The South African Jewish community continues to show
exceptionally high levels of commitment to Jewish religious
practice and identity, and correspondingly low levels of
intermarriage and assimilation, according to a comprehensive
new attitudinal survey. Jewish attitudes towards the country
have shown a dramatic shift towards greater acceptance and
optimism in the future since the last survey was conducted in
1998.
Like its 1998 predecessor the survey, which was conducted
under the auspices of the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies
and Research at the University of Cape Town and funded by
Kaplan-Kushlick Foundation, was based on a sample of a
thousand respondents, proportionately divided between
Johannesburg (650), Cape Town (250), Durban and Pretoria (50
each). Highlights of some of the findings were presented to
the Jewish communal leadership at the Chief Rabbi Harris
Communal Centre at the Great Park Synagogue on Sunday, with
Chief Rabbi Dr. Warren Goldstein being one of the
participants.
Mendel Kaplan, chairman of the Kaplan-Kushlick Foundation and
one of the leading benefactors of the Jewish community, said
that he had decided to commission another survey after
President Thabo Mbeki, speaking at the SAJBD national
conference in 2003, had expressed concern over the fact that
in terms of the previous survey, so many Jews were expressing
negative feelings about South Africa and intended to
emigrate.
However, this time round, only 7 percent of respondents said
that they were "very likely" or "fairly likely" to leave
South Africa, compared with more than one in four seven years
previously. Overall, every question relating to attitudes
towards the South African economy, political system, future
prospects and whether or not Jews were better off than they
had been in the apartheid era revealed significant shifts
towards more favorable attitudes than had been the case in
1998.
The survey findings not only bore out the remarkably low
intermarriage statistics of the 1998 survey, but even showed
that these had declined still further. 95 percent of
respondents were married to, or in a long-term relationship
with another Jew, compared with 93 percent in 1998. Contrary
to what might have been anticipated, intermarriage figures
did not increase amongst the under-45 age group, with the 45-
54 age group instead showing slightly higher rates in this
regard. Nearly 80 percent of respondents believed that it was
"very important" (the great majority) or at least "important"
to marry within the faith, whereas comparable surveys in the
United States show that three-quarters of American Jews no
longer regard intermarriage as a problem.
Intermarriage rates were relatively higher amongst
Progressive and secular Jews, although even here the
percentage — 20 percent — is much lower than
those of secular and Progressive Jews in other countries. Of
the four cities covered, Johannesburg (98 percent) had the
highest in- married rate, followed by Pretoria (95 percent),
Cape Town (89 percent) and Durban (85 percent).
Johannesburg and Pretoria had the highest levels of
religiosity, both in terms of belief and actual practice.
Over a third believed that the Torah was the actual word of G-
d while a slightly higher percentage regarded it as the
inspired word of G-d although not everything should be taken
literally word for word. Less than a quarter regarded it as
an "ancient book of history and moral precepts recorded by
man." Only 13 percent of respondents believed that the
universe had come about by chance while nearly 80 percent
agreed, often strongly, with the statement that the Jewish
people had a special relationship with G-d.
The overall percentage of respondents classifying themselves
as Orthodox rose to 80 percent, with the Progressive
proportion remaining the same at 7 percent and the balance
classifying themselves as secular or "just Jewish." However,
only 14 percent defined themselves as being "Strictly
Orthodox," with the proportions of those in this category
being higher in Johannesburg and Pretoria and lowest (5
percent) in Cape Town. 4 percent of respondents were converts
to Judaism, with the Progressive share in this regard (45
percent) being relatively higher to their percentage of the
overall community.
Commenting on the ongoing shift towards greater religiosity
amongst Jews, Rabbi Goldstein said that the statistics
pointed to a community that was becoming more and more Jewish
over time and could look forward to the future with
confidence.
