"What all this about a Goy crisis? I don't get it. Jewish people don't need goys -- they're going fine all by themselves, aren't they? What? Oh! That's different.
Nevermind."
Posted on 05/12/2008 8:44:35 AM PDT by Alouette
(IsraelNN.com) A new study carried out at Brandeis University finds that as the liberal Jewish community empowers its women, its men appear to be losing interest in their Jewishness.
According to a report in JTA, which publishes parts of the study, "outside the Orthodox world, men are becoming less and less engaged in every aspect of Jewish life, from the home to the synagogue to communal organizations. Numerous studies show that fewer boys than girls go to non-Orthodox youth groups, religious schools or summer camps, fewer go into the rabbinate and cantorate, and fewer serve on synagogue or federation committees.
This comes as women and girls in the liberal movements are benefiting from a host of programs and initiatives aimed at increasing their Jewish involvement, from gender-neutral prayer books to the popular Jewish identity-building program for teenage girls, 'Rosh Hodesh: It’s a Girl Thing.'"
Sociologist Sylvia Barack Fishman authored the study, which is called “The Growing Gender Imbalance in American Jewish Life” and will be available online June 1 at www.brandeis.edu/hbi.
Tough news for feminists Using hundreds of interviews she conducted for the American Jewish Committee and data from the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Study, Fishman and her student co-author Daniel Parmer describe an American Jewish life "increasingly populated by women." Female dominance is especially apparent within the Reform movement, where the numbers of boys in post bar-mitzvah religious schools, youth groups and summer camps are declining, more than half of the recently ordained rabbis are women, and all this year’s entering cantorial students are female.
While noting that feminist scholars have a hard time accepting the idea of a “boy crisis” in liberal Judaism, Fishman is not apologetic: “As soon as you say that women dominate certain aspects of Jewish life, it sounds as if you’re saying, 'Let’s go back to the way things were.' That’s not the point of my research, but we need to look at what’s happening and be honest about it,” she told JTA.
Her report also suggests that as Jewish men outside the Orthodox fold become increasingly estranged from religious and communal life, they are more likely to marry non-Jewish women. She concludes that "the boy crisis in liberal Judaism is leading to a continuity crisis that will not be resolved until liberal Judaism finds a way to engage its boys and men."
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
I’m not Jewish and I’m speaking only from my experience, but it seems that when women are “allowed” to become more active in things where they had previously not been active, the ones who lead the charge are the ones with an axe to grind.
For example, I’m Catholic and while I am not completely opposed to female clergy, and I am opposed to most of the females who currently want to be priests.
"What all this about a Goy crisis? I don't get it. Jewish people don't need goys -- they're going fine all by themselves, aren't they? What? Oh! That's different.
Nevermind."
LOL!
I’m not Jewish either, but I think you’re right. There’s a good analogy with both Protestant and Catholic experience. It’s mostly the feminists who have pushed for women clergy and priests. This is not to say that some of them may not be sincere in their dedication to their churches and vocations, but I’m afraid that all too many go into these “professions” because they want woman power. Their chief motivation is to prove themselves equal to or better than men.
As for Catholics, I think the decision to allow altar girls was a poor one. It was allowable, but unwise. First, because it rewarded dissidents, who used altar girls before the Church gave permission; second, because it tends to be a feminist thing for the parents, if not for the girls themselves; and third, because one of the chief ways in which young men have always found their vocations as priests is serving at the altar as young boys. Now the girls are crowding them out and, superficially at least, changing the meaning of what it means to serve at the altar during Mass.
In traditional Judaism, young men have always gathered together under a teacher to study the scriptures and learn their religion. Women were equally religious, but took a separate path. (No one who knows any Jewish women of the old school would imagine that it was an inferior path.) Mixing the two together is not generally a good idea. Not that women should not study scripture and its interpretation, too. But not in a way that crowds out the young men and makes them feel inferior or awkward. And not in a way that repudiates thousands of years of tradition.
If Jewish liberals publish a study admitting that Jewish liberalism is in deep doodoo, it means they are desperate and can no longer deny what has been obvious for a long time.
Or until you get rid of LIBERALISM!
I don't think this is peculiar to Judaism, Christianity has the same problem.
At its core, the ONLY deity that liberalism acknowledges is the human mind and their ONLY moral code is secular humanism mixed with moral relativism. This is completely incompatible with traditional Judeo-Christian teaching and beliefs.
That picture reminds me of a character on Seinfeld (Pre bald)
This process is known as emasculation.
That may be true to some extent, but a MAN would never stand still for the knife, literally or figuratively, to be utilized.
Most of the feminists are down for the struggle, but have little idea of what to do when the get what they have striven for. They do not cope with the unintended consequences. They want every institution to be as it was when the men were dominate; they just want pants. Well, it doesn’t work that way. Men are a needed positive force in society, notwithstanding the feminists’ protestations and the overwhelming majority of ads on TV.
Many men have just taken their ball(s) and gone elsewhere to play.
Feminism has always been a leftist tool to undermine religion by attacking the traditional family.
If “Judaism” means Torah (and that’s what it means if it means anything), then “liberal Judaism” is a contradiction in terms.
No cause and effect here. Move along.
Exactly! This happens across the board when groups (women, homosexuals, etc.) start militating for entree to things previously closed to them---they do tend to be the militants and this begins to make others lose interest.
The more the endeavor was associated with masculinity, the more men lose interest when someone who may only be making a political statement engages in the endeavor. Such as becoming a fighter pilot. It devalues the endeavor socially (and, here, spiritually) for men if it becomes too much about PC identity politics.
It would make an interesting research project to document the effect of feminization on various social endeavors-—college, you mention. I have seen it in other ways.
Today I think law schools are more than 50% female. That has changed the type of guy who is interested in becoming a lawyer.
Pediatricians more and more are women. Fewer men are attracted to the specialty.
The list goes on.
Exactly. I have said this same thing many times about the military.
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