Encyclopaedia Judaica - Vol.06 (Dr-Feu) - WiccanGeek's Reading ...

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the day-school movement has taken place. (See also *Education,
Great Britain.)
Higher Jewish and Hebrew *education can be obtained
in yeshivot and colleges with specialized departments in these
fields. A survey published in 1962 showed that in the eight yeshivot
in Britain, there were 392 full-time students (many of
whom were from overseas). Jews’ College had 31 students in
its combined degree and minister’s-diploma course during
the 1959–60 session. Similarly, the numbers associated with
cultural bodies such as the Jewish Historical Society or the
Friends of Yiddish are relatively small. The larger Jewish public
is reached, however, by the Jewish press, which has a strong
influence on the measure of individual identification. The
leading position is taken by the Jewish Chronicle, which has
the widest circulation in the community. A number of smaller
newspapers also cater to some of the provincial towns and
to some sections of the community more actively connected
with Israel and its specific political parties. Two leading academic
journals, The Jewish Journal of Sociology (1959– ) and
The Journal of Jewish Studies (1949– ), are published, and two
social science units, one at the Board of Deputies and the other
at the Institute of Jewish Affairs, are specifically engaged in research
on Jews. There is no regular Hebrew publication in the
form of a journal or a newspaper, and the almost total decline
of Yiddish is reflected in the closing of the last weekly Yiddish
newspaper in 1967. The trend in Britain toward an open society
and the existence of equal citizenship rights has closed the social
distance between the Jewish minority and British society,
and in turn has been eroding Jewish identification. There can
be no doubt that progressive emancipation has been leading
to a greater degree of assimilation. The persistence of prejudice
and some degree of discrimination against Jews has worked,
however, in the opposite direction. During the 1950s and 1960s
Britain was not free of such anti-Jewish prejudices. They have
been promoted by tiny antisemitic groups, who in 1959 and
again in 1965 engaged in desecration and arson against synagogues
and have spasmodically disseminated virulent antisemitic
literature. Less extreme or overt prejudice has also been
evident in the business world; for example, in some insurance
firms and other commercial enterprises. Quotas exist for Jewish
pupils in some elite schools, and Jews have been excluded
from the membership of some recreational clubs. At the same
time forces more favorable to gentile-Jewish relations have
been growing in the postwar period. Special efforts made by
the Council of Christians and Jews, established in 1942 and
functioning through its 20 branches, have succeeded in fostering
better Jewish-gentile relations in the 1960s.
[Ernest Krausz]
Later Developments
DEMOGRAPHY. A conference in March 1977, organized by the
Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Institute of Jewish
Affairs, surveyed Jewish life in modern Britain and reviewed
trends since a previous conference in 1962, basing itself on
the social and demographic data produced by the Board’s
Research Unit, established in 1965. Generally, the conference
found a trend towards polarization in Anglo-Jewry: a growing
minority were intensifying their commitment to Jewish
religion and education, but there was also an increasing general
drift towards intermarriage and assimilation. No official
estimates of the Jewish population had been published since
the estimate of the Research Unit in 1965 of 410,000, but informed
observers now put the number of those identified with
the Anglo-Jewish community at considerably below 400,000.
While between 1960 and 1979 the annual number of burials
(and cremations) under Jewish auspices remained in the range
between 4,600 and 4,900, the number of persons married under
Jewish religious auspices fell from an annual average of
3,664 for 1960–65 to 2,782 for 1975–79 and 2,606 in 1979. Local
community surveys carried out indicated households of sizes
varying from 2.4 to 2.98 according to the age structure and
character of the local Jewish community, and data on children
per marriage in the 1970s reinforced the conclusion that Anglo-Jewry
was not replacing itself by natural increase: nor was
this deficiency being made up by net immigration.
The surveys confirmed the picture of organized Anglo-
Jewry as consisting of increasingly middle class, and increasingly
aging, communities; with a high proportion of home-
and car-ownership, and a wide range of occupations; and with
a tendency well above the national average towards self-employment.
Geographically, there remained pockets of elderly
and often poorer residents in the inner cities but the trends
were towards dispersal from the larger conurbations into the
suburbs and countryside, combined with the decline or extinction
of established smaller provincial communities.
Synagogue affiliation showed 110,000 members of synagogues
in 1977, a decline of 6% since 1970; the Central Orthodox
(e.g., United Synagogue and Federation of Synagogues)
appeared to be losing ground to the Progressives (Reform and
Liberal) with over 20% of the membership and to the small
but growing right-wing Orthodox (3.5%). This apparent trend
towards religious polarization was also found in the marriage
figures for 1979, with the Progressives responsible for 22.5%
(compared with 18.6% in 1960–65) and the right-wing Orthodox
for 8.4% of the total number of synagogue marriages. The
overall decline in synagogue affiliation continued into the 21st
century, dropping to a membership of 88,000 in 362 congregations
in 2001. The United Synagogue and Federation of Synagogues
accounted for half the congregations, with the United
Synagogue accounting for 57 percent of overall membership,
the Progressives next with 25,000 members (28 percent), and
the Ḥaredim with 7,500 (8.5 percent).
The Jewish population continued to decline in the 1980s,
from 336,000 (plus or minus 10%) in 1983 to around 300,000
in 1990, a level which it maintained into the 21st century, making
it the fifth largest Jewish community in the world. The percentage
of Jews who were members of synagogues in the central
Orthodox stream fell from 70.5% in 1983 to 64% in 1990.
The percentage of those affiliated to the right-wing Orthodox
community increased from 4.4% in 1983 to 10% in 1984, fall-
422 ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6