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It was over 250 years since the haskalah began so presumably considering the facts of intermarriage and the illegitimate conversions by now a significant amount of these people are not even halachically jewish.
What i am not sure of is the percentage, even a rough idea
Both intermarriage and conversions (legitimate or otherwise were not that common as recently as 50 years ago, let alone 250 years ago
Intermarriage for the last decade plus amongst the non-Orthodox has been at about 75%. 3 out of 4 non-Orthodox marriages are to a gentile.
And it didn’t go to 3/4 rapidly. It worked is way up to that dismal figure over a long period of time.
And even where the mother is Jewish and the father non-Jewish, those children are raised as non-Jews in the vast majority of cases.
Conservative currently do not accept patralineal decent, Reform does.
In past national Jewish population surveys, an entire household is counted as Jewish if the head of the household claims to be Jewish.
Based on this criteria, Jewish population estimates for the United States averages 6.75 million, with the Orthodox population estimated to be 700,000 at most.
I believe the majority of those who are not counted as Orthodox, are in fact not Jewish at all according to halachic standards. This is based on the fact that for the past fifty years, the intermarriage rate, outside of Orthodoxy, is close to 75%.
“This is based on the fact that for the past fifty years, the intermarriage rate, outside of Orthodoxy, is close to 75%.”
source?
I came across 17% intermarriage rate in 1970 (less than 50 years ago) (mentioned in article by Uriel Heilman in JTA regarding the 2013 PEW study)
According to National Jewish Population Survey:
Year marriage began % Intermarried
Before 1970 13%
1970-1979 28%
1980-1984 38%
1985-1990 43%
1991-1995 43%
1996-2001 47%
ubiq: Those figures includes the Orthodox and non-Orthodox conglomerated. I’m excluding the Orthodox from the figures. The Orthodox intermarriage rate is close to 0%.
source?
Pew Research, 2013. (Look at the intermarriage figures excluding the Orthodox.)
Just because there is an intermarriage doesnt mean the children arent Halachically jewish. If we assume that both men and woman equally intermarry, then the children where the woman is jewish are jewish even though its an intermarriage
Children of Jewish women married to Christian and other non-Jewish men, overwhelmingly raise their children under another religion or no religion and they don’t identify as Jews.
The question was Halachically jewish, not what they are actually raised as.
Someone born of a jewish mother but raised as a christian is still a jew, but someone born of a jewish father (non-jewish mother) raised as a jew is still a non-jew
It is a function of how long they have been off the derekh. In the case of the “classic” Reform Jews from Germany who went off the derekh in the early to mid-19th century, probably an overwhelming percentage, especially if they have a Jewish surname. In the case of East European Jews who came in the 20th century, the percentage will be less. I think at this point one car probably assume that a self-proclaimed Reform or Conservative Jew is a safek goy (meaning they are also a safek Yid). Depending on whether one holds that non-Orthodox Jewish weddings are valid, most would be safek mamzerim as well (cf. situation with Ethiopian Jews were were safek goy, safer mamzer).
joseph
Sorry for being a nuisance, I dont see where it says int he report that the intermarriage rate for Any group of Jews in 1970 was 75%.
They have two tables relevant to our discussion. on page 35 they break down by year but not denomination with numbers very similar to those posted above.
On page 37 they break down by denomination but not year
conservative 27%
Reform 50%
No denomination 69%
Combined is obviously less than 69% let alone 75%. (Im too lazy to actually calculate it but given that reform is 35% and conservative 18% of the population (page 10), the intermarriage average is closer to 50% than 69% (No denomination is 30%) regardless it seems to be less than 69% let alone 75%
however I dont have a hard time believing 75% intermarriage rate today. Though a source for that would be nice.
I do have a very hard time accepting a 75% intermarrige rate over the past 50 years as cherrybim said above. that was the source I was looking for.
ZD: 50% of Spanish Jewry converted to Christianity leading up to the Inquisition. Thus, the children (and grandchildren, etc.) of the women converts to Christianity remain halachicly Jewish. Yet after all these hundreds of years we don’t know which Spaniards are halachicly Jewish descending, woman after woman, from the Jewish converts to Christianity.
ubiq: In 2013 (current at the time of the study), not 1970.
(Also note that the 1970 figures you’re looking at include the Orthodox, thus bringing down the overall intermarriage rate and masking the much higher rate among the Reform and Conservative.)
Thanks Joseph
The source I was looking whe I asked earlier, was directed to cheerybim who said “This is based on the fact that for the past fifty years, the intermarriage rate, outside of Orthodoxy, is close to 75%.”
