the English-language monthly published in New York by Agudath Israel, had a lengthy investigative article raising serious concerns about Rabbi Eckstein and his organization. The magazine published his response, but it wasn’t convincing and unsettling questions remain.
There are other question marks. It may be that his commitment of $15 million a year to the Jewish Agency, with the attendant condition that he be given a visible and important role, is his way of burnishing his reputation.
Because the Jewish Agency is engaged in some sensitive matters, Rabbi Eckstein’s yen for publicity may turn out to be an embarrassment or worse. What the organization does should not be fodder for his public relations. Just recently, the Jewish Agency arranged for forty Iranian Jews to come to Israel in an operation that I believe was clandestine and had the cooperation of key Iranian officials. This is part of an on-going program that previously resulted in good outcomes. Unfortunately, with the wrongful acquiescence of Jewish Agency officials, there was Rabbi Eckstein’s announcement that his organization was providing a $10,000 gift to each of the forty new arrivals. A major figure in world Jewry tells me that the fanfare endangers the continuation of this vital project.
Unless Rabbi Eckstein learns to control his appetite for publicity and the Jewish Agency restrains its going gaga over the contribution that he has provided, there is a strong prospect that his involvement in the Jewish Agency will backfire.
It is, however, a crown jewel in the crowded world of Jewish macherdom, a world where people with titles covet additional titles, as well as trips, meetings, photo ops and being briefed on Israeli security and diplomatic developments that any of us can read in the newspaper. I have this fantasy that the machers who have risen to the top of the bureaucratic heap will before they have breathed their last wonder whether it was all worthwhile, whether they could have done more with their resources and talent than accumulate titles.
While they are alive and still kicking they obviously cherish the transient glitter. With the tens of millions of dollars of Evangelical funding at his disposal each year – he apparently has broad discretion – Rabbi Eckstein purchased a major role in JAFI, to the consternation of some Israelis and also American Jewish leaders who worry about tainting the yichus of the Jewish Agency through association with the Evangelicals. They also claim not to like the notion of Jewish Agency seats being open for sale. In fact, Rabbi Eckstein is a bona fide Jew and the path that he has taken has been well trodden by wealthy Jews who have purchased indulgences in the Jewish Agency or elsewhere in Jewish life.
I doubt that the arrangement will open the door for the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells to sit amongst the Jewish elite. It is interesting that in marriage and other loci of Jewish sanctity there is no comparable concern about keeping non-Jews out. To the contrary, in this post-intermarriage phase of American Jewish development there is overwhelming sentiment for putting out a welcome mat to non-Jews, including at Reform synagogues where according to Jonathan Sarna about one-quarter of those who come to the services are not Jewish by any standard. Why are organizations different?
It’s also appropriate to ask whether the overheated reaction to Rabbi Eckstein arises from his association with Evangelicals, they being Christians who, as we well know, are extreme in their social and political conservatism. Suppose he was involved with Christians at the other end of the social/political spectrum, with Episcopalians (or Anglicans) or the World Council of Churches, groups that have well-advertised their hostility toward the Jewish State. Suppose that miraculously they repented their wrongful ways and accepted biblical teachings about Israel being the homeland of Jews, would we still be so critical of Rabbi Eckstein?
There is a necessary question about what Evangelicals hope to achieve via their large investment in Israel and Jewish life elsewhere. A collateral question is Rabbi Eckstein’s motivation. At the least, his path is singular and strange. For years, the Rabbi Eckstein gravy train assisted Jewish activities in the Former Soviet Union. I remember meeting him in Kiev where I learned of the support that he was providing to Jewish orphanages and other projects in Ukraine. He struck me as sincere, yet he apparently craves attention and is inordinately devoted to self-promotion and this is troublesome. So far as I know, he has not spelled out how he fits into the Evangelical scheme of things.
He should because there are suspicions – they may be unfair – that the Evangelical investment of political and financial capital is driven by conversion goals and other theological calculations that Jews cannot be comfortable with. About two years ago, the Jewish Observer, the English-language monthly published in New York by Agudath Israel, had a lengthy investigative article raising serious concerns about Rabbi Eckstein and his organization. The magazine published his response, but it wasn’t convincing and unsettling questions remain.
There are other question marks. It may be that his commitment of $15 million a year to the Jewish Agency, with the attendant condition that he be given a visible and important role, is his way of burnishing his reputation.
Because the Jewish Agency is engaged in some sensitive matters, Rabbi Eckstein’s yen for publicity may turn out to be an embarrassment or worse. What the organization does should not be fodder for his public relations. Just recently, the Jewish Agency arranged for forty Iranian Jews to come to Israel in an operation that I believe was clandestine and had the cooperation of key Iranian officials. This is part of an on-going program that previously resulted in good outcomes. Unfortunately, with the wrongful acquiescence of Jewish Agency officials, there was Rabbi Eckstein’s announcement that his organization was providing a $10,000 gift to each of the forty new arrivals. A major figure in world Jewry tells me that the fanfare endangers the continuation of this vital project.
