Report: Males Starting to Disappear From Religious Life

Sue Fishkoff
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

SAN FRANCISCO

The stereotypical portrait of a seder table with the man of the house leading the service may look out of place to the next generation of liberal Jews. That's because, outside the Orthodox world, men are becoming less engaged in every aspect of Jewish life, from the home to the synagogue to communal organizations.

Numerous studies show that fewer boys than girls go to non-Orthodox youth groups, religious schools or summer camps; fewer go into the rabbinate; and fewer serve on synagogue or federation committees.

This comes as women and girls in the liberal movements are benefiting from a host of programs and initiatives aimed at increasing their Jewish involvement -- from gender-neutral prayerbooks to the popular Jewish identity-building program for teenage girls, "Rosh Hodesh: It's a Girl Thing!"

Some are calling it the feminization of liberal Judaism, but few say so out loud.

"It's not politically correct," says Brandeis University sociologist Sylvia Barack Fishman, whose new report "The Growing Gender Imbalance in American Jewish Life" gives statistical muscle to anecdotal evidence that's been piling up for several years in liberal Jewish circles. The report will be published later this month.

Fishman said that as Jewish men outside the Orthodox fold become increasingly estranged from religious and communal life, the more likely they are to marry non-Jewish women, her report suggests. And because women usually set a home's religious tone -- even if non-Jewish women are open to raising Jewish children -- they'll rarely do so because they are not encouraged by husbands who are "ambivalent at best, if not downright hostile to" Jewish tradition, she explained.

She concluded that this crisis is leading to a continuity issue that will not be resolved until liberal Judaism finds a way to engage its boys and men.

The dominance of women is especially apparent within the Reform movement, where decreasing numbers of boys in its post-Bar Mitzvah schools, youth groups and summer camps has caused concern. This absence goes all the way to the top levels: More than half of the recently ordained Reform rabbis are women, as are all this year's entering cantorial students.

To help re-engage Reform men in religious life, the Men of Reform Judaism has sponsored men's worship services at the last few movement biennials, and published a "Men's Haggadah" that more than 250 congregations ordered for Passover.

"We have women's seders; we have Rosh Hodesh groups. When do we create safe space for men to talk about their fathers, their sons, their brothers, their lives?" asked Doug Barden, executive director of Men of Reform Judaism, who is spearheading many of these initiatives.

Waiting until adulthood isn't good enough, said Fishman. Efforts must begin in early adolescence. Whereas Orthodox boys go through "rites of passage where they feel better and better about their Jewish engagement -- that furniture is not being installed in the minds of non-Orthodox Jewish males," she said.

Liberal Jewish teenage boys don't have models of adult male commitment to Jewish life as do their Orthodox peers. This sets up a vicious cycle that repeats from generation to generation.

One Group Measures Up
Some groups are more successful than others at attracting Jewish boys. One is B'nai Brith Youth Organization, or BBYO, which claims that 47 percent of its 23,000 teen participants are male. The group's director, Matt Grossman, said that this is because BBYO chapters have always been single-sex.

While most other non-Orthodox Jewish youth groups report declining membership, he said that BBYO has been growing by 20 percent a year.

"We tell them, we need you guys to help strengthen the Jewish world. And that resonates with them. We have guys doing what guys like, and girls doing what girls like."

Jason Wachs, BBYO's 18-year-old international president for the boys' chapters, reiterated that the concept works: "It's not cool for boys to be in touch with their emotions or care about the environment or religion when girls are around. BBYO allows them to open up."

Fishman's report noted that "a disproportionate number" of young Jewish men doing cutting-edge innovation in Jewish fields has come from the Orthodox world.

The challenge to the liberal Jewish world, she added, is to provide the same compelling stimulus to its young men, without sacrificing egalitarianism.