Ad lo Yada (Until You Can’t Tell the Difference)

Nones Drinking L’Chaim to Purim, the celebration of the Jewish People Against All Odds

As we approach the festival of Purim, we would like to mention an obscure study recently conducted by the Pew Research Group about the Jewish Community. Alas, as significant as the findings are, it has come to our attention that nobody in the Jewish communal world seems particularly interested in this study. For the purpose of this article, we will simply reference the study as “Pew,” and it is our hope that the day will come soon when just saying “Pew” will trigger a complete and total panic-meltdown, and spark ideas for game-changing funding strategies and disruptive interventions within the Jewish community. We are calling on our colleagues to talk about “Pew.” Come on people?  Where are your roundtables, your manels, er panels?  Is there an op-ed to be found? Where are the self-proclaimed thought leaders?  Where the calls for sweeping changes, radical transformations, and just one giant paradigm shift?  Everybody shift!! 

In light of the shocking dearth of response to the results, we are revisiting highlights of this research. For your thinking, here are some key findings we anticipate might get you talking.

Most surprising finding:
Jews of “no opinion" went up from 1% to 2%

About Denominations:
45% of Orthodox Jews are Conservative Jews
59% of Conservative Jews are Reform Jews
33% of Reform Jews are Conservative and Orthodox Rabbis

Best quote from an expert:
“I was shocked how many Jews are NUNS?  Who would ever have thought it?  NUNS?"

Of the 20% of Jews who attend synagogue:
 10.7% make it for Ashrei
 31.2% for the Amidah
 57.4% for the Torah Service (which includes arrival any time prior to Hagbah)
 17.2% for the sermon
and
 99.9% for the Kiddish

Of the 99.9% of those who arrive in time for Kiddish:
79% complained that there was not enough food
7% cut the line
14% of those who complain still pile on the lox

Fun Fact:
37% of Maccabi Beer sales occur in the month before Purim (see photo). 24% of those purchases are made by “Nones” (Jews who self-define as having no religion). This seems to have negligible influence on Jewish population growth. 19% of Jews across all denominations believe Nuns celebrate Purim.  

Shocking Fact:
5% of Jewish 12 and 13 year olds leave Judaism on the Shabbat of their own Bar or Bat mitzvah DURING Adon Olam
28% wait until after the party
All of them come back for Birthright.  With a friend.  

About the word “Pew”:
The word “Pew” has been uttered 1,394,612 times by Jews since October 1. Of this mention, 732,102 or 49% represent repeat utterances by a specific group 12 men and 3 women.  Within this group of 15, they spoke mostly to each other listening carefully and then asking each other “Did Jew say Pew?”

This figure does not include those who have never heard of Pew Research and only have mentioned the word in the context of a question, as in “What is up with this Pew thing?” Still, the use of the word Pew has increased by 91% from only one year ago among all Jews, regardless of denomination.

A full 7% had no knowledge whatsoever of Pew and the remaining 2% did in fact use the word but were referencing Pepe le Pew, the French skunk of cartoon fame. Though French, Pepe remains a Pew of faux religion.

According to many leaders talking amongst themselves, this meteoric increase reveals to the world everything we already knew. Don’t tell the folks who funded this thing.