A few weeks ago, a research study prepared by Nishma Research (http://nishmaresearch.com) was published, whose focus was the Modern Orthodox Jewish community in the United States.
This is a fascinating document, which raises many questions about the population from which many of our schools draw their students, and our schools’ success in preparing a new generation of active, thinking Jews.
As an example, in the section on “Israel Connection and advocacy†(pp. 59-61 in the full report) the researchers report that 87% of older adults (55+) describe that “being personally active in support of Israel†is “very important†to them, only 43%of younger people (18-34) do so.
Towards the end of the summary document (p. 14), the researchers list “Modern Orthodox Successes and Opportunities,†several of which relate directly to Jewish education (I would argue that all of them relate to Jewish education, broadly defined).
Among the “successes†-
• There is a strong focus on Jewish education, both for children – including very high Jewish day school enrollment, a key driver of Jewish continuity – and for adults.
• There is much interest in and study of Jewish topics, and desires to explore an array of topics relating to Torah study as well as Judaism in the modern world.
• There is great value seen in education (61% achieve post-graduate or professional degrees, with commensurately high family incomes) and in participating in society.
Among the “opportunities†-
• There are high levels of observance of tefillah – Jewish prayer – but many do not find it to be very meaningful. There is room for creativity in making tefillah more meaningful for more people.
• Jewish study is highly valued, and respondents provided a very wide range of suggestions for additional topics of interest.
• There is a strong base of education on topics relating to both bein adam l’makom (relationships with Hashem) and bein adam l’chaveiro (relationships with other people). Given the communal aspects that people cite as problems, there are opportunities to reinforce teachings relating to the latter.
The full report can be accessed here - [
nishmaresearch.com]
The summary report can be accessed here - [
nishmaresearch.com]
There is much in this report that will be of interest to Jewish educators, and I welcome your comments about it contents.
Shalom
shalom@lookstein.org
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2017 02:19PM by mlb.
