jpr / news           Winter 2001/2

The Jewish voluntary sector in focus

At JPR's Fifth Annual Seminar, Research Fellow Dr Oliver Valins discussed the provision of full-time care for older people within the Jewish community.  Britain is an ageing country. Of its 60 million residents, more than one in six are over the age of retirement and this proportion is set to increase.  The Jewish community, however, is even older, with almost one quarter of the population aged 65 or over. The demographic picture of the Jewish community is especially important because it provides a snapshot of where the rest of the UK is likely to be in ten years' time. The Jewish community is effectively a demographic pioneer for the rest of the UK and thus has to deal with issues and challenges ahead of the rest of society.

Dr Oliver Valins, author of JPR's forthcoming report

There are considerable challenges for the future provision of formal care services to older people, relating to the financing of communal facilities and organizations, recruiting and retaining suitable staff, and adapting to changes in both Government regulations and the requirements of society.

JPR's research on caring for older people emerges from an urgent need to examine these issues, and comes at a time when many service providers are under severe financial pressures and must seriously evaluate their future directions. While the community has produced a number of studies on Jewish education over the last 20 years, research into the provision for older people prior to JPR's project has been much more sparse.

The findings are based on a series of in-depth interviews with service providers, including care home managers, chief executives of Jewish housing associations, social service professionals and community leaders, as well as interviews with Jewish people with relatives in residential and nursing care homes and with older people themselves. Interviews took place in London, Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff, cities with very different populations and needs—the majority of the research, however, took place in London, since this is where two-thirds of British Jews live.

Some key Jewish demographic facts

• The UK Jewish population has declined by at least twenty-five per cent over the past fifty years, due to emigration, low fertility rates and assimilation.
• According to the Community Research Unit of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, there are currently 63,000 Jews aged 65 or over living in the UK, of whom some 38,000 are aged 75 or over. The numbers aged 90+ are expected to increase by 50 per cent over the next ten years.

In many ways the services provided by the organized Jewish community for older people are a model to the rest of the UK in terms of their quality and the commitment of management, staff and volunteers. Nevertheless, the Jewish voluntary sector is not immune from wider societal forces, and change and adaptation will continue to be necessary for Jewish organizations to maintain and develop the quality of services being provided.

The Leeds Jewish Community Survey

At JPR's Annual Seminar, Professor Stanley Waterman presented the preliminary findings of the Leeds Survey. The Survey took place with the full co-operation of the Leeds Jewish Welfare Board, and was carried out in the summer of 2001. JPR will publish a full report later this year, but in the meantime, a preview is given below. 

Questionnaires were sent to over 5,000 households in Leeds. The questionnaire comprised a section to be completed by a representative of each household, as well as two other sections, one to be completed by respondents aged 75 or over or who were infirm, and the other by those with children of school age. A response rate between 33-50 per cent was achieved. One of the reasons for such a good response rate was the work done using local media to raise awareness in the community prior to the survey.

Initial findings

What picture did the survey paint of Leeds Jewry? Who were the respondents?
The gender breakdown for respondents was exactly 50-50. Almost half of them were over 65. There was a surprising lack of _people in the 25 - 34 age range. A third of the respondents lived alone in single-member households.

Jewish background and education
The respondents were a reasonably well educated group of people. 39% held at least a diploma from a university, of whom half had a postgraduate degree as well.

More than three in five respondents received no Jewish education after age 12-13. However, there was a strong informal socialization. 86% had belonged to a Jewish club or organization; a third had been in a Zionist youth movement. In contrast, only 12% had belonged as children to a non-Jewish club or organization.

The majority of the Leeds community was "mainstream orthodox" in terms of membership, but this did not reflect accurately in the level of their religious practice. A quarter went to synagogue at least once a week; a third came only on the High Holy Days and 18% did not attend at all. However, most people were acutely aware of being Jewish.

Volunteering
Voluntary work—in any capacity—is an important part of the workings of a community. Almost half of the respondents had performed some kind of voluntary work outside their homes during the previous year. However, more than half of the respondents currently did no voluntary work at all, while one third of those who did, felt that they were doing too little, particularly the middle-aged respondents and those who described themselves as 'secular Jews'. This suggests an under-utilization of a valuable resource.

