After reading the articles on the Pew study about the state of American Jewry and how slowly secular Jews are disappearing, I also read about the passing of Rabbi Ovadia Josef (“What Pews Does — And Doesn’t — Tell Us, Oct. 11, “A ‘Gaon’ In Every Sense,” Oct. 11).
The fact that Rabbi Yosef had such an influence on the Sephardic and Mizrachi communities worldwide gives me hope that Jewish continuity will not come from secular American Ashkenazi Jews, of which the Pew study was aimed at. The fact is that Sephardim and Mizrachi Jews have a lower intermarriage rate than Ashkenazim, even among those who are secular.
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