local
Delaware Area
Study Reveals
Uncertain State of
Jewish Community
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Your bleeding
heart Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
A Courtesy of the Jewish Federation of Delaware
ccording to the 2022 Community
Study of Jewish Delaware and the
Brandywine Valley, 93% of Delaware
area Jews feel a sense of belonging to
the tribe. Fifty-two percent feel a “great
deal of belonging,” and 41% feel “at least
some.” That’s the good news.

But the other side of the story is, if
not alarming, at least undefi ned. Among
almost 26,000 Delaware Jews, the
denomination with the highest rate of
identifi cation, at 43%, is “no denomina-
tion.” Out of more than 12,000 Jewish
households, only 31% are affi liated with a
synagogue. And only 19% of Jews in the
region claim to be “immersed,” meaning
they maintain “high involvement in most
aspects of Jewish life.”
The study, commissioned by the Jewish
Federation of Delaware and conducted
by Brandeis University, was based on a
survey with 1,605 respondents. While that
is not 100% of the community, it is reveal-
ing, and cause enough for the Jewish
Federation of Delaware to consider some
new approaches to community building in
the 21st century.

“We have to constantly understand
our community that’s often evolving, and
we have to adapt to change,” said Seth
J. Katzen, the president and CEO of the
17 %
Jewish Federation of Delaware
President and CEO Seth J. Katzen
Federation. Matthew Boxer, the assistant research
professor at Brandeis who led the study,
listed several recommendations in a
PowerPoint summarizing his fi ndings. They
included promoting connections between
diff erent Jewish communities in the
region, promoting ties to the local Jewish
community for newcomers, strengthening
outreach to interfaith families and invest-
ing in Jewish education, among others.

“I do think it is fair to say that there isn’t
a tremendously strong connection to the
local Jewish community. But that’s not
unusual. It seems to be pretty common
across the country,” Boxer said.

Katzen is taking those suggestions and
turning them into a strategic planning task
force that is going to take a deeper dive into
the data. The Federation leader said that
many of the fi ndings confi rmed what he
already knew. But several were surprising,
The Jewish Federation of
Delaware is trying to reach out
to younger generations of Jews.

The Sweater Mill
115 S. York Road, Hatboro 215.441.8966 Open Monday-Saturday 11-4
especially the number of interfaith families
in the community. That number was more
than 50%. But the Delaware Federation
has not organized much programming for
interfaith families in the past.

Two other priorities moving forward
need to be off ering Jewish learning
opportunities and engaging the next
generation, according to Katzen. The
Delaware Federation does not have
enough millennial leaders. But the presi-
dent wants to bring more in. How to build
those connections, though, is unclear.

Katzen said the fi rst step is getting
community input. But he also has
some ideas. The CEO is thinking about
opening a lifelong learning and leader-
ship development center. He wants to
talk to synagogue leaders about how
they can collaborate more. And fi nally,
he hopes to meet younger adults “where
they are” to see what they want out of
Jewish practice.

“Some want to be culturally engaged.

Some want to be spiritually engaged. It’s
much more segmented. We have to fi nd
commonality. I think that’s a task of the
Federation,” Katzen said. “You can’t just
create a program, do it at the JCC, and
people will fl ow in. It’s no longer the case.”
Ellisha Caplan, 46, is involved in the
Jewish community with her husband,
Nigel, and their two sons, Sam, 15,
and Aidan, 10. The family belongs to
Congregation Beth Emeth in Wilmington.

Both boys attend religious school. And
since the Caplan parents, who are from
Virginia and England, respectively, do not
have family in the area, they built a close
circle of friends from the Siegel JCC,
where their children attended preschool.

The mother said that “Jewish life, being
Jewish, is at the center of our lives.” But
she also admitted that it is competing
with other activities.

“We have a lot of things going on,”
she said.

Arlene Johnson, 63, also raised her
two children, now 30 and 27, in the
synagogue, Temple Beth El in Newark.

The kids went to Hebrew school and
became b’nei mitzvah. Johnson remains
a member at Beth El and calls the commu-
nity “one big family.” At the same time,
similar to the Caplans, she said “Judaism
is part of my life.” But she feels like she’s
part of two communities because she has
a separate circle of non-Jewish friends.

“But the Jewish part is extremely
important to me,” Johnson said. ■
jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
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