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Israel’s Diplomatic War on American Jews
The release of Pew Research Center’s “Religion in Public Life: Jewish Americans in 2020” report reveals some intriguing data regarding American Jews’ attitudes and approaches to American Jewish communal leadership and implications for US foreign policy toward Israel.
Less than four of every ten American Jews “are synagogue members or have someone in their household who is a synagogue member (35%).”
The fact that much fewer than half of all American Jewish households include a synagogue member indicates potential problems in fundraising outreach for American Jewish establishment organizations.
In 2020, the authors note a similar pattern of attachment to Israel with Pew’s 2013 study; namely, lower levels of attachment to Israel among younger Jewish adults than among older ones. “Because the 2013 survey was conducted by live interviewers over the telephone and the 2020 survey was self-administered by respondents online or on a paper questionnaire, the results on some questions are not directly comparable. This includes measures of attachment to Israel, and consequently it is difficult to know whether overall levels of attachment to Israel among Jewish Americans have changed over that seven-year period.”
The authors of the 2013 study reported that “[o]verall, about seven-in-ten Jews surveyed say they…