Questions Findings

by Rabbi Charles Lebow

The new study of the effects of the Birthright Israel trip states that “Non-Orthodox Taglit participants were 57 percent more likely to have a Jewish spouse than non-participants” (“Birthright Study Offers Mixed Bag Of Results,” Oct. 30).

But that is leaving out some important information. The study also notes that non-participants are more likely to be married (by my calculations, 57 percent more) than Birthright participants. Why should there be such a significant difference? The study offers a possible explanation that since participants are more likely to want to marry a Jewish person, they “spend a longer time searching for a suitable partner.” The assumption being that the Birthright participants will “catch up” to the non-participants in terms of marriage and maintain the differences in terms of intermarriage.

But is that a fair assumption to make? The 2001 National Jewish Population Study shows that there is a very significant drop in the importance of marrying a Jew as the singles moves into their 30s.

The Birthright study also notes that there are no significant differences on dating patterns (Jewish versus non-Jewish) among the participants and the control group. It would seem then more likely that over time the Birthright participants will catch up with the non-participants as far as their intermarriage rate goes as well.

The study also shows that out of those who married Jews, 21 percent of spouses of Birthright participants were converts to Judaism, as opposed to 5 percent of the Jewish spouses of non-participants surveyed.
So what does this all mean? If we can believe the figures that are presented to us, it shows that Birthright was effective in getting some Jews not to marry non-Jews, but was not effective in getting them to marry Jews. Instead they have either put off marriage or convinced their non-Jewish partner to convert.
Not bad for a mere $650 million.

E-mail: Gary@jewishweek.org

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