(JTA) — A new survey found that only 7% of American Jews feel that the coronavirus crisis has strengthened their faith, as opposed to nearly a quarter of Americans as a whole.
The survey, published Thursday by the Pew Research Center, found that Jews had the lowest percentage of respondents whose faith has been strengthened by the crisis. Along with the 7% of Jews whose faith has grown stronger, 69% say their faith hasn’t changed much and 22% say they weren’t religious to begin with. A very small percentage, not represented numerically in the study, say their faith has gotten weaker.
In the United States as a whole, 24% of people say their faith has gotten stronger, 2% say it’s gotten weaker, 47% say it hasn’t changed much and 26% say they aren’t religious. The group with the largest number of respondents say their faith has gotten stronger is black Protestants, 56% of whom reported strengthening faith.
It’s possible that few Jews responded positively to the “faith” question because the question’s wording referenced “religious faith,” a terminology that tends to be less common among Jews than among Christians.
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