Charitable giving
61% indicated that UK Jewish charities should receive the highest priority in charitable donations. Israeli and general UK charities fell far behind. Only 1 in 10 of the donors had no priority. However, when asked about their second highest priority, a third mentioned Israeli charitable organizations. One tenth of the respondents stated that they had made no charitable donations to either Jewish or general charities in the previous year.

The two most popular causes were cancer research charities and the Leeds Jewish Welfare Board. The size of donations was generally small to moderate. Over 50% reckoned that more than half of their donations went to Jewish organizations. One in nine gave only to Jewish charities, while one in six calculated that less than 10% of their charitable giving was destined for Jewish establishments.

Other topics explored in the Survey included the state of health of the old and infirm, housing and mobility, Jewish cultural activities and the factors involved in the choice of schools.

Lessons from the Leeds Survey
Several lessons have been learned from the Leeds Survey, which will help JPR plan for the forthcoming survey in Greater London. One of these is the importance of co-operation at the local level, and the Leeds Jewish Welfare Board was an important partner in this respect. Another example is the need to heighten public awareness of an impending survey. Finally, useful lessons were learnt about sampling Jews in Leeds, and some of these will be applied in London. Nevertheless, the sampling issue in London is far more complex than in Leeds, requiring considerable work and innovation to construct a representative sample.

Bring me your huddled masses
By Barry A Kosmin

From the narrow perspective of Orthodoxy, the results will probably be taken to portray a small, declining, ageing minority population. Only 2.8 million American adults assert that their religion is Judaism—a decline of 12 percent since the last national survey I directed in 1990.

There are those who may console themselves with the notion that these 'religious Jews'—80 percent of whom, incidentally, identify with the Reform and Conservative movements—are a saving remnant. On average, they are more observant and better educated today in Jewish terms than the larger numbers of what we called 'Jews-by-religion' a generation ago. So the rabbis can take comfort in having a 'leaner and meaner' American Jewry.

The problem is, at only 1.3 percent of the American population, they represent but an insignificant speck on the national radar, with little societal influence and a dwindling market appeal in a country that loves to identify with winning teams.

In addition, this 'saving remnant' does not include the full range of American Jewry. Historically Jews have always been more than just adherents of a religion. In every era we have been a people with ethnic and cultural ties. What then about the secular, who may stay away from synagogues, but at the same time are not going to churches, or embracing Scientology, Buddhism or directing their religious aspirations along specifically non-Jewish paths? If I add in this group I get another million adults. Still, there is a catch. Many of them, like even some of the Reform 'religious Jews' do not have Jewish mothers. In other words, not all of these 3.8 million adults are halachic Jews.

So let's count again, this time on a somewhat different basis. Let's be democratic. No explanations, no questions of pedigree, no further qualifications necessary. We'll just take people at their word when they describe themselves in Jewish terms. When we do that, again asking 50,000 Americans to speak on behalf of the 205 million adults that they represent, a different picture emerges.

To the question, 'What is your religion?' I get 2.8 million who answer 'Judaism'— including some treif, but nominal believers. But this time I also ask these Americans, 'Do you have a Jewish parent?' I'm not fussy about which one. With that, another 2.2 _million adults with one or two Jewish parents sign up. I know the authorities will get exercised over this. But from a sociologist's perspective it is necessary to let the rabbinate deal with the fact that, in their eyes, David Cohen is a gentile, while Mary McCarthy is a halachic Jew.

There's more. To the question, 'Who's had a Jewish upbringing?', some 184,000 now step forward. Again, I am not interested in family lineage. How and why they say they were 'raised Jewish' is their own business. Finally, I ask, 'Does anybody else consider themselves Jewish (whatever that means)?' Now another 203,000 people appear.

Now I'm up to some 5.4 million American adults. But so far, I've only spoken to people who live in private homes. I also happen to know there are around 110,000 more Jews of some kind out there—in nursing homes, prisons, army camps and other institutions. So let's round it off to 5.5 million.

At this juncture I've now counted nearly twice as many people as those that answered that their 'religion' was Judaism. This new, larger number is therefore the official political Jewish constituency for the US: that's 5.5 million Americans who may consider that they have some tie to the Jewish people and the Jewish state. They also have a vote—something that can be quite helpful to the Jewish cause—especially if they consider themselves and their loved ones to be potential targets of antisemitism and anti-Zionist terror.

