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Assimilation Rate In South Africa Remains Low
by Yated Ne'eman South African Correspondent
Emigration rather than assimilation poses the most serious
threat to the long-term viability of the South African Jewish
community according to the most recent surveys.
Available data suggests that the community, whose numbers are
estimated at between 80 and 90 000, is declining at a rate of
about 2% each year, a net loss of approximately 1800 souls
annually. Some 40% of those who emigrate choose to go to
Australia, with the remainder opting for the United States,
Israel, the United Kingdom and Canada, in that order. Most
Torah-observant Jews who emigrate usually go to either Israel
or to the United Kingdom.
In contrast to most other Diaspora communities where the
intermarriage rate is often over 50% and rising, Jews in
South Africa, whether religiously observant or not, tend
overwhelmingly to marry within the fold. According to a major
1998 attitudinal survey of the community, which was conducted
by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research in London, fewer
than 10% of the 1000 South African Jews interviewed were
intermarried. The figures for brissim for the years
1998 to the middle of 2000, in which only 5% of mothers were
married to gentiles, confirmed this figure.
However, the survey did not count unions between a Jew and a
Reform convert as an intermarriage, suggesting that the true
intermarriage rate is probably somewhat higher, although
still unlikely to be much over 10%. Although constituting
only 12% of Jews country wide, the Reform movement accounted
for more than two-thirds of conversions, nearly all of which
are undergone for purposes of marriage. In Durban in 1999,
for example, all six Reform marriages included a non-Jewish
partner who had undergone a Reform conversion.
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