Unless Rabbi Eckstein learns to control his appetite for publicity and the Jewish Agency restrains its going gaga over the contribution that he has provided, there is a strong prospect that his involvement in the Jewish Agency will backfire.
Friday, December 28, 2007
The End of Jewish Demography?
At the doorstep of 2008, it appears that there will not be a 2010 national Jewish population survey in follow-up to the studies conducted in 1990 and 2000 and earlier efforts to determine the number of American Jews, as well as their circumstances, behavior and beliefs. It takes years to prepare for a survey and also much money and both time and funding are in too short supply to undertake a comprehensive project two or three years from now.
Funding is only one reason why NJPS is heading toward the history bin. Another is that United Jewish Communities, the coordinating body for the Federation world and the past NJPS sponsor, is in crippled condition and scarcely able to get its act together. It also doesn’t help that the last NJPS received withering criticism, with both its methodology and key findings coming under fire. No one seems to have the stomach to try again. A final nail in the coffin is that the spreading use of cell phones has made population studies more difficult.
If NJPS is a thing of the past, Jewish demography is very much alive, although not necessarily well. It is like an obsession that we cannot shake off. We will continue to receive a flow of statistical claims regarding this or that aspect of Jewish life, some based on local surveys and others on broader research that purports to capture the full spectrum of our behavior and beliefs.
Because NJPS has come to reflect a narrower view of Jewish identity than is favored by certain demographers who are now in favor and because many in Jewish life have a stake in claiming higher numbers, the apparent decline of NJPS dovetails with the advancement, even domination, of big-tent Judaism, its notion being that we should include as many as we can, irrespective of how negligible their association with Jewish identity may be. I wonder whether NJPS’ fate would be different if it had announced that at the turn of the century there were as many as ten million Americans who may be counted as Jews rather than the five million that was its announced statistic.
It apparently does not matter any longer that many who are identified as Jewish say that they are not Jewish or that they practice another religion or that their children are being raised in no religion or another religion. A Jew is anyone we can claim by birth or marriage or household. The big-tenters are in the driver’s seat.
This is in a way good news for Israel, at least for those Israelis who believe that their country’s security depends on support from Washington and Washington’s support is likely to diminish if the number of American Jews diminishes. I think otherwise. It’s also good news for those who believe that intermarriage, advanced assimilation and even Judaic abandonment are no more than inconvenient circumstances that do not radically affect the statistics of American Jewry. In the new arithmetic espoused by the big-tenters, intermarriage means more and not fewer persons who identify as Jewish.
This attitude is consistent with the American ideal of tolerance and the right of people to choose how they are to be identified. It is reinforced by a huge emotional and financial investment by organized American Jewry which for communal and personal reasons is inclined to buy into an expansive definition of Jewishness. The process is not new. I identified it in the 1980s in a series of articles and have discussed the phenomenon many times since, arguing that while ultimately this house of cards will collapse, it is a condition that will remain critical in American Jewish life for the foreseeable future.
What is perhaps surprising is the creativity and boldness of the advocates of this form of Judaism. They were originally defensive, as if they were saying that though what we represent departs from communal norms, this is the best that we can achieve under current conditions. The contention now is that the departure from norms is itself a legitimate Jewish norm. This process has legs and it will almost certainly be with us at least well into this century.
There is, in short, increasing congruence between our demography and our communal activity, a development that is not seriously challenged by those of a religious orientation who believe that what is being supported in the name of Jewish continuity is bogus. The likely feeling is that they do not have the ability to counteract this process. It is also true that they – including some fervently Orthodox – have a comfort zone with those who are nearly 180 degrees away from them on the religious spectrum. As for Chabad, the fastest spreading American Jewish experience, in many localities it feeds off this phenomenon, something that it is loathe to acknowledge.
Given the huge emotional and financial investment in the notion that labeling something as Jewish is sufficient to make it Jewish, the prospect is for Judaism to be defined further downward.
What is happening is not entirely unique in Jewish history. What makes the contemporary Jewish experience distinctive is the scale, the number of persons who accept the view that the label alone can serve as a surrogate for Jewish substance. Aside from halachic or Jewish legal considerations, this is a fascinating sociological development. It also poses a challenge, intellectual and practical, to those who continue to believe in what Judaism has meant over the centuries.
One day, long after most of us are gone, there will be greater clarity and it will be obvious that much of what was promoted as legitimately Jewish was a mirage, that inflated numbers and activities not moored in our heritage forged perceptions that distorted the reality. For now, we live in the present and act in the present and the present reality is that the mirage is accepted by most American Jews as real.
Funding is only one reason why NJPS is heading toward the history bin. Another is that United Jewish Communities, the coordinating body for the Federation world and the past NJPS sponsor, is in crippled condition and scarcely able to get its act together. It also doesn’t help that the last NJPS received withering criticism, with both its methodology and key findings coming under fire. No one seems to have the stomach to try again. A final nail in the coffin is that the spreading use of cell phones has made population studies more difficult.
If NJPS is a thing of the past, Jewish demography is very much alive, although not necessarily well. It is like an obsession that we cannot shake off. We will continue to receive a flow of statistical claims regarding this or that aspect of Jewish life, some based on local surveys and others on broader research that purports to capture the full spectrum of our behavior and beliefs.