This revised figure is also important when viewed against the American sociological matrix. For one of the unintended outcomes of the broad-based Holocaust education initiatives carried out in US high schools over the last 20 years has been to convince many Americans of Jewish descent (even those with a tangential Jewish connection) that it is not only practicing Jews that the antisemites target. It is anyone with 'Jewish' biological or cultural ties. They have learned well what Josef Goebbels once chillingly quipped, that it was he—not the rabbis or the Jewish leadership—who decided who was a Jew.

Undoubtedly the aggregated population set out in Table 1 is a larger and looser population than many interest groups and organizations would want to recognize as Jewish. Yet this is exactly the broad-minded and humane definition of the Jewish population that has been used to target potential olim by the Jewish Agency and Lishkat ha-kesher (Liaison Bureau on Soviet Jewry of the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel) in the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. Why should American Jews living in comfort not be counted in the same way as endangered Jews?

The point is this: under the Law of Return as amended in 1970, my 5.5 million—including their spouses and children—should be welcomed to share their destiny with the Jewish people and also be allowed to go on aliyah. Yet it is equally critical to remember that these Jews do not dwell alone.

Those 5.5 million Americans of Jewish background or current Jewish identity happen to live in no less than 3.76 million households (up from 3.2 million in 1990). Once I include the children, spouses and other close kin in the total, I get a total population that comes to 9.85 million Americans. In other words, the potential Law of Return American Jewish population. Think about it. If the mass Soviet aliyah frightened Yassir Arafat, then the latest American Jewish demographic figures should give him pause as well.

This 10 million-plus target population—with all its neighbours, friends, and extended family members— now becomes the 'soft' _market for hasbara (information) among the American population.

This inclusive approach to counting Jews can be justified on political, social, psychological, economic and demographic grounds. In a free and open society the boundaries of Jewishness are obviously more permeable than in the dark days of the past. The upside is that we can be members of a big and popular club with lots of resources and political clout.

I am aware that recruiting a mass membership requires putting people into different categories of affiliation. As in every organization, some members are more committed and enthusiastic than others. That is true of every club or group of people. Moreover, in a free society some may belong to still other clubs. From time to time their loyalties may become divided. Yet it would be foolish to exclude them.

It stands to reason that you cannot expect this 10 million population to fit into a small state like Israel. Very few American Jews will contemplate aliyah for the foreseeable future. But they can still visit. In addition, in the same way that the Birthright Israel programme has convinced even the sceptics, many 'peripheral Jews' actually will visit if approached in the right way.

Getting the message out to this wider population that they have a stake in the Jewish future and the Jewish homeland could pay _dividends—especially at this time. Their sense of Jewish identity and belonging will intensify. What we do not need are any more messages emanating from Israel denigrating them, their marital choices, or disparaging their Jewish observance. This is a time to transmit signals of acceptance, not rejection.

The AJIS survey results provide a challenge to Jewish leaders in Israel and America. They require an imaginative response based on a realistic, 21st century approach. A new historical epoch and social reality require a global marketing strategy geared to the sophisticated American marketplace. Jewish identity must be seen in consumerist terms.

American Jews today need to be regarded as a loosely linked affinity group. Yet it is a group with a clear brand, a widely recognized logo and a known address. The task of our leaders is to learn how to use these assets constructively—and creatively—in order to transform latent feelings and ties into active intent and purposeful involvement—just as was done in the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia.

In other words, we need to return to basics. Israeli and American Jewish organizations must move away from their habitual defensive postures into a proactive 'selling mode'. Only in this way will we be able to successfully mobilize this new and expanded American Jewish population.

Professor Barry Kosmin is Executive Director of JPR. He was Co-Principal Investigator of the City University of New York's American Jewish Identification Survey 2001, and also directed the Council of Jewish Federation's 1990 National Jewish Population Survey.

This article first appeared in the English and Hebrew editions of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz in November 2001.

Postscript: The Jewish population conundrum presented here obviously relates more to the former Soviet Union than to the UK. However, there are echoes of this reconfiguration of the boundaries of the Jewish population and the significance of Jewish identity in A Community of Communities, the report of the JPR Commission on Representation of the Interests of the British Jewish Community (March 2000). This suggested that for the purposes and benefits of representation, 'the Jewish community needs to see itself……as an ethnic group', rather than solely as a religious minority.

