endangered species?

I'm not talking about wildlife - I'm talking about us. No matter how you slice it, the latest American Jewish Identification Survey (AJIS) is sad. Take a look at this summary from the Washington Examiner. Some key points:

-- More than 1 in 3 of Jews describe themselves as thoroughly secular, as opposed to just 6% of the general population.

--The number of Jews describing themselves as not religious has risen from 20% to 35% in the past 20 years.

--The number of Jews affiliated in any way with Judaism as a religion went down from 4.3million 20 years ago to 3.3 million today.

I don't think you need to be a genius to see the cause-effect relationship the researchers found between intermarriage and lack of affiliation. Reform and Conservative movements, here is the fruit of your labor.

This reaction by "Rabbi" Michael Lerner from Tikkun Magazine is (surprisingly) exactly on target:

"What undercuts peoples' commitment to Judaism is the spiritual emptiness that has characterized much of the organized Jewish community," Mr. Lerner said. "The vacuity, the spiritual deadliness people experience growing up in many of America's synagogues leads them to a lack of interest in Judaism and to explore other spiritual traditions.

"People tell me, 'Yeah, I grew up in that system and the only values I learned were safety for the Jewish people, blind loyalty to the state of Israel and making it in America,' " the rabbi added. "The people who get most honored in the Jewish world are the Bernie Madoffs."

Could not have put it better myself.