Listen now | We spoke to Professor Alex Weinreb, Research Director at the Taub Center in Jerusalem and an expert in demography.He had some fascinating and surprising things to share.
Thank you.Fascinating.Is one of the reasons for charedi opposition to Army servivice is the chance that integration will have on more becoming iess religious?
"And on Shabbat, there are the people who drive, and there are people who come in wearing a black kippah, and they all meet, and they have Shabbat dinner, and then they go off and do their thing. So that's, I think, a particular characteristic of the more, like you say, they tend to be more Mizrahi, and the boundaries are just a little bit less defined in terms of really trying to make people choose only one path." Very much like the Brooklyn culture of my grandparents, who were not, as I remember, particularly religious but whose lives included a matter-of-fact kashrut and Shabbat candles and holidays. And so much of Brooklyn was Jewish it felt like the natural rhythm of living, at least to me as a child. Now, in Seattle, I feel the deep lack of that atmosphere, but I also see people (some quite Ashkenazic, BTW) and institutions here working hard to create that kind of community. across the strands of Jewish life.
I know a sephardi rabbi (born in Israel, currently living in the US) who said a couple of years ago that Israel has a population problem (too many people). He thinks that's what's driving the conversion crisis (at least in part), and he thinks part of the solution is repealing the Law of Return.
Thank you.Fascinating.Is one of the reasons for charedi opposition to Army servivice is the chance that integration will have on more becoming iess religious?
"And on Shabbat, there are the people who drive, and there are people who come in wearing a black kippah, and they all meet, and they have Shabbat dinner, and then they go off and do their thing. So that's, I think, a particular characteristic of the more, like you say, they tend to be more Mizrahi, and the boundaries are just a little bit less defined in terms of really trying to make people choose only one path." Very much like the Brooklyn culture of my grandparents, who were not, as I remember, particularly religious but whose lives included a matter-of-fact kashrut and Shabbat candles and holidays. And so much of Brooklyn was Jewish it felt like the natural rhythm of living, at least to me as a child. Now, in Seattle, I feel the deep lack of that atmosphere, but I also see people (some quite Ashkenazic, BTW) and institutions here working hard to create that kind of community. across the strands of Jewish life.
I know a sephardi rabbi (born in Israel, currently living in the US) who said a couple of years ago that Israel has a population problem (too many people). He thinks that's what's driving the conversion crisis (at least in part), and he thinks part of the solution is repealing the Law of Return.