Diaspora Judaism Reinvents Itself
During the last three decades of the twentieth century, and well into the new millennium, Diaspora Judaism has faced a number of formidable challenges. The sheer loss of human life following the Shoah has meant more than just a sharp reduction in the Jewish world population.
For some Jews, the possibility of collective annihilation carried with it the secondary possibility of the “end” of Judaism itself, or at the very least the dwindling of what was once a global community. According to the latest demographic figures, the world Jewish population is approximately 14.8 million, with the largest centers of Jewish life being Israel and the United States, and though all statistical estimates of “self-identifying Jews” are open to question, demographers have concluded that it will take decades for the world Jewish population to return to pre-Shoah levels—if indeed that goal can be attained at all.However, the threat of cultural extinction has inspired in others a need to reexamine their most basic assumptions about contemporary Judaism and its institutional behaviors. The most significant attempt to date at reshaping Jewish worship and strengthening Jewish identity has taken place within the Jewish Diaspora in the form of the Renewal movement.
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