You are right about the the interrmarige rate among non-orthodox being higher than the 13% I came across for the reason you mention (However not much higher since in 2013 PEW estimates 10% ORthodox, which was less in 1970. So the vast majority of jews were not frum and the intermarrge rates I came across ranged 13-17% so even if we “correct” for the orthodox included in that denominator it isnt a large number that needs to be excluded thus the numerator wont rise by much). But there is no way it could have been 75%. Even in 2013 the numbers arent quite 75% Though they are close. And sadly 75% is certainly believable in 2013
Joseph: Actually, we probably do. Conversos were discriminated against and were almost always only able to marry other conversos. There are surnames that, as little as 50 years ago, we could be almost sure that they were Jewish.
ZD,
“Just because there is an intermarriage doesnt mean the children arent Halachically jewish. If we assume that both men and woman equally intermarry, then the children where the woman is jewish are jewish even though its an intermarriage”
1) Therefore the question “what percentage”. He did not say absolutely none are Jewish.
2) The ratio would decline year after year. Even if the first generation of intermarried a were 50% Jewish because of matrilineal descent, not all her children who intermarry will be females. And it is a gemwtric regression.
All of us her are aware that if the mother is a Jew, then the child is a Jew. But you seem to miss that it has to be continuous
Part of the intermarriage rate includes people who married a jew and their second or third marriage is not to a jew
I saw this thread and came to post, but it looks like Joseph said a lot of what needed to be said. Just because people have a lot of intermarriages, and a lot of non-halachic kids, doesn’t mean they’re raising those kids Jewish. Of those who are raised Jewish and aren’t halachic, they will most likely go on to marry goyim and not raise their kids Jewish. The odds of a family line descending from an intermarriage and continuing for long enough for it to be ambiguous are extremely slim.
There’s another question of how many halachic Jews are out there being raised as Christians. The woman tends to get her way when it comes to the religion of the kids in all corners of society, so hopefully this doesn’t often happen.
The other side of the coin is the serious problem of non-Jews being raised under the false assumption that they’re Jewish. A serious problem because often kiruv organizations will attempt to make them frum, or these folks will seek Orthodoxy themselves, without realizing that they aren’t even Jewish.
Nishtdayngesheft, you are not correct. For simplicity’s sake let’s say that we start with two Jewish males and two Jewish females and that one male and one female intermarry. The children of the non-intermarried male will be halachically Jewish and all of the children of the females will be Jewish. If each has two children that menasthat 75% of their children will be Jewish. This is assuming a numeric equality between males and females. However, in the US there are .88 males for every female in the 15-64 age group. This means that a higher percentage of halachic Jews can be expected. While intermarriage rates among non-Orthodox Jews are above 50% this may well be outweighed by OTDs (approxiamately 17% of the Orthodox population).
1. It is unclear that OTD become Reform or Conservative, rather than simply non-religious assimilated Jews who children are not distinguished from goyim.
2. If a potential Baal Tseuvah can’t trace his/her ancestry back to when the family was frum (still possible for 20th century immigrants, a lot trickier from those whose families came before the Civil War), they are “safek” goyim. This may be a good thing since given the breakdown in “morality” during the second half of the 20th century, as well as divorce becoming common, they are also probably “safek mamzerim” as well, so it may be a good thing to start regarding potential baalei tseuvah as being “safek goy, safek mamzer” as that status (as became clear with the mass migration of Ethiopian Jews) is easy to resolve.
How is a safek mamzer “easy to resolve”?
Akuperma, while I do not know of statistics, it makes sense that OTDs will want to preserve those aspects of their former lives that they enjoyed. Some, BTW, eventually come back (I personally know one), in some case to another stream of Orthodoxy (e.g. Chassidic to MO). As for not being distinguished from goyim, it takes several generations of assimilation to lose all of the little thinks (manner of speech, body language, etc.) that come from the national aspect that is not connected to free choice (see Rav Soloveichik, “Two Beritot”) make us distinguishable.
Joseph, I think he means the part about safek goy. However, if one holds like Rav Moshe 9an certainly at least b’diavad we do) if someone’s parents were not frum most likely the kiddushin was not valid. In fact, someone told me that before he became BT he was a witness at his sister’s wedding.
I’m not sure how much mamzerus is an issue. Doesn’t there have to be a halachic marriage that’s not terminated by halachic divorce? I can’t imagine that’s a common situation.
Also, most children of mixed marriages don’t identify as Conservative or Reform. They most likely are not affiliated, identify as “half Jewish,” and to them it’s at best a cultural identification.
A related question is what percentage of Conservative and Reform “rabbis” are not halachically Jewish.
Joseph brings up the problem of BTs who discover they’re not Jewish. It’s not so hard to resolve — they just need to convert.
Joseph & Yehudayona, the opposite is also true. Many children who are halachically Jewish think that they are not because they are being raised in their fathers’ religions.
Other findings based on the 2013 Pew survey: Outside of Orthodoxy, only 15% of the total “Jewish” population said that religion was important in their lives, just 5% said being Jewish was mainly a matter of religion, and 50% held that a person can be Jewish and believe that Jesus is the messiah.
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