Because NJPS has come to reflect a narrower view of Jewish identity than is favored by certain demographers who are now in favor and because many in Jewish life have a stake in claiming higher numbers, the apparent decline of NJPS dovetails with the advancement, even domination, of big-tent Judaism, its notion being that we should include as many as we can, irrespective of how negligible their association with Jewish identity may be. I wonder whether NJPS’ fate would be different if it had announced that at the turn of the century there were as many as ten million Americans who may be counted as Jews rather than the five million that was its announced statistic.
It apparently does not matter any longer that many who are identified as Jewish say that they are not Jewish or that they practice another religion or that their children are being raised in no religion or another religion. A Jew is anyone we can claim by birth or marriage or household. The big-tenters are in the driver’s seat.
This is in a way good news for Israel, at least for those Israelis who believe that their country’s security depends on support from Washington and Washington’s support is likely to diminish if the number of American Jews diminishes. I think otherwise. It’s also good news for those who believe that intermarriage, advanced assimilation and even Judaic abandonment are no more than inconvenient circumstances that do not radically affect the statistics of American Jewry. In the new arithmetic espoused by the big-tenters, intermarriage means more and not fewer persons who identify as Jewish.
This attitude is consistent with the American ideal of tolerance and the right of people to choose how they are to be identified. It is reinforced by a huge emotional and financial investment by organized American Jewry which for communal and personal reasons is inclined to buy into an expansive definition of Jewishness. The process is not new. I identified it in the 1980s in a series of articles and have discussed the phenomenon many times since, arguing that while ultimately this house of cards will collapse, it is a condition that will remain critical in American Jewish life for the foreseeable future.
What is perhaps surprising is the creativity and boldness of the advocates of this form of Judaism. They were originally defensive, as if they were saying that though what we represent departs from communal norms, this is the best that we can achieve under current conditions. The contention now is that the departure from norms is itself a legitimate Jewish norm. This process has legs and it will almost certainly be with us at least well into this century.
There is, in short, increasing congruence between our demography and our communal activity, a development that is not seriously challenged by those of a religious orientation who believe that what is being supported in the name of Jewish continuity is bogus. The likely feeling is that they do not have the ability to counteract this process. It is also true that they – including some fervently Orthodox – have a comfort zone with those who are nearly 180 degrees away from them on the religious spectrum. As for Chabad, the fastest spreading American Jewish experience, in many localities it feeds off this phenomenon, something that it is loathe to acknowledge.
Given the huge emotional and financial investment in the notion that labeling something as Jewish is sufficient to make it Jewish, the prospect is for Judaism to be defined further downward.
What is happening is not entirely unique in Jewish history. What makes the contemporary Jewish experience distinctive is the scale, the number of persons who accept the view that the label alone can serve as a surrogate for Jewish substance. Aside from halachic or Jewish legal considerations, this is a fascinating sociological development. It also poses a challenge, intellectual and practical, to those who continue to believe in what Judaism has meant over the centuries.
One day, long after most of us are gone, there will be greater clarity and it will be obvious that much of what was promoted as legitimately Jewish was a mirage, that inflated numbers and activities not moored in our heritage forged perceptions that distorted the reality. For now, we live in the present and act in the present and the present reality is that the mirage is accepted by most American Jews as real.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Scholarly Abuse
While reading and reviewing two years ago a dreadful book on chassidic life, I came across a footnote citing a remarkably high incidence of sexual abuse among Orthodox Jewish women. The source was a May 7, 2004 article in the Forward reporting on a paper presented shortly before at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. I was jolted and intrigued by the assertion that more than 25% of married Orthodox women participating in the survey said that they had experienced such abuse. The statistic was at once startling and I thought questionable. I contacted the two principal researchers and requested a copy of the paper, only to be told that it was not available and would not be available for perhaps two years.
I did not know at the time that in the same period, a companion – or perhaps the same - paper had been given at the annual meeting of the Orthodox Forum, a Modern Orthodox group, and that it had been sharply challenged, the upshot being that in what I have been told is a rarity for the group, the paper, entitled “Sexual Life of Observant Jewish Women,” was not accepted for publication in the book that includes the 2004 Orthodox Forum papers.
In fact, sexual abuse was a minor concern in that paper. Now, the November 2007 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, certainly a major publication, includes an article derived from the same study that served as the basis for the earlier paper. This one is on the “History of Past Sexual Abuse in Married Observant Jewish Women,” with Dr. Rachel Yehuda listed as the first of five authors and with the highlighted finding that “sexual abuse was reported by 26% of the respondents surveyed, with 16% reporting abuse occurring by the age of 13.”
This is now the definitive word on the subject, to be Googled for nearly all of eternity and regarded as authoritative and cited in books, newspapers and other publications. This newspaper did its part with a badly flawed article headlined, “No Religious Haven From Abuse.”
