I don’t either, but there’s enough of a cult following to give rise to the “Self-hating Jew” description
Must be a death wish Nothing else makes sense
No, actually, it’s always been this way with the Jews. Throughout their history, or at least the past 2,000 years since they were evicted from their homeland, and forced to live as foreigners all over the globe. There have always been a sizeable percentage of Jews who assimilated and made a conscious decision to distance themselves from their Jewish roots.
When antisemitism was prevalent in Europe, a lot Jews didn’t want to deal with the stigma of being Jewish. The less religious, Reformed Jews, have always been numerous in major metropolitan areas. And it is from this Reformed Jewish population, that successive generations are more likely to completely lose any Jewish identity.
On the other hand, over the last several hundred years, the religious Jews are smaller in number, but have a lot of children. It is from this more religious population that most of the Jewish scholars, rabbis, and cantors emerge from. Some of them end up working in less religious synagogues and Jewish schools.
But there’s always been a very vital, energized religious population to supplement the larger population of less committed Jews. It’s as constant as the change of seasons.