Jewish Life in America and Great Britain

Rabbi Melanie Aron

August 15, 2003

We tend to think of the United States and Great Britain as very similar because we share the same language (or almost the same language), because of our country's origins as colonies of the British, and because we have been and continue to be allies, sharing common values.

For the Jewish community , there are some very significant differences. First in terms of our history, Jewish life in the United States started as a blank slate. Jews not always welcome, and not always treated as equals, but there was no governmental anti-semitism.

The history of the British Jewish community is very different. Throughout the Middle Ages there was hostility, and anti-Jewish legislation culminating in expulsion of the Jews in 1290. Jews returned to Britain in the 17th century, under Charles I but unofficially. Though Cromwell heard the appeal of a famous Dutch Jew, Menasseh ben Israel, the Jewish presence in Great Briain remained unofficial for centuries.

It was not until 1846 that the Religious Disabilities Act extended to Jews the rights that Protestant dissenters had since the 1688 Toleration Act. It took 150 years of struggle to achieve various rights and privileges we take for granted here in the United States. It was not until 1983. for example, that the rights of Shabbat observing Jews, concerning employment, were guaranteed

A second major difference is in demography In the United States Jews constitute about 3% of the population, while in Great Britain Jews are less than one half of a percent (down from 1% at the peak in the late 1940's). Within the communites, there are also significant differences. In the United States 80% of Affiliated Jews are either Reform or Conservative and the Reform movement is the largest movement. In Great Britain, 70% identify themselves as Orthodox ( 60% what in the US would be called modern Orthodox while 10% identify as Haredi, extreme Orthodox), and only 30% identify themselves as Liberal- that is Conservative, Reform or Progressive. In addition there is in Great Britain, a chief rabbi, a governmental position, always chosen from the moderate Orthodox community. A final demographic difference is the higher percentage of British Jews who were directly effected by the Holocaust, being either survivors or children of survivors. World War II in general had a greater impact on Great Britain than on American Society.

Related to demography are the differences infrastructure. The small size of the Jewish community in Great Britain and the small size of the liberal religious groupings, means that there are not the number of organizations and institutions we are accustomed to in the United States. In London I saw the only Reform rabbinical school which was also the only liberal day school and the offices of the movement. There are 12 Masorti- Conservative congregations in all of Great Britain, there are 41 Reform Congregations, which in Britain is a sort of Left Wing Conservative-Right Wing Reform and only 33 Progressive congregations- which is Reform. There are over 900 congregations affiliated with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, congregations in the United States and Canada.

Finally British Jewry faces many of the same challenges as we do in the United States but with more limited resources, and perhaps 10 years behind. The community is 70% affiliated, which would be high for the United States, a rate her found only in smaller and older cities, and is only beginning to deal with the sense of disenfranchisement of women, younger Jews, and the unaffiliated. British Jews and American Jews have similar rates of intermarriage and similar concerns about the transmission of Judaism and Jewish valued to the next generation. They are very much a smaller, aging community in a new multicultural reality.

Let me conclude with some words on Community from the Report of the Commission on Representation of the Interests of the British Jewish Community 2000

By now all Jewish communities are unbounded: that is to say, no clear external limits divide Jews from non-Jews. Rather, all are organized as a series of concentric circles around a central core of Judaism/Jewishness that draws Jews towards it in varying degrees, circles which fade out at the peripheries into a grey area populated by people whose Jewish self-definition and Jewish status are unclear, certainly from a halachic standpoint but also from a sociological one. Thus every community today is fully voluntary and its organization reflects its voluntary character.... many Jews who participate in the public square derive their compass in public positions and activities from the teachings of Judaism as they understand them, which generally means filtered through their particular Jewish experience. However, ...the Jewish community is more than simply a religion in the conventional Christian manner but also has ethnic and communal dimensions that are both part of and stand somewhat separate from Jewish religion, .....

It is increasingly true that Jews, if they feel Jewishly committed at all, feel that they are so by choice rather than simply by birth. Not that organic ties do not underlie the fact of their choice, but birth alone is no longer sufficient to keep Jews within the fold in an environment as highly individualistic and pluralistic as the contemporary world. None are more conscious of this than Jews themselves.