It is not prudishness that begets my reluctance to write about sexual abuse. I do not want to cover up any form of wrongdoing. My reluctance arises from the likelihood that what I write will engender the false claim that I and the Orthodox cover up all abuse. We Orthodox live in a real world and there is sexual abuse in our community and while its incidence is, I believe, significantly below what it is in the larger society, what occurs is a serious issue that must be confronted. Any who protect a sexual abuser is guilty of a great sin.
There is a huge gap between acknowledging this truth and accepting the reckless scholarship and statistics of Dr. Yehuda, et al which constitute a form of group libel and severe cruelty toward observant Jews. They have an obligation, scholarly and ethical, to calculate how their presentation of their findings will be interpreted and distorted because of their flawed use of statistics. At the end of the day, we are left with the statistic that one in four married Orthodox women has experienced sexual abuse and this statistic is false.
Sadly, claims of abuse of one kind or another among the Orthodox have become routine, as if “Orthodox” and “abuse” are like love and marriage in the popular old song, you can’t have one without the other.
The Survey
The AJP article does not include the questionnaire, nor is it available online, which is surprising. The questionnaire is important because it indicates why I believe Orthodox women in droves refused to participate in the survey. A half-dozen polite requests to Dr. Yehuda for a copy were to no avail. Nor have I been able to access the promotional material that was utilized to attract participants. Dr. Yehuda acknowledges that while the survey was once online, it “is no longer on the website.”
A substantial effort was made to publicize the survey and to encourage self-identified Orthodox women to participate. As the AJP article puts it, “subjects were sought across a large range of religious Jewish communities by advertising through synagogue bulletins, Jewish organizations, newspapers, Jewish-oriented websites and listserves, and a network of medical professionals…whose practices consisted of sizable numbers of Orthodox Jewish women.”
This extensive and doubtlessly expensive effort, conducted here and in Israel, resulted in 380 completed questionnaires that constitute the survey. The authors acknowledge that they cannot “estimate the number or characteristics of women who heard about the study and refused participation.” It is a fair estimate that this number dwarfs by a hundredfold and probably much more those who participated.
Methodological concerns alone raise serious questions about reliability. While there is research on the sexual activity of American women, what Dr. Yehuda et al report is the first study of its kind on any ethnic, religious or nationality group or subgroup. As they write, “there are currently no statistics regarding the life-time prevalence of sexual abuse within religious communities,” and, “we are not aware of any other study examining sexual abuse…in any similar insular religious society.” Inadvertent as it may be, there is a sensationalist quality to what is reported in the AJP. Once more, we Jews – and, once more, just the Orthodox - are the chosen people. I wonder what the reaction would be if research based on a comparable approach reported that one in four women in other ethnic and religious groups had experienced sexual abuse.
The Data
In fact, the statistics about the Orthodox are distorted – and by a wide margin. The study is afflicted by a severe case of survey bias, by now a chronic problem in Jewish demography and acknowledged as a serious issue in sexual activity research. Survey bias refers to the powerful tendency of quantitative research to attract respondents who are not representative of the entire group and whose participation is enhanced by the nature of the research and the questions asked. Their responses tilt the data in a pronounced way, invariably in the direction favored by the research. There are major articles in the literature on survey bias in sexual activity research, with one review article authored by A. Catania and others and published in 1990 in the Psychological Bulletin stating that the responses tend to come from those who are “more sexually liberal” and “more likely…to report sexual difficulties.”
What percentage of married Orthodox women is represented by these 380 responses? According to the Orthodox Forum paper, “it can be estimated that there are approximately 250,000 to 300,000 women” in the U.S. and Israel who would be eligible for participation in the study. My estimate is lower. Whatever the number, the 380 represent a small fraction of one-percent of the potential response pool and, as will be shown, they are not representative of Orthodox married women. Without any doubt, they are also a tiny proportion of the eligible women who learned of the survey and were invited and encouraged to participate. We do not know how many considered participation and then decided against it, certainly in many instances because they were repelled by the questions that were asked. Yet, we now read unqualified newspaper accounts that one-quarter of married Orthodox women experienced sexual abuse.
If nearly all surveys are prone to participation bias and sexual activity surveys even more so, there is a yet more heightened prospect that Orthodox women will shy away from such questions. According to an item in Science & Theology News about this research, “nearly 25 percent of American women surveyed did not respond” to some of the questions. There is a touch of prurience to certain questions, at least from the perspective of many Orthodox women and certainly those who identify as fervently Orthodox. An example is questions relating to the wedding night experience.
In short, the 380 respondents are an atypical group who represent only themselves. How atypical is indicated by the curious statistic that 53% of those who self-identify as fervently Orthodox attended graduate school, apart from those who went to a religious seminary. Indeed, Yehuda et al note that “the high level of education, even among the ultra-Orthodox, suggests a survey bias that may be associated with a willingness to participate in research.” This doesn’t deter the trumpeting of the 26% abuse statistic.
