The sobering statistics

Editorial

Matisyahu, the unlikely Chassidic reggae giant known for peyot rather than dreadlocks, recently shaved his beard (and closely trimmed the rest of his head) in a move that reverberated through his Jewish fan base. The musician, who has visited Vancouver frequently, also moved from Crown Heights, Brooklyn, to Los Angeles and is aiming to break into acting.

The artist has been enigmatic about the meaning of his makeover. Public speculation – about a possible moving away from religiosity – has been rampant, at least among those limited sectors that pay close attention to things Jewish and reggae.

Public attention to Matisyahu’s beard may be a displacement, of sorts, for a collective fear of declining affiliation. And, while the beard is a symbolic, emotional symbol, there are hard, cold facts to back up collective fears for the Jewish future in the Diaspora.

The Avi Chai Foundation, which tracks Jewish day school enrolment, reports a “modest decline” of about 1.4 percent in 2011-12, compared with the preceding academic year. The range of decline differed by affiliation, with the Conservative movement’s Solomon Schechter system dropping 3.8 percent and “community” schools – those run by federations or other nondenominational Jewish organizations – dropping 2.5 percent. Modern Orthodox schools saw about 1.6 percent decline. Ultra-Orthodox schools, on the other hand, are spiking in enrolment, due in large part to that segment’s high birth rate. Half of Jewish day school students in the United States are in yeshivot or Chassidic schools.

Though ultra-Orthodox schools are doing just fine, divisions between Charedim and other Jews in Israel are breaking into the open. The disparity between a burgeoning ultra-Orthodox community and an apparent decline – at least by one measure – among the rest of the Diaspora’s Jews will have consequences down the road. We’ll leave it at that for now.

Addressing the statistics of non-ultra-Orthodox schools, the numbers understate a couple of trends. The single-digit decline of the Conservative system hides a far more startling decline of 35 percent since 1998. But, on the upside, though community schools declined slightly last year, they are up significantly over the longer haul – from 14,849 students in 75 schools in 1998 to 19,417 in 91 schools today.

But while the numbers look generally bleak, a commentator in this week’s Forward urges against too much hand-wringing. Jack Wertheimer, professor of American Jewish history at the Jewish Theological Seminary and director of the Avi Chai Foundation’s centre for policy and research, offers a counterpoint, if not a very optimistic one. His thesis, in essence, is that the very fact we keep records of such things as day school enrolment is an achievement in itself. We do not, he says, keep very good across-the-board statistics on summer camping, and even shoddier are our records of membership levels in synagogues and communal organizations and of such things as supplementary education. Participation in Israel programs also lacks comprehensive records, he says. The studies undertaken by Avi Chai demonstrate the significance we as a community place on Jewish education, a fair statement. But the statistics themselves suggest things are not going well. Again, Wertheimer counters, in a time of economic downturn, declines in private educational options might be expected.

The issue is serious and any decline should be taken as such. About 40 percent of young Jews working in the Jewish communal sector are products of the day school system, according to Wertheimer. In other words, the schools are a vital feeder system for our collective agencies. But this is a bit of a specious statistic, if only because it diminishes the larger crisis. We do not fund day schools to provide workers for our communal organizations – that is a happy byproduct. We fund and support our day school system because it is a crucial vehicle through which our values and heritage are best and most comprehensively conveyed to the next generation. At the same time, we need to recognize that it reaches only a tiny fraction of the total number of young Jews and, so, we must diversify our portfolio, so to speak.

Supporting the day school system is crucial. But in light of successive studies and statistics pointing to a decline, we may need to redouble our support for alternatives that reach the vast majority of Jews who do not attend day schools.

Our community supports a range of excellent programs for Jewish children, teens and young adults, but it’s time to face up to the magnitude of the situation. Offering young people attractive options in summer camping, after-school programs, university and young adult programming is about more than strengthening our community today. It is about the continuity of our people.

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