HISTORY THEN AND NOW
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fate of German Jewry in the 1930s, should the U.S. experience a cata–
strophic economic and political collapse. Nevertheless there are very
significant differences between the two societies, which make this eventu–
ality unlikely. But if things have improved so much, how can one explain
the rather pessimistic prognoses that have been made about the future of
Jewry in the twenty-first century, particularly with reference to the west–
ern diaspora?
By 1900 this was already one of the major themes in the Zionist
movement. Then, as now, it was seen both by Zionists and orthodox Jews
as a deeply destructive force, one that emperiled the future of the Jewish
people. Along with assimilation, which entails a complete social and cul–
tural integration into the larger society, there generally comes a loosening
of family bonds and the atrophy of religion. But today it is much more
than that: the decline of Jewish fertility rates, and above all unprecedented
levels of intermarriage-over fifty percent in the U.S. and similar rates
throughout the western diaspora. Again there were precedents: on the eve
of the Nazi seizure of power, the rate of intermarriage for German Jews
was close to thirty percent, but such high levels were exceptions at that
time. Disaffiliation was not yet the dominant pattern in the main centers of
the Jewish world. This is no longer the case. Therefore, the pessimists
argue that this hemorrhage of the body of the Jewish people is today so
rampant that it may foreshadow the end of Jewry in the twenty-first cen–
tury, at any rate outside of Israel and of the orthodox enclaves-which are
not directly affected by it. But orthodoxy represents no more than about
fifteen percent of the population in most Jewish communities around the
world, incl uding Israel itself.
A character in one of Philip Roth's novels says,
a
propos
of this Jewish
demographic problem, that what Hitler couldn't achieve with Auschwitz,
American Jews are doing to themselves in the bedroom. We might also
mention the impact of alternative lifestyles, which includes gay and lesbian
Jews; the high divorce rate and the alienation of Jewish youth. Even more
disconcerting is the lack of spirituality in the Jewish world, the absence of
inspiring or even talented leadership, and the disappearance of an
autonomous Jewish culture to rival the overwhelming pull of gentile cul–
ture, in which Jews, of course, now playa major part. By contrast,
in
1900,
even as Jews were assimilating in the Wes t they still had a cohesive religious
and secular Jewish culture in Hebrew and Yiddish, reinforced by the
power of ancient tradition. In eastern Europe, Russia, and the New World
there were eight to nine million Jews who spoke Yiddish, so there was a
Jewish folk-language. Today there are no more Jewish languages apart from
Hebrew. That is undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements of Israel.
There are at least four and a half million Jews in Israel who speak Hebrew,
there are Palestinian Arabs who speak Hebrew, and there are also half a