There are other question marks, invariably with the acknowledgement that they may affect the survey’s representativeness. A bit more than half of the abuse reported in the AJP article involved improper physical behavior that did not include genital contact. In fact, in the authors’ words, “many researchers have historically defined sexual abuse as genital contact.” Hopefully without being accused of excusing wrongful actions, I wonder whether inappropriate conduct without genital contact should be included in the survey of Orthodox women. The issue is relevant because while in the general society standards of physical contact are more permissive and so there is a strong tendency not to regard such contact as sexual abuse, among the Orthodox and especially the fervently Orthodox, in the words of Dr. Yehuda et al, “the threshold at which someone may feel the victim of sexual abuse may be lower for those living in a more restrictive religious community.” It is of note that of the Orthodox women reporting sexual abuse, more than half said that it did not involve genital contact.
An additional area of doubt arises from the extraordinarily large number of respondents – 53% - who have been treated at least once by a mental health professional. This is a sensitive issue and it is sufficient to note that the statistic is substantially higher than what is known about American women and psychotherapy services.
Many of the Women Were Not Orthodox
The greatest flaw in the research and presentation is that 137 or 36% of the respondents were not raised Orthodox, becoming observant later in life, a statistic that is incompatible with the distribution of baalei tshuva or return to Judaism women in the Orthodox population. Of the 96 women who reported abuse, more than half or 49 were not raised Orthodox. The title of the article refers to past sexual abuse among married Orthodox women, the suggestion being that the abuse was experienced by persons who were observant at the time that it occurred. This is how the data were reported in this newspaper and how they will continue to be reported.
This issue is crucial in light of the statistic that nearly two-thirds of those who report abuse say that it occurred before the age of thirteen, when in fact many of the women were not Orthodox. Of note, one-third of the women raised Orthodox say that their perpetrator was a stranger, as compared to but 14% for those who were not raised observant. Contrary to popular wisdom which decrees confidently that the Orthodox tend not to report abuse, 44% of those raised Orthodox reported the incident. The comparable figure for those not raised Orthodox is 39%.
When the women not raised Orthodox are excluded, the abuse statistic declines to 19% and that is the point at which survey bias and other factors come into play, reducing the figure even further and probably substantially, although it is not possible to estimate an accurate figure. In sum, to the degree that this survey has any value, it appears to point to a lower, probably much lower, incidence of sexual abuse in the Orthodox community than in American society as a whole. To put it mildly, the message sent by the authors is quite different.
Sprinkled throughout the AJP article are declarations that the responses may not be representative. That isn’t sufficient because it is certain that they aren’t representative. As someone who read the AJP article emailed to me, “I don’t understand a field in which a major journal publishes an article that contains emphatic declarations that its data is utterly meaningless.” Of course, the declarations do not make it into the publications that cite the study.
Whether the substantial deficiencies were inadvertent or not, the authors bear a moral and scholarly responsibility for what appears under their names and for the harm, distortion and pain they have caused. Sexual abuse is terrible and never to be condoned. In condemning sexual abuse, we must be careful not to condone scholarly abuse. Dr. Yehuda and her colleagues should take the morally responsible step and retract their article.
I did not know at the time that in the same period, a companion – or perhaps the same - paper had been given at the annual meeting of the Orthodox Forum, a Modern Orthodox group, and that it had been sharply challenged, the upshot being that in what I have been told is a rarity for the group, the paper, entitled “Sexual Life of Observant Jewish Women,” was not accepted for publication in the book that includes the 2004 Orthodox Forum papers.
In fact, sexual abuse was a minor concern in that paper. Now, the November 2007 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, certainly a major publication, includes an article derived from the same study that served as the basis for the earlier paper. This one is on the “History of Past Sexual Abuse in Married Observant Jewish Women,” with Dr. Rachel Yehuda listed as the first of five authors and with the highlighted finding that “sexual abuse was reported by 26% of the respondents surveyed, with 16% reporting abuse occurring by the age of 13.”
This is now the definitive word on the subject, to be Googled for nearly all of eternity and regarded as authoritative and cited in books, newspapers and other publications. This newspaper did its part with a badly flawed article headlined, “No Religious Haven From Abuse.”
It is not prudishness that begets my reluctance to write about sexual abuse. I do not want to cover up any form of wrongdoing. My reluctance arises from the likelihood that what I write will engender the false claim that I and the Orthodox cover up all abuse. We Orthodox live in a real world and there is sexual abuse in our community and while its incidence is, I believe, significantly below what it is in the larger society, what occurs is a serious issue that must be confronted. Any who protect a sexual abuser is guilty of a great sin.
There is a huge gap between acknowledging this truth and accepting the reckless scholarship and statistics of Dr. Yehuda, et al which constitute a form of group libel and severe cruelty toward observant Jews. They have an obligation, scholarly and ethical, to calculate how their presentation of their findings will be interpreted and distorted because of their flawed use of statistics. At the end of the day, we are left with the statistic that one in four married Orthodox women has experienced sexual abuse and this statistic is false.
Sadly, claims of abuse of one kind or another among the Orthodox have become routine, as if “Orthodox” and “abuse” are like love and marriage in the popular old song, you can’t have one without the other.
