An article in the New York Jewish Week claims that in recent years, boys over the age of barmitzvah have been dropping out in noticeable numbers from Jewish activities.
As a result, many Jewish programs for teens and young adults are disproportionately filled with girls...
“Boys consider bar mitzvah their graduation from Jewish life, more than girls do,” says Deborah Meyer, executive director of Moving Traditions, which recently started a three-year research project to identify what boys need.
“Not only do fewer boys participate, but boys have more complaints about Jewish programming,” Meyer says. “As a community we’re clearly not meeting boys where they are.”
The imbalance continues, apparently, through the teenage years (camps, youth groups etc) to college (participation in programmes like birthright) and even in rabbinical school, particularly in the Reform movement, but also increasingly in the Conservative.
It would be interesting to see some proper research on this topic, as well as some figures for the UK -- perhaps community professionals could weigh in and tell us whether a similar trend is observable here. In addition, I would love to know whether the same process seems to be happening in the modern Orthodox world (which is virtually unmentioned in this article). From what I see, it's not, which might suggest that the trend has as much to do with family and community expectations as with the quality of programming or anything else; or perhaps because these boys are more likely to attend Jewish schools?
When it comes to rabbinical school, the article suggests that men are being put off by the increasing trend towards touchy-feely spirituality, which seems too 'feminine.' I would suggest, however, that the rabbinate no longer seems like a good career path; rabbis are often under-paid, over-worked and synagogues are often highly politicised (and thus, for the rabbi, a tense and unstable workplace). While many women are still excited by the opportunity to enter a profession which was, until relatively recently, closed to them -- and, in any case, often end up in jobs with poorer renumeration and conditions -- the rabbinite is no longer a job for a good Jewish boy, as it were...
This post was written by Miriam Shaviv
The same thing is occuring in the Orthodox world. Perhaps not to the same extent, but I have seen some estimates that around 45% of children raised Orthodox in day schools fall off the derech as adults.
And by the way, the same article could have been written about liberal Protestant denominations and many Catholic Parishes.
Mordechai Kaplan was right. We need to reach out to these kids with different apporoaches--music, sports, havurahs set up away from adults and conventional Temples--if we are going to keep them under the Jewish tent.
Posted by: Jethro | October 23, 2006 at 09:55 PM
the rabbinate hasn't been much of a job for a Jewish boy for a while... but while it didn't pay much ever, it did offer job security, a house in a nice Jewish neighbourhood, and time for Torah study and mitzvos of the rabbis choosing. Now the rabbi is expected to build the congregation, save the world, and study with the increasing numbers of people who want to know more than they learned as children. the once a week Talmud class no longer fits the bill (Thank G-d but tons more work for the underpaid rov).
The officers are more aggerssive and know more, but are they providing more for their more professional rabbis?
Posted by: Evan | October 23, 2006 at 10:16 PM