The American college campus is “a disaster area for Jewish values and loyalty,” and the Jewish community has so far failed to grapple with the “tremendous problem” posed by that situation for the survival of American Judaism, a New York rabbi asserted here today.
Rabbi Irving Greenberg issued the warning at the 10th annual conference on the relationship of the rabbi to the Jewish social worker, sponsored by the Commission on Synagogue Relations of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. He said also that the challenge of college to all religion is particularly dangerous to Judaism because of the large and growing percentage of Jewish college students.
He noted that the American Jewish community was nearing the point of sending almost all of its young people to college. Citing as one of the major problems that of interfaith dating prevalent on the college campus, Rabbi Greenberg said that third-generation, college-educated American Jews have nearly tripled or quadrupled the intermarriage rate of the Jewish population in general.
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