The Survey
The AJP article does not include the questionnaire, nor is it available online, which is surprising. The questionnaire is important because it indicates why I believe Orthodox women in droves refused to participate in the survey. A half-dozen polite requests to Dr. Yehuda for a copy were to no avail. Nor have I been able to access the promotional material that was utilized to attract participants. Dr. Yehuda acknowledges that while the survey was once online, it “is no longer on the website.”
A substantial effort was made to publicize the survey and to encourage self-identified Orthodox women to participate. As the AJP article puts it, “subjects were sought across a large range of religious Jewish communities by advertising through synagogue bulletins, Jewish organizations, newspapers, Jewish-oriented websites and listserves, and a network of medical professionals…whose practices consisted of sizable numbers of Orthodox Jewish women.”
This extensive and doubtlessly expensive effort, conducted here and in Israel, resulted in 380 completed questionnaires that constitute the survey. The authors acknowledge that they cannot “estimate the number or characteristics of women who heard about the study and refused participation.” It is a fair estimate that this number dwarfs by a hundredfold and probably much more those who participated.
Methodological concerns alone raise serious questions about reliability. While there is research on the sexual activity of American women, what Dr. Yehuda et al report is the first study of its kind on any ethnic, religious or nationality group or subgroup. As they write, “there are currently no statistics regarding the life-time prevalence of sexual abuse within religious communities,” and, “we are not aware of any other study examining sexual abuse…in any similar insular religious society.” Inadvertent as it may be, there is a sensationalist quality to what is reported in the AJP. Once more, we Jews – and, once more, just the Orthodox - are the chosen people. I wonder what the reaction would be if research based on a comparable approach reported that one in four women in other ethnic and religious groups had experienced sexual abuse.
The Data
In fact, the statistics about the Orthodox are distorted – and by a wide margin. The study is afflicted by a severe case of survey bias, by now a chronic problem in Jewish demography and acknowledged as a serious issue in sexual activity research. Survey bias refers to the powerful tendency of quantitative research to attract respondents who are not representative of the entire group and whose participation is enhanced by the nature of the research and the questions asked. Their responses tilt the data in a pronounced way, invariably in the direction favored by the research. There are major articles in the literature on survey bias in sexual activity research, with one review article authored by A. Catania and others and published in 1990 in the Psychological Bulletin stating that the responses tend to come from those who are “more sexually liberal” and “more likely…to report sexual difficulties.”
What percentage of married Orthodox women is represented by these 380 responses? According to the Orthodox Forum paper, “it can be estimated that there are approximately 250,000 to 300,000 women” in the U.S. and Israel who would be eligible for participation in the study. My estimate is lower. Whatever the number, the 380 represent a small fraction of one-percent of the potential response pool and, as will be shown, they are not representative of Orthodox married women. Without any doubt, they are also a tiny proportion of the eligible women who learned of the survey and were invited and encouraged to participate. We do not know how many considered participation and then decided against it, certainly in many instances because they were repelled by the questions that were asked. Yet, we now read unqualified newspaper accounts that one-quarter of married Orthodox women experienced sexual abuse.
If nearly all surveys are prone to participation bias and sexual activity surveys even more so, there is a yet more heightened prospect that Orthodox women will shy away from such questions. According to an item in Science & Theology News about this research, “nearly 25 percent of American women surveyed did not respond” to some of the questions. There is a touch of prurience to certain questions, at least from the perspective of many Orthodox women and certainly those who identify as fervently Orthodox. An example is questions relating to the wedding night experience.
In short, the 380 respondents are an atypical group who represent only themselves. How atypical is indicated by the curious statistic that 53% of those who self-identify as fervently Orthodox attended graduate school, apart from those who went to a religious seminary. Indeed, Yehuda et al note that “the high level of education, even among the ultra-Orthodox, suggests a survey bias that may be associated with a willingness to participate in research.” This doesn’t deter the trumpeting of the 26% abuse statistic.
There are other question marks, invariably with the acknowledgement that they may affect the survey’s representativeness. A bit more than half of the abuse reported in the AJP article involved improper physical behavior that did not include genital contact. In fact, in the authors’ words, “many researchers have historically defined sexual abuse as genital contact.” Hopefully without being accused of excusing wrongful actions, I wonder whether inappropriate conduct without genital contact should be included in the survey of Orthodox women. The issue is relevant because while in the general society standards of physical contact are more permissive and so there is a strong tendency not to regard such contact as sexual abuse, among the Orthodox and especially the fervently Orthodox, in the words of Dr. Yehuda et al, “the threshold at which someone may feel the victim of sexual abuse may be lower for those living in a more restrictive religious community.” It is of note that of the Orthodox women reporting sexual abuse, more than half said that it did not involve genital contact.
An additional area of doubt arises from the extraordinarily large number of respondents – 53% - who have been treated at least once by a mental health professional. This is a sensitive issue and it is sufficient to note that the statistic is substantially higher than what is known about American women and psychotherapy services.
