Posted by:
Brother Of Jerry
(
)
Date: May 26, 2021 03:11PM
In a recent Religion News Service article, statistics were given on levels of in-faith versus outsider marriages among various groups within Judaism. I assume nothing happens in a vacuum, so whatever is happening within American Judaism, is probably also happening to some extent within Mormonism, another high-identity religion/culture
https://religionnews.com/2021/05/25/marriage-trends-political-views-undermining-the-notion-of-a-unified-american-jewish-identity/"(The Conversation) — The notion of a united Jewish American community bound together by common beliefs has been eroded by rising interfaith marriages and a growing divide between religious and nonreligious Jews.
"That is one of the main themes that emerges from a recent Pew Research Center survey, the first since 2013, that provides an up-to-date portrait of the American Jewish community, including its beliefs, practices, marital patterns, racial and ethnic makeup and political views.
"The American Jewish community, it found, comprises 7.5 million Jews, or 2.4% of the U.S. population. The survey headlined four central findings of special interest: American Jews are culturally engaged, increasingly diverse, politically polarized and worried about anti-Semitism."
"Among these major tenets common to religious and nonreligious Jews alike he listed “unity of the Jewish people,” “mutual responsibility,” “the centrality of the state of Israel” and “Jewish survival.” These core beliefs, he argued, bound Jews together.
"Not one of these beliefs, according to the new Pew survey, continues to unite American Jews today. Although the survey does not explain this change, it hints that intermarriage, which it defines as the presence within the Jewish community of a rising number of what it calls “non-Jewish spouses,” is a big part of the change. Fully 72% of non-Orthodox Jews who have married since 2010 describe their spouses as being “non-Jewish.”
Among all US Jews in the survey, in 1980, 18% had married outside Judaism. By 2010-2020, it was 61%, and as mentioned in the paragraph above, 72% of non-Orthodox Jews had non-Jewish spouses.
"The widest gap of all within the American Jewish community nowadays, according to Pew, surrounds the question of the continuation of the Jewish people — once a bedrock concern and sacred desire among American Jews of every kind.
"However much Jews once disagreed internally, they all wanted their children and grandchildren to remain Jewish, in no small part a result of the trauma of losing so many Jews during the Holocaust. Now, however, those feelings seem to be ebbing.
"Asked whether “it is very important that their grandchildren be Jewish,” almost all Orthodox Jews ‚— 91% — said yes, and so did 62% of Conservative ones. By contrast, only a small percentage — 4% of Jews of no religion and 11% of Jews of no particular branch of Judaism — agreed.
That strikes me as a remarkable disparity. On the other hand, I have TBM relatives who consider it very important that their descendants marry within Mormonism and stay active in the LDS Church. While I do know a few Mormons who openly don't believe Mormon teachings, they nevertheless want to raise their children within Mormonism because they consider it their cultural identity.
I think it is safe to say that is not true of this group. I consider myself a "DNA Mormon". but I have no desire to be actively connected to Mormon culture, nor do I wish any of my family members to stay Mormon. My Mormon acculturation is not something to be cherished and continued. It is simply a fact, like the state and city I was born in.
In any case, I'd be interested in seeing what the trend is for mixed Mo-nonMo marriages. Or delaying or not marrying in general among Mormons. My gut feeling is that yeah, the youth of Zion shall falter, to answer the question from the LDS hymn.