A presentation by Jon Garland, Research Fellow at the Scarman Centre, University of Leicester and co- author of the book Racism and Anti-Racism in Football, focused on the press coverage of England games in the 90s. He highlighted the use of jingoism, linked to nostalgia for the Second World War, with the 1966 World Cup and the Falklands War operating as recurring themes.

Les Back, Reader in Sociology at Goldsmiths' College, University of London and co-author of The Changing Face of Football, said he had gathered testimony about 'all kinds of racism going on inside football, from training grounds to boardrooms. There is a racism of whispers, mutters and asides'. For Back, watching football was a form of 'theatre of identity'. Sport had become an entry ticket to a type of culture, characterized by the repetition every Saturday of a ritual representing the power of continuity and tradition. However, there was also an implicit 'cultural passport'; black and other minority fans may feel uncomfortable in a stadium since the cultural passport does not include them.

Les Back distinguished between the 'ludic' and the 'literal'—whereby racism in football is often dismissed as 'just playing', or, on the other hand, defined as purposefully hateful. Between these two extremes, he said, there was an ambivalent space. Abuse occurring within the football ground must be understood within its own social context.

Back cited Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, with its reputation as a 'Jewish' club. He singled out the reappropriation of the term of abuse Yid and the hissing 'gas chamber sounds' used against Spurs fans at away matches. He emphasized that this form of abuse was very complex and specific to the football ground.

Paul Iganski pointed out that sportswear companies profit from and perpetuate a form of tribal identity. Barry Kosmin observed _similarities between the fascist garb of the 1930s and football shirts worn by fans today. Both conferred a sense of belonging. Asserting the power of language and the impact of stereotyping, he urged the media to take a more constructive role and to avoid playing into the hands of the 'yob culture'.

JPR Chairman Peter Levy OBE cited the increasing importance of black players in English football. In response, Les Back described them as seeming to play 'with their shirts over their heads', making them invisible as blacks, if not to fans looking for _opportunities for race-baiting.

Kenneth Chapman, Safety Officer of Millwall Football Club, quoted recent research which showed that 12% of Millwall fans were single mothers who took their sons to matches.

JPR's Development Officer, Judith Russell, expressed the hope that the growing 'feminization' of football as a spectator sport would have a civilising effect over time.

Jon Garland speculated whether an emerging pan-European culture might eventually help transform British football culture, since many clubs consist of a majority of European players. He regretted that anti-racism initiatives had largely ground to a halt in football.

Les Back concluded that this was an urgent conversation; practical solutions had been too narrow in the past. Things were changing, but slowly. He recalled the most shocking thing he had heard while researching in this field - a former England manager told him that a member of the Football Association had complained that there were 'too many niggers in English football…'

Performing Arts Forum

Theatre directors, producers, playwrights and actors met for a brainstorming seminar at JPR to discuss the role of the performing arts in contemporary Jewish culture. 'We are looking for fresh ideas that will feed into the programme of the European Association for Jewish Culture*' said the convener, Lena Stanley-Clamp. 'Our objective is to create a network of people working for the stage and to facilitate collaborations on new projects'. 

Under the chairmanship of the playwright Ronald Harwood CBE, the discussion ranged far and wide: how can the performing arts project the diversity of contemporary Jewish experience? Does the focus on the Holocaust in the theatre reinforce the image of Jews as victims? What are the most important challenges that 'Jewish theatre' should engage with? What priorities should be considered when awarding grants for new works for the stage?

'Culture is about what we have in common as well as about what separates us' said theatre producer and author, Michael Kustow. The Holocaust had dominated the theatre over the past few decades, he said, but we should now concentrate on contemporary conflict. Nick Kent of the Tricycle Theatre argued that playwrights should engage with issues surrounding Israel and the Palestinians.

Summarizing the discussion, Ronald Harwood identified the central dilemma: how to reflect the Jewish contemporary experience while seeking to express the universal. He pointed out that it was 'very rare to find really good plays; in the theatre sometimes the universal can best be expressed through the parochial.' It was agreed that the European Association's grants should prioritize individual talent and projects that have an educational dimension, are cross-border and cross-disciplinary, involving a variety of themes, publics and venues. But the overriding criteria must be the artistic excellence and the viability of the projects.

* the first round of awards of the European Association for Jewish Culture will be announced at the end of January. Further information is available on www.jewishcultureineurope.org