Many of the Women Were Not Orthodox
The greatest flaw in the research and presentation is that 137 or 36% of the respondents were not raised Orthodox, becoming observant later in life, a statistic that is incompatible with the distribution of baalei tshuva or return to Judaism women in the Orthodox population. Of the 96 women who reported abuse, more than half or 49 were not raised Orthodox. The title of the article refers to past sexual abuse among married Orthodox women, the suggestion being that the abuse was experienced by persons who were observant at the time that it occurred. This is how the data were reported in this newspaper and how they will continue to be reported.
This issue is crucial in light of the statistic that nearly two-thirds of those who report abuse say that it occurred before the age of thirteen, when in fact many of the women were not Orthodox. Of note, one-third of the women raised Orthodox say that their perpetrator was a stranger, as compared to but 14% for those who were not raised observant. Contrary to popular wisdom which decrees confidently that the Orthodox tend not to report abuse, 44% of those raised Orthodox reported the incident. The comparable figure for those not raised Orthodox is 39%.
When the women not raised Orthodox are excluded, the abuse statistic declines to 19% and that is the point at which survey bias and other factors come into play, reducing the figure even further and probably substantially, although it is not possible to estimate an accurate figure. In sum, to the degree that this survey has any value, it appears to point to a lower, probably much lower, incidence of sexual abuse in the Orthodox community than in American society as a whole. To put it mildly, the message sent by the authors is quite different.
Sprinkled throughout the AJP article are declarations that the responses may not be representative. That isn’t sufficient because it is certain that they aren’t representative. As someone who read the AJP article emailed to me, “I don’t understand a field in which a major journal publishes an article that contains emphatic declarations that its data is utterly meaningless.” Of course, the declarations do not make it into the publications that cite the study.
Whether the substantial deficiencies were inadvertent or not, the authors bear a moral and scholarly responsibility for what appears under their names and for the harm, distortion and pain they have caused. Sexual abuse is terrible and never to be condoned. In condemning sexual abuse, we must be careful not to condone scholarly abuse. Dr. Yehuda and her colleagues should take the morally responsible step and retract their article.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Political Ideology is Not Judaism
It is understandable that Orthodox Jews – of course, not all – have gravitated toward conservative political positions. There is a high degree of congruence between their religious teachings and obligations and conservative opinion on key public issues. This is evident regarding gay marriage and abortion and, more generally, in attitudes toward contemporary culture and societal trends. Our religious life mandates restraint and modesty, while the powerful contemporary tendency is to expand the zones of permissiveness. Social conservatives are the primary force resisting this dynamic development and since Orthodox Jews are traditionalists, it is natural that they be in the same camp.
There is, however, nothing in our religious laws mandating an across the board embrace of right wing views. Environmentalism is one area where observant Jews should feel comfortable with what is primarily identified as a liberal viewpoint, if only because preserving the environment is inherently a conservative commitment. Gun control is another area where Orthodox Jews do not belong in the same camp with right-wingers. We Orthodox should be concerned about global warming and we should support gun control without feeling that it is wrong to reject what most conservative Americans advocate and without feeling that it is wrong to be in the same bed as liberals.
Unfortunately, the Orthodox drift toward right-wing positions seems to bring an instinctive acceptance of conservative political doctrine, as if it is a religious obligation to resist efforts to curtail the availability of harmful weapons or to protect the environment. There are Orthodox writers with no scientific knowledge who apparently believe that it is a mitzvah to accept the debunking of global warming warnings. There is no such mitzvah. Rather, those who cling to all that the right wing advocates are worshiping a false god.
Of course, buying into an ideological label, whether liberal or conservative, makes life easier. There is no need to reflect and choose. A self-ordained pattern of obedience serves as the substitute for a weighing of known information. Yet, allegiance to ideology exacts a cost. A case in point is Iraq. As an aspect of their strong endorsement of President Bush, many Orthodox and, notably the fervently Orthodox, enthusiastically supported the Iraq invasion, although from the outset it should have been apparent that the action would be harmful to Israel. Iraq is the catalyst for what the Bush Administration is intensively striving to achieve in its final year as it pressures Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians and to make additional concessions. This upsets many Orthodox who as yet do not recognize that there is a direct linear link between Iraq and Washington’s stance that Jerusalem should be divided.
Religious Jews should stop taking their political cues from conservatives. Nor should they take their political cues from liberals. On some issues we have good reasons to side with one or the other point of view. On the current red hot issue of immigration, including what to do about the illegals who are here, we Orthodox should pause to consider that xenophobia is not a mindset that has turned out well for Jews.
I do not advocate that the Orthodox become born again liberals and I know that there are some who never defected from this camp. Liberalism has been stained and not only by an approach to social issues that too often is antithetical to our religious values. What also undermines liberalism is the foolish notion that Plan A to deal with just about every pressing problem or pathology is to constantly increase governmental expenditures, as if throwing money at a problem solves the problem when underlying social causes continue to fester and even flourish. The throwing around money approach has been tried for decades, at a cost of perhaps trillions, and failure has not induced sufficient liberal reflection on the efficacy of the approach.
