Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on October 29, 2013

Facing mounting evidence of growing disaffection by American Jews with their religion and heritage, leaders within the community are proposing an ambitious Jewish Head Start program to teach the history and religion of the Jewish people to preschoolers for free.

Prominent Jewish figures proposed the initiative, which would provide Jewish-American parents with free preschool programs with an emphasis on Judaism.

From the beginning, we need to expose our children to the joys of being in a Jewish environment, said Jerry Silverman, CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America and one of the main proponents of the Jewish Head Start idea. Mr. Silverman and JFNA Chairman Michael Siegal floated the proposal in an op-ed last week in The Forward, the influential Jewish-American newspaper.

Universal pre-K instruction will dramatically widen the pipeline of families entering Jewish life through this critical early gateway, the two men wrote. And it will place many more people on a path to further Jewish connection and Jewish education day school, religious school and informal and alternative Jewish education.

These preschools would eliminate the financial burden that often inhibits Jewish parents from sending their children to Jewish day care facilities and preschools, which can often cost as much as $8,000 a year.

The proposal comes as new studies found a growing disconnect between many American Jews and their heritage, including an American Jewish Committee poll released Monday.

According to the survey, only 33 percent of those polled said that being Jewish was very important, while a significant minority 36 percent said it was not too important or not at all important. The poll tracks broadly with findings of a much-discussed survey released by the Pew Research Center earlier this month. That report, A Portrait of Jewish Americans, found a large generational gap among Jews who identified with the religious aspect of Jewish culture.

There are big differences in millennial Jews and Jews from the Greatest Generation, said Greg Smith, director of Pews U.S. Religion Surveys.

According to the Pew survey, Fully 93 percent of Jews in the aging Greatest Generation identify as Jewish on the basis of religion ; just 7 percent describe themselves as having no religion. By contrast, among Jews in the youngest generation of U.S. adults the millennials 68 percent identify as Jews by religion, while 32 percent describe themselves as having no religion and identify as Jewish on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity or culture.

The results from this survey are not surprising, but they are very sobering, said Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld of Ohev Sholom The National Synagogue in Northwest D.C. There are no quick fixes or easy answers to the problem.

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'Jewish Head Start' plans to bolster U.S. faithful

Category: Jewish American Heritage Month
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