Jewish student enrollment slides downward

Overall enrollment in Milwaukee-area Jewish schools is continuing to drop, though it’s considered part of a national trend.

Student enrollment has been dropping most significantly for part-time evening and weekend Jewish religious schooling. There was a period of little movement through the 1990s, where for example 1,401 were enrolled in 1992-1993, followed by 1,403 in 1997-1998. But since the early 2000s, part-time religious school enrollment has dropped considerably to its 2015-2016 level of 641, according to a Coalition for Jewish Learning census.

The census also tracks day schools, which have fared better over a similar period. The day schools had 716 students in 1992-1993 and 595 in 2015-2016.

Total enrollment in all Jewish schools was 1,651 for 2015-2016, less than the 1,717 reported for 2014-2015.

There are various reasons for the overall drop in enrollment, said Tziporah Altman-Shafer, director of the Coalition for Jewish Learning, the education department of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation. 

Birth rates are lower and there are simply fewer children, part of a nationwide trend, she said.

“Part of it is that synagogue affiliation is also down,” she said. “The generation of adults now are not joiners.”

Commitment to Judaism appears to have shifted nationwide. Fully 93 percent of American Jews in the aging “greatest generation” identify as Jewish on the basis of religion and just 7 percent say they have no religion, according a 2013 Pew Research Center study. By contrast, among Jews in the youngest generation of U.S. adults – the millennials – 68 percent identified as Jews by religion, while 32 percent say they have no religion and identify as Jewish on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity or culture, according to the Pew study.

The Jewish trend appears similar to the greater trend. Today, the share of Jews who say they have no religion is roughly equal to the “nones” in the general public, according to the Pew study.

Altman-Shafer notes that nobody has a “crystal ball” to fix the problem. The Jewish community, she said, needs to offer options. She wonders if there are kids not getting a Jewish education who we can reach.

She notes that Birthright trips and Jewish camps are working. She wonders, what else can work?