The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI), a think-
tank founded by the Jewish Agency to ponder the present and
future of the Jewish People, got headlines for their 2005
annual report published this month by announcing that
Israel's Jewish community will "soon" be the world's largest.
Right now, according to their assessment, it is just behind
the US, but the US community is declining while Israel's is
expanding. Hence Israel will soon overtake the US.
In the press reports this was painted as a happy event, the
latest in the long line of Zionist "firsts": "Israel will
soon be home to the largest Jewish community in the world for
the first time in two millennia" — is the way the BBC
put it.
The celebration takes place in a fool's paradise, for the
rise of the Israeli community is due mainly to the decline of
the Diaspora. Throughout the world the overall Jewish
community is dying, and only in Israel does it look like it
has some life left.
Moreover, the numbers themselves refer to the so-called
"core" Jewish population throughout the world. This is the
number that was studied by the sociologists and social work
agencies who were behind recent population studies in the
United States, but it is not the number that should concern
those interested in the future of the Jewish people as a
going enterprise.
The so-called "Core" Jewish population includes millions of
people who do not identify themselves as Jewish. As long as
they have Jewish ancestors and do not identify with another
religion, sociologists have no choice but to call them
"Jewish" and social service agencies can claim that they are
their constituency.
However these people are so assimilated that from a policy
and planning point of view (not to mention their own point of
view) it is not realistic to call them "Jewish." They are not
any more likely to support Jewish causes than the rest of the
American populace — and, given the well-known Jewish
tendency to self-hatred, perhaps less.
In an earlier article (Shemos 5763, "There Are Only
2,300,000 Hardcore American Jews") we introduced the idea of
Hardcore Jewry, those who identify with and are fully
committed to the Jewish people — regardless of their
political beliefs, of course. By this reckoning, Eretz
Yisroel already contains more than half of all of world
Jewry, and the situation that the JPPPI anticipates for the
future has already occurred way in the past.
After one acquires experience with ideas and techniques, the
natural and sensible thing to do is to build upon the
experience and use the ones that really worked rather than
continue to espouse ideas based on hopes that proved sterile
or worse. Although the report does mention the need to
encourage larger families, it states, without explanation,
"Emphasis should be on the large pool of medium-size families
who now have 2-3 children and would like to have 3-4, rather
than on very large families." Sadly, we can supply the
reasoning: the families of 2-3 children tend to be secular
and Ashkenazic, while the "very large families" tend to be
chareidi and Sephardic. The authors of the report come from
the same background as High Court Justice Cheshin and they
probably also want to encourage the former and discourage the
latter, as he expressed himself so clearly from the Bench.
This is the cohort that has been in charge of things for the
Jewish people for two generations, and they are the ones who
have brought us to the present situation. Yet they are still
unwilling to look deeply at those who are truly successful
demographically, and prefer to expend the precious resources
on trying to build on the demographic followers rather than
the leaders. For we suspect that the reason that secular
Israelis (that is families with 2-3 children) have more
children than secular Jews elsewhere is that they are
challenged and enticed by the chareidi children who are an
increasingly visible presence throughout the Israeli scene.
Thus the real leaders are the big families.
A report that presumes to address the needs and status of the
entire Jewish people and has no genuine chareidi input is, it
should be obvious to everyone by now, an anachronism. Even if
the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute does not include
chareidim, the Jewish people most assuredly will, be'eizer
Hashem, and in increasing proportions.
