TruthBook Religious News Blog

The financial crisis and demographic shifts are reshaping the Jewish community in ways we could hardly have imagined a generation ago. Historian and Brandeis University professor Jonathan Sarna, author of A Time for Every Purpose: Letters to a Young Jew , sheds light on what history can teach us about Jewish revival in uncertain times.

What happened the last time the Jewish community faced a financial crisis of this magnitude?

After the last frightening economic downturn, following the 1929 stock-market crash, American Jewry turned inward, paying little heed to what was going on abroad, particularly in Germany. As the American Jewish Year Book gently put it in 1931: “The Jews of the United States did not during the past year watch the situation of their overseas co-religionists with the same concentration as in the preceding twelve months.” We were, as a result, less prepared than we should have been to help the Jews of Europe after Hitler rose to power in 1933.

In addition, Jewish education was widely abandoned in the late 1920s and 1930s. The number of students enrolled in New York City’s Jewish schools dropped by 22% between 1928 and 1935, and in Chicago enrollment plunged 16% in the six months from December 1930 to June 1931. We paid a big price for these declines: Those young Jews never made up for what they lost. We need to be careful nowadays to avoid sacrificing Jewish education to economic expediency.

Were there any positive repercussions of the Great Depression?

Yes, Jews turned primarily to one another during the 1930s, relying on ties of faith and kinship to carry them through the hard times. Traditions of self-help and mutual aid overcame religious, ideological, and generational differences. These values have been forgotten in some circles during the more recent years of plenty, but they bear remembering: All Jews are family, and thus responsible for helping one another.

Also, the government took more responsibility for social services. Jews were initially reticent about accepting this welfare, but it ultimately transformed postwar Jewish life. Money freed up from social services was devoted to Israel and Jewish education. The New Deal also modeled for Jews the benefits of centralization at both the national and local levels.

How are today’s economic woes reshaping American Jewish life?

A new era of belt-tightening is threatening a number of bold initiatives fueled by the great rise of Jewish wealth in the ’80s and the ’90s. Compounding the problem is the fact that while different sectors of the American Jewish community are busy explaining to all who will listen why their particular area of Jewish service has to be preserved at all costs, no one has put forth serious ideas about how to cut the Jewish communal budget by one-third when Jewish foundations, even excluding the Bernard Madoff losses, are approximately one-third poorer than they were this time last year. Over the next few years we will see which organizations in Jewish life have kept strong balance sheets, budgeted prudently, and built broad-scale support, and which have not. At a time when individual needs are rising and communal means are falling, the Jewish community will have to engage in a kind of organizational triage. My guess is that many Jewish educational institutions, several Jewish museums, and some other Jewish organizations will not survive.

This is just a small snippet of a lengthy article which asks many more thoughtful questions regarding Judaism and the economic crisis. Please click on "external source" for the complete article.

Labels: America, crisis, economics, Judaism, The Depression, The New Deal