Jewish Scene
US survey: Number of religious Jews drops sharply
Associated Press
Published: 09.08.09, 10:37
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1. "Religious" term in article confusing
Stan ,   USA   (08.09.09)
There are many Reform Jews who consider themselves "religious" because they go to synagogue but are not otherwise observant. Religious Jews (Orthodox) are still the only growing segment in American Jewish society. The Reform and conservative are moving away do, however, reflect exactly what the article says.
2. Of course. Many moved to Israel.
Rivkah   (08.09.09)
3. Surveys
M. Hartley ,   Atlanta, US   (08.09.09)
Whether Jews or Christians, maybe education and being exposed to more and more scientific facts makes people realize that a whole lot doesn't add up with the various myths being peddled as definitive Words of God. I have a grandson in Texas, who grew up surrounded by Fundamentalist Christianity. He was hauled to church every Wednesday and Saturday evening, and twice on Sundays. After his 2. year of aeronautical engineering at UT, I noticed that, along with other drastic changes in his outlook on religion, he no longer told me that I'd go straight to hell. When I asked him about it, he told me that once he started to learn how unbelievably ancient, awesome, and mathematically exact the universe really is, what had been drilled into his head as supposedly coming straight from God became more and more a collection of nonsense the believing of which only insults an omnipotent Creator. When I asked my daughter-in-law not too long ago why she was so fervently super-religious, she gave me an answer that said it all and may be true of a lot of people: "Just in case." I admired her honesty. As for the increase in US believers, that all depends on what’s happening at any given point in time. Let me hear a siren and/or the word “tornado” and I’m hiding in that basement, and like the above “just in case,“ I pray to every deity of which I’ve ever heard, making promises 10 lifetimes wouldn’t be long enough to keep. Americans in general have the tendency to remember religion when things don't look so rosy. The minute the situation improves, it's back to business as usual. I’m most assuredly not alone to view cultural differences as explanations for nothing more than idiosyncrasies that come with the territory, but not as something wrong or to keep people separated from each other, forever stuck in pigeon holes. In other words, I treasure all of my weird friends, and hope they feel the same about me :-)
4. torivk ah 2
hanan ,   jrusalem   (08.09.09)
two men started to say their prayer (god help us to steal the old woman and we aske your mercy .....(do you think they are religouse or seculars .... sure they are theives .. when jews make israil the homeland of judism they are not religouse nor seculars ..they are theives .. judism must be allover the world as the religion is the link between persons and god .. the land is not their god or my god
5. JESUSALEN
JESUSALEN ,   JESUSALEN   (08.09.09)
JESUSALEN is the revelation of the lord jesus christ (galus 21)
6. Look at 1st verse in Bible Rashi's explanation
JK ,   NYC   (08.09.09)
In the beggining: R' Yitzchok said(Gd) need not have begun the Torah but from "this month shall be for you..." because it is the 1st commandment which Israel was commanded, what is the reason that it (the Torah) began with the book of Genesis? because it wished to convey the message of the verse" The power of his acts He told to His People in order to give them the estate of nations" so that if the nations of the world will say to Israel " you are bandits for you conquered the land of 7 nations, Israel will say to them "the whole earth belongs to the Holy One, Blessed be He, He created it and He gave it to the one found proper in His eyes. By His wish He gave it to them and by His wish He took it from them and gave it to us. It is obvious that the land is part of the equation, and the land really is bigger than what we have now it is just that until the Mesaiah comes we are not pushing for it, but when the Mesaiah will come you will gladly move elswere because you will understand yourself what Gds wish is.
7. Who Says It's a Bad Thing?
riki ,   LF   (08.10.09)
Why does someone have to live their life as if they are in medieval Poland? It's silly and superstitious.
8. 4 Hanan: If the land from the Nile River in Egypt to the
Rivkah   (08.10.09)
Euphrates River in Iraq does not belong to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then God is a liar. I can assure you God is not a liar. Ishmael and Esau's descendants were given other lands and have so much more than the descendants of Jacob. Why do you persecute the Jews and believe a lie? Go to one of the more than 20 countries that are mostly far larger than Israel and live where God intended you to live.
9. 8#, Rivkah well said!
Judah ,   Golan Heights,ISRAEL   (08.10.09)
10. Wrong river No. 8
Adam M.   (08.10.09)
The biblical references to the "River of Egypt" do NOT mean the Nile, that in Hebrew is always called Yeor. It means the Wadi el-Arish, just south of the line between the Negev and the Sinai.
11. #4 Thieves
Akiva ,   NYC USA   (08.10.09)
Religious Jews and Christians accept the Hebrew Bible as part of their faith. The Bible says Israel is the eternal heritage of the Jewish people. There are 57 Muslim countries, but only one Jewish state. Why can't you accept that?
12. #7, what makes you think only Polish Jews are religious?
AK   (08.10.09)
13. to 8.and 11
hanan ,   jerusalem   (08.11.09)
god never told me to live here or there but iam from this land i like it very much ..it is all . but about the bible and my kuran .. sure i believe on what is it in my holy book ... it is the words of god but the other books is written by people about jessuse and moses .i believe that they are profets but i do not believe that people wrote exactly what they said .. so why god sends more and more people and more and more profets ..simply becouse people were liers like nowadays .. most people lie about what they eat .. not what they believe
14. The bible gives Israel to the Israelites as genetic
Jack ,   Richmond us   (08.11.09)
Descendants of the patriarchs and matriarchs and the converted. It does not give the land solely to any one tribe. Many if not most Palestinians are descendants of ancient Jews and Israelites. Genetic archeology and contemporaneous evidence confirms it. 50% of Palestinian genome is same as 70% of Jewish diaspora. Y chromosomes are perfect for tracing populations overhundreds to a few thousand years. The ychromose data clearly Shoshone a separation of populations dating to two thousand years, 2500 years and 3500 years. It almost exactly coorelates to the history in the bible.
15. Survey Results Contradict Article's Premise
Nachum Silverman ,   Paris, France   (08.13.09)
The 2008 Survey found "3.4 million American Jews call themselves religious — out of a general Jewish population of about 5.4 million". This is a direct quote and belies the article's entire premise, as it shows that 63% of Americans who still consider themselves Jewish call themselves religious. Religious Jews have much larger families than non-religious Jews and unlike the latter, do not intermarry. Moreover, more non-Jews are converting than ever before - most becoming observant, while the baal tshuva movement is booming. Given this and the exponential rate of total assimilation amongst non-religious Jews, the results are not surprising!! It is noteworthy also that the survey found that 'secular' is not synonymous with 'non-religious'. This article is misleading as it suggests that the number of religious Jews is dropping sharply when in fact the opposite is true. It is true only relative to the number of those who were once Jews but no longer consider themselves Jewish; a number constantly growing.
16. 3.4 million are religious?
Jew ,   Israel   (08.14.09)
This is misleading. It must mean that these 3.4 million are still connected to Judaism somehow, even if it only means going to a Reform temple on the high holidays. The rest probably don't even do that. All studies show that only the Orthodox will be Jewish in a couple of generations. And thank G-d they have large families and their numbers will grow. If things were left only to the non-Orthodox there would be no Jews left at all in the world very soon!!
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