Registration for Reform and Conservative seminars in the United States has experienced a steep decline in recent years, indicating that Jews in the United States continue to distance themselves from Judaism, even when it comes to non-Orthodox sects. For years, non-Orthodox movements , But an analysis of the Jewish news site "Forward" shows that as Jews move away from the religious world, the Reform and Conservative seminaries shrink.
An analysis by the Forward website shows that in the last decade the total number of students studying for a non-Orthodox rabbinate in the United States is on a declining trend, and seminars identified with the mainstream have suffered a steep decline. Attract new students to the rabbinate, as opposed to independent, smaller institutions of other streams, where there is a steady increase.
"People are less interested in binary and 'box' frameworks, even though they are still looking for that kind of connection and spirituality," said Rebecca Weintraub, an assistant rabbi at the Bnei Yeshurun Synagogue in New York.
Rabbi Benny Lapa, who runs an independent yeshiva in Chicago, says the same thing: "The values and worldview embodied in the movement's institutions do not appeal to many students. The non-movement rabbinical schools allow students to understand what a Jewish future will work in the future."
One of the most significant victims of the phenomenon is Hebrew Union College, which may cease to ordain Reform rabbis in Cincinnati after 147 years.
The JTA News Agency reports that due to a sharp drop in enrollment and increased competition from seminars that are not part of the reform movement, the board of the seminary, the first of its kind in the United States, is expected to vote on a proposal to stop enrolling rabbinical students in Cincinnati.
This is not a simple blow to the Reform movement, as Cincinnati is the birthplace of the Reform movement in the United States.
The campus of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati will continue to operate the Jewish-American Archive, the state's largest research center for U.S. Jewry, in addition to a library, museum, and the school's doctoral program. And New York.
American Jews are moving away from official institutions and currents.
In a survey by the PEW Institute published last year, 41 percent of Jews under the age of 29 said they were not affiliated with any current in Judaism, compared to 22 percent of Jews over the age of 65.
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