Response ·
American Jews and the Rise of Anti-Semitism: What We’ve Learned and What Comes Next
By Jack Wertheimer, Jonathan Silver, David L. BernsteinA conversation about how to fight anti-Semitism in America.
Jack Wertheimer
Jack Wertheimer is emeritus professor of Modern Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary. His newest book, Jewish Giving: Philanthropy and the Shaping of American Jewish Life, has just been published by NYU Press.
Latest Content
Monthly Essay ·
American Jewry’s Anti-Semitism Reckoning
By Jack WertheimerThe post-October 7 explosion of hostility challenges decades of Jewish communal strategy.
Monthly Essay ·
What American Jews Gave After October 7: An Accounting
By Jack WertheimerIn response to crises in Israel and at home, American Jews mobilized to raise vast sums. But why was the community so unprepared? And did it rise to the occasion?
Observation ·
The Miracle of Jewish Pandemic Giving
By Jack WertheimerLong criticized in certain quarters for being, in essence, too Jewish, Jewish donors have risen admirably to the coronavirus occasion, proving their value once again.
Response ·
What the Coronavirus Has Shown—and Concealed—about the Long-Term Health of America’s Many Synagogues
By Jack WertheimerNo one should confuse the short-term impact of the pandemic with the decades-long erosion of Jewish religious participation.
Monthly Essay ·
How Will Synagogues Survive?
By Jack WertheimerIt's been a year since most American synagogues closed their doors. Will the practices they adopted to survive undermine their prospects when the pandemic ends?
Observation ·
American Judaism’s Old Dinosaurs Roar Again
By Jack WertheimerAfter being written off for years as slow and outmoded, Jewish federations and other large institutions are proving themselves indispensable in their response to COVID-19.
Response ·
American Jews: Doomed to a Thin Culture with No Future?
By Jack WertheimerTo avoid that fate, rabbis and synagogues might begin by acknowledging where and how Judaism differs, and proceed from there.
Monthly Essay ·
The New High Holy Days
By Jack WertheimerWhat happens when, once a year, the urge to accommodate every consumer fashion meets massive Jewish cultural illiteracy?
Response ·
Israel: The Canvas on Which American Jews Project Their Hopes and Fears
By Jack WertheimerFrom the founding years to the recent years of strength, American Jews have always seen in Israel what they wanted to, not what was necessarily there.
Observation ·
American Jewry’s Great Untapped Resource: Grandparents
By Jack WertheimerThey've got time, money, and love to spare, and there are more of them than ever. Why isn't the Jewish community enlisting their help?
Response ·
No Apology for Alarm
By Jack Wertheimer, Steven M. CohenAre there any data capable of persuading our critics that something is seriously amiss with American Jewry?
Monthly Essay ·
The Pew Survey Reanalyzed: More Bad News, but a Glimmer of Hope
By Jack Wertheimer, Steven M. CohenLast year’s survey of American Jews brought dire news—rising intermarriage, falling birthrates, dwindling congregations. Our reanalysis confirms the message, and complicates it.
Response ·
The Unresolved Dilemmas of Modern Orthodoxy
By Jack WertheimerEveryone agrees that the movement needs to rethink and revamp. Very few agree on how.
Monthly Essay ·
Can Modern Orthodoxy Survive?
By Jack WertheimerThe culture wars have come to the Modern Orthodox movement. Is a schism on the horizon?
Response ·
Great Expectations—A Reply to My Respondents
By Jack WertheimerEncouraging more Jews to marry Jews and more intermarried families to convert to Judaism.
Monthly Essay ·
Intermarriage: Can Anything Be Done?
By Jack WertheimerThe battle is over; or so we’re told. A half-century after the rate of intermarriage in the US began to skyrocket, the Jewish community appears to have resigned itself to the inevitable. But to declar...