Further enervating faith in what liberalism advocates is its antagonism toward what is referred to as faith based initiatives that rely heavily on voluntary activity and have shown significant efficacy in meeting vital needs and ameliorating social pathologies. Too many liberals think that religion is bad and this attitude is bad for the liberal cause. Like it or not, at bottom the liberal attitude amounts to the proposition that it is better for needs to be unmet and pathologies to fester than to recognize the healing capacity of activities that are faith-based.
For the Orthodox, there is the additional factor of liberal opposition to government aid to religious schools, a stance that has harmed Jewish day schools and, probably more critically, harmed hundreds of thousands of minority group school children.
Although liberals give religious Jews reasons to be upset, there is no justification for the increasingly worshipful attitude toward conservative ideology. We have what to worship in our own tradition and outside ideology is not part of our liturgy. Each issue should be judged separately in terms of our interests and our values and not anyone else’s ideology.
It is noteworthy that on issues that they tend to embrace, liberals and conservatives can show a high degree of affinity. This is true of liberal acceptance of gay marriage and conservative opposition to gun control. Each of these positions is predicated on the notion that people should be free to do what they want to do. They should be free to engage in same-sex marriages and they should be free to walk around with guns.
This is a broad definition of freedom. It happens not to be our religious way. Each of our mitzvahs and obligations imposes restrictions and mandates obedience and these obligations are the primary exhibit of why no political ideology is a code word for Judaism.
There is, however, nothing in our religious laws mandating an across the board embrace of right wing views. Environmentalism is one area where observant Jews should feel comfortable with what is primarily identified as a liberal viewpoint, if only because preserving the environment is inherently a conservative commitment. Gun control is another area where Orthodox Jews do not belong in the same camp with right-wingers. We Orthodox should be concerned about global warming and we should support gun control without feeling that it is wrong to reject what most conservative Americans advocate and without feeling that it is wrong to be in the same bed as liberals.
Unfortunately, the Orthodox drift toward right-wing positions seems to bring an instinctive acceptance of conservative political doctrine, as if it is a religious obligation to resist efforts to curtail the availability of harmful weapons or to protect the environment. There are Orthodox writers with no scientific knowledge who apparently believe that it is a mitzvah to accept the debunking of global warming warnings. There is no such mitzvah. Rather, those who cling to all that the right wing advocates are worshiping a false god.
Of course, buying into an ideological label, whether liberal or conservative, makes life easier. There is no need to reflect and choose. A self-ordained pattern of obedience serves as the substitute for a weighing of known information. Yet, allegiance to ideology exacts a cost. A case in point is Iraq. As an aspect of their strong endorsement of President Bush, many Orthodox and, notably the fervently Orthodox, enthusiastically supported the Iraq invasion, although from the outset it should have been apparent that the action would be harmful to Israel. Iraq is the catalyst for what the Bush Administration is intensively striving to achieve in its final year as it pressures Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians and to make additional concessions. This upsets many Orthodox who as yet do not recognize that there is a direct linear link between Iraq and Washington’s stance that Jerusalem should be divided.
Religious Jews should stop taking their political cues from conservatives. Nor should they take their political cues from liberals. On some issues we have good reasons to side with one or the other point of view. On the current red hot issue of immigration, including what to do about the illegals who are here, we Orthodox should pause to consider that xenophobia is not a mindset that has turned out well for Jews.
I do not advocate that the Orthodox become born again liberals and I know that there are some who never defected from this camp. Liberalism has been stained and not only by an approach to social issues that too often is antithetical to our religious values. What also undermines liberalism is the foolish notion that Plan A to deal with just about every pressing problem or pathology is to constantly increase governmental expenditures, as if throwing money at a problem solves the problem when underlying social causes continue to fester and even flourish. The throwing around money approach has been tried for decades, at a cost of perhaps trillions, and failure has not induced sufficient liberal reflection on the efficacy of the approach.
Further enervating faith in what liberalism advocates is its antagonism toward what is referred to as faith based initiatives that rely heavily on voluntary activity and have shown significant efficacy in meeting vital needs and ameliorating social pathologies. Too many liberals think that religion is bad and this attitude is bad for the liberal cause. Like it or not, at bottom the liberal attitude amounts to the proposition that it is better for needs to be unmet and pathologies to fester than to recognize the healing capacity of activities that are faith-based.
For the Orthodox, there is the additional factor of liberal opposition to government aid to religious schools, a stance that has harmed Jewish day schools and, probably more critically, harmed hundreds of thousands of minority group school children.
Although liberals give religious Jews reasons to be upset, there is no justification for the increasingly worshipful attitude toward conservative ideology. We have what to worship in our own tradition and outside ideology is not part of our liturgy. Each issue should be judged separately in terms of our interests and our values and not anyone else’s ideology.
It is noteworthy that on issues that they tend to embrace, liberals and conservatives can show a high degree of affinity. This is true of liberal acceptance of gay marriage and conservative opposition to gun control. Each of these positions is predicated on the notion that people should be free to do what they want to do. They should be free to engage in same-sex marriages and they should be free to walk around with guns.
This is a broad definition of freedom. It happens not to be our religious way. Each of our mitzvahs and obligations imposes restrictions and mandates obedience and these obligations are the primary exhibit of why no political ideology is a code word for Judaism.
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