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From: martillo@csd2.UUCP (Joachim Martillo)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: % of "non-religious" jews
Message-ID: <3780064@csd2.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 7-Aug-85 10:03:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: csd2.3780064
Posted: Wed Aug  7 10:03:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 10-Aug-85 23:21:23 EDT
References: <1241@ihuxi.UUCP>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 32



If one starts with the known immigration of Jews to the USA before
1921 and assumes a conservative repoduction rate, the number of Jews
in the USA should be over 18 million.  Since only 6 million are
willing to admit, Jewish heritage, observant Jews are definitely a
tiny minority.  `Obadyah Yosef (as well as others) have repeatedly
declared that so-called reform and conservative Judaism cannot be
considered religions.  Considering as non-religious, all those who do
not meet the standards of the Sefardi rabbinate, I calculated a few
months ago the 98% of Jews in the USA were apostate.

*Original Article Follows*



/* csd2:net.religion.jewish / megann@ihuxi.UUCP (Meg McRoberts) /  1:55 am  Aug  2, 1985 */

> sam@bu-cs.UUCP (Shelli Meyers) writes:

> >You have mentioned that there are "non-religious" Jews, who still consider
> >themselves Jews.  Perhaps this is so, but they are definitely a minority.

somewhere i saw the statistic that more than 50% of the people in
the united states who consider themselves jewish are affiliated with
a synagogue at all -- orthodox, reform, conservative, reconstructionist,
anything.  granted that "religious" is not synonymous with "affiliated
with a synagogue" but given the number of people who are affiliated with
a synagogue and seem to be much more secular jews than religious jews,
i would hesitate to say that the "non-religious" jews are a clear
minority.  unless, of course, one considers gastronomic judaism
a form of religious judaism. . . [  :-)  ]