The Ever-Renewing People

Jack Wertheimer and Steven M. Cohen’s “The Pew Survey Reanalyzed,” an examination of data omitted from the Pew Research Center’s 2013 “Portrait of Jewish Americans,” is a welcome addition to the body of commentary on what that study says—and does not say—about American Jewish life today. Their essay, however, even as it raises a number of valid points of interest and concern, is puzzling.

To us, Wertheimer and Cohen seem stuck—too heavily reliant on anachronistic frameworks of analysis and on sources of scholarship that are neither apt nor helpful. Conspicuous among the latter is the late Milton Himmelfarb’s quip chiding Jewish grandparents of children born to interfaith couples that these new family members should be understood as “Christian.” In addition, the two authors posit assumptions and postulate fables that are likely exaggerated or erroneous.

Perhaps most striking in Wertheimer and Cohen’s essay is the absence of relevant statistics, especially in areas where they themselves see hope for potential growth in rates of Jewish engagement. Thus, they recommend communal and philanthropic investment in Jewish overnight camping, but fail to mention that over the last eight years, the number of young Jews enjoying the benefits of residential Jewish camps has already increased from 48,000 to 75,000—many of them, not incidentally, those whom the authors would label “Christian” grandchildren. The Foundation for Jewish Camp anticipates further growth, to as many as 93,000 campers, in the next six to seven years.