Many people often regard newspapers, and journalism generally, as the bearers of bad news. Indeed, conflict and problems do tend to be the stock in trade of this profession.
This exists partly because one task of journalism in our culture is to call attention to problems that need fixing, and partly because, after all, conflict makes for good stories. “Peace is poor reading,” wrote the British novelist Thomas Hardy.
But good news does have its place, perhaps especially at times of celebration. As we approach the new Jewish year 5774, I’d like to call Chronicle readers’ attention to an article in the Aug. 6 Jerusalem Post.
Its author is Ira M. Sheskin, geographer and Jewish community demographer who, among many such projects, studied the Milwaukee Jewish community in the mid-1990s. This article is headlined “In the U.S., a strong Jewish presence,” and it presents a portrait in numbers of the U.S. Jewish community.
Sheskin is no blind optimist. He acknowledges that the community has problems with intermarriage, assimilation and indifference.
He also wrote that it is hard to tell whether the U.S. Jewish community is declining in absolute population numbers or holding steady. “Estimates of the number of American Jews range from about 5.4 million (1.7 percent of all Americans) to about 6.5 million (2.1 percent),” he wrote. “The reasons for the varying estimates … are the use by different researchers of different survey methodologies and definitions of ‘who is a Jew.’”
Since the U.S. Jewish population appears to have been hovering between five million and six million since about 1970, according to the table on the website Jewish Virtual Library, it looks like it is maintaining its numbers with minor fluctuations. Moreover, with about six million Jews in Israel today, the U.S. and Israel appear to be in close competition for which has the largest Jewish community in today’s world.
But Sheskin also wrote that “the quality of the community” needs examination as much as the quantity. In that regard, consider the numbers he compiled, to which I have appended some data about Wisconsin Jewry.
There exist more than 150 Jewish federations — among them the Milwaukee Jewish Federation and the Jewish Federation of Madison — that together raise more than $3 billion annually.
There exist more than 200 Jewish community centers — among them Milwaukee’s Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center.
There exist more than 200 Jewish family service agencies, including one in Milwaukee.
There exist about 3,500 synagogues in the U.S., of which more than 30 exist in Wisconsin.
There exist about 200 local Jewish publications, among them The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle and the Madison Jewish News.
There exist more than 100 Jewish museums, among them the Jewish Museum Milwaukee.
There exist more than 150 Jewish overnight summer camps, of which 11 are located in Wisconsin.
There exist about 260 college or university Jewish studies programs, including the Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Sam and Helen Stahl Center for Jewish Studies at UW-Milwaukee.
The National Jewish Population Study in 2000-01 found that some 25 percent of adult Jews participated in adult Jewish education during the past year. Here, Milwaukee does better than the nation; the “Jewish Community Study of Greater Milwaukee 2011” found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish adults engaged in some kind of Jewish study.
There exist in Wisconsin and throughout the country “hundreds of local Jewish book fairs, Jewish film festivals, Jewish music festivals and Israel Independence Day celebrations that attract hundreds of thousands of participants annually.”
And as Sheskin wrote, many of these kinds of activities “did not exist, or barely existed, 50 years ago.”
Sheskin concluded by recalling the Look magazine issue of May 5, 1964. This edition had a cover story about U.S. Jewry that predicted Jews would vanish from the country by the year 2000.
“The doomsayers were wrong then,” wrote Sheskin, “and they are wrong now.”
Of course, all of our community’s activities could improve in quantity and quality; and Jewish tradition maintains that the High Holidays should be a time for self-reflection and resolution to make oneself and one’s community better in the coming year.
Still, I don’t think it hurts to have a little justified pride in what the Jewish community has accomplished. Besides, seeing how much we have done can be an inspiration, showing that achievement is possible; and that if we have done it before, we can do it again and again.
Shanah tovah.
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