How the Recession Is Affecting the Jewish Religion

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It sounds like a Catskills-era joke with a Jewish lawyer in the punchline, but among Jewish leaders it’s deadly serious. Why does it cost so much to be Jewish? At a time when American families are tightening household budgets, does it really make sense to continue to charge thousands of dollars to participate in Jewish life? “Sheer institutional survival now preoccupies the heads of Jewish institutions,” wrote Jack Wertheimer in Commentary in March.

American Jews are always worrying about the fate of American Jewry, of course. Intermarriage rates, hovering around 50 percent, are perennially cited as the prime factor in Jews’ inevitable extinction; and in The New York Review of Books last month, the journalist Peter Beinart argued that unless “establishment Jewry” made room for Jewish dissent about Israel, it would wake up to find “a mass of secular Jews who range from apathetic to appalled.” But on the day-to-day level, the high cost of the basics—synagogue membership, in particular—is troubling, both outdated as a business model and onerous to families having to choose between Hebrew school and math tutoring. A 2005 study put the average yearly synagogue membership at $1,100—but in big cities, fees can be twice or even three times as much (and, anecdotally at least, higher than churches, which often depend on voluntary donations rather than dues). At the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue (italics mine) on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch says dues are “consistent with everyone else’s,” about $3,100 a year. (He, like virtually all rabbis, vows never to turn someone away for an inability to pay.)



It would be a mistake to assume that Jewish success depends on emulating Christians. Throughout the 20th century, as Jews became prosperous, they built massive synagogues and community centers. Many looked like churches, with stained-glass windows and organ pipes; their pews were full of Jews who had, in a very real sense, nowhere else to go. The country clubs wouldn’t have them; their community, religious, and social life revolved around the temple. Today, American Jews have all kinds of choices about where to spend time and money—Jews no longer need a Jewish pool to swim in—and the buildings have become a burden. “The bills are very high,” says Arnold Eisen, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, who paid $4,000 this year in temple dues. “People need sacred spaces, but when you’re looking at budgets, you’re looking at heat and air conditioning.”

Eisen believes that money questions will force a painful transition in American Judaism. He agrees that the “middle group is in play” and so is seeking to reduce costs to families through something like corporate downsizing: making alliances across denominations, sharing spaces, rabbis, and staff. “Jews have been around for a long time,” says Eisen. “We’ll adjust.”


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