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As a rabbi in a small town, I understand the Jewish class divide — and how to close it
(JTA) — When you walk into the back door at my home away from home, Beth Israel Congregation of Waterville, Maine, you’re greeted with a faint scent of kosher matzah ball soup mixed with the slightest hint of mildew from a 70-year-old building that can’t quite manage its moisture anymore.
On your left, you’ll see the kitchen, the heart and soul of our congregation. It is often where the most invaluable Torah is taught and learned. That happened a few years ago, when my wife, Mel, was joined one snowy Saturday night by our rabbinical intern.
“Mel,” he asked, “do you always need to make this many sandwiches for the food pantry?”
“No,” she replied. “Demand has gone up over the past few years, but we always need to make double at the end of the month.”
“Why,” he inquired, “should you need to make any more at the end of the month than at the beginning?”
Mel stood there somewhat stunned by a question that should not have felt like a Talmudic riddle. How could he not know? I am sure he knew why we blessed two challahs for each Shabbat meal (to remember God’s grace in the desert, when ahead of Shabbat the Israelites were able to gather double the amount of manna [Exodus 16:22]). But why did he not know why we need to double the number of sandwiches we make at the end of the month?
“Most of the clients we serve, some of whom are members of our own congregation,” she explained, “rely on WIC and EBT, government benefits that are issued at the beginning of each month and that often run out by the end, especially in families with children.”
“Oh, okay. I didn’t know that,” he said with a humility that endeared him so deeply to all of us at Beth Israel.
He didn’t understand the significance of the double portion at the end of the month, but the truth of the matter is before I came to Waterville, I didn’t either. I knew nothing about communities like Waterville. And what I thought I knew was not only wrong, but actually, in retrospect, was harmful and offensive. And if I did think about class differences when I lived in Brooklyn, I rarely thought about it in connection to the Jewish community.
But my ignorance and that of my student should not surprise us. Because how many of us really talk honestly about class? Class isn’t just about money. It’s a messy alchemy of financial wealth, social connections, political and cultural power, the opportunities people encounter in their lifetime and the communal regard they receive. To put it more concretely, someone can have the money — through personal resources of scholarships — to attend a Jewish summer camp. But class is also knowing which brands everyone else is wearing, knowing where to access those in-fashion clothes, and being able to own them.
The trickiness of class is what brought one of my Maine rabbinic colleagues to warn me about sending the kids in my congregation to major Jewish summer camps, “Even if you can get them the scholarship, Rachel,” she said, “the teasing they might endure might not make it worth it.”
Why aren’t we talking about class? The topic is tender because class is inextricably linked with our dignity. In Hebrew, the word for dignity is kavod and it shares the same root with kaved, heavy. Dignity is about how much leverage we have — in creating a world that gives us what we need and brings us into spaces with the promise of fullness, respect and agency. And the inequitable distribution of this kavod is impacting the ability of the American Jewish establishment to sustain functional, holy communities equitably nationwide.
For many small-town rabbis like myself who travel back and forth regularly between large cities and our small-town synagogues, the disparity in services, luxuries and opportunities we witness between urban communities and our home shuls is striking and often painful.
Synagogues like ours are struggling to pay their heating bills so that their pipes don’t freeze. Our congregants often cannot make their rent or pay college application fees, and our boards struggle mightily to raise the funds for paltry part-time rabbinic salaries. These heroic small-town lay leaders work the equivalent of unpaid, full-time jobs so that every member of their congregation can have a human hand to hold when life gets real — during times both of transcendent joy and deep distress.
Over the past 50 years wealth and social power have been increasingly concentrated in 12 metro areas to the exclusion of large swaths of our nation. The organization I lead, the Center for Small Town Jewish Life at Colby College, estimates that 1 in 8 American Jews lives outside one of these areas. At the same time, we must also see that class disparities exist within every locale. And so, as we plan programs and craft policies as an American Jewish community, I would challenge all of us to ask ourselves and our institutions questions out loud that we usually don’t ask.
Who is included or excluded by the price of this event or membership?
What services should every member of a Jewish community be able to access, regardless of price? Who will provide it? Who will pay those who are providing those services and will they be paid a fair wage?
How do we work to address the pain and shame caused by unacknowledged class differences within our community?
Not all of these questions have simple answers, but we have to start addressing them. There are three steps we should be taking as an American Jewish community to make our community more economically equitable now.
First, even though livestreaming has been a blessing and increased accessibility and access in ways that cannot be overstated or taken for granted, we still need to reiterate — in all of our communities — that it doesn’t replace the importance of physical presence. For most of us, to be human is to be embodied, and we cannot let physical presence and contact become a luxury good.
Second, every state in America should have at bare minimum one full-time, at-large, pluralistically oriented rabbi with an endowed salary that serves the entire Jewish community of that state, regardless of ability to donate or pay.
Third, we need to find ways to make sure that everyone has a seat at the table, so that every Jew’s soul is fed. We cannot afford to lose anyone. The eternal faith of the people Israel is a covenant that should not be contingent on one’s class — it is up to all of us to make sure that every member of our people is spiritually sated, held by community, known and called by name. We need a new American Jewish budget that fulfills the basic birthright of every Jew in this nation — to be served and held as a worthy member of our people.
Recently I turned to Central Synagogue in New York City to support the work of the Center for Small Town Jewish Life. They answered the call immediately — partnering with us not only financially, but as thought partners in building community and capacity through Central’s The Neighborhood online community and my organization’s programs. Two other Manhattan synagogues — Rodeph Sholom and Park Avenue Synagogue — came in alongside them, eager to help us spread the story of small-town Jewish life and advance our mission. They are funding our National Impact program, Makom, that trains small-town lay leaders and Jewish communal professionals in order to make small-town Jewish life sustainable. They are also supporting our Shaliach Tzibur program that trains small-town Jews to lead rituals and services when no clergy are present.
But there is so much more to be done on a strategic, national scale to ensure that we are touching and serving every member of the American Jewish community with dignity. We will need to continue this work together, large and small Jewish congregations working together to serve the entirety of our people with dignity.
On every Shabbat to come, let’s dream of lechem mishneh, a double portion for all, and let’s start ensuring that everyone, at the very least, has the flour for a single loaf. As our rabbis teach, “eyn kemach, eyn Torah” — without flour, without physical sustenance, our Torah cannot live.
This essay was adapted from a guest sermon given by the author at Central Synagogue in Manhattan.
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How the Global Religious Landscape Changed from 2010 to 2020
Muslims grew fastest; Christians lagged behind global population increase
• Christians are the world’s largest religious group, at 28.8% of the global population. They are a majority everywhere except the Asia-Pacific and Middle East-North Africa regions. Sub-Saharan Africa has surpassed Europe in having the largest number of Christians. But Christians are shrinking as a share of the global population, as millions of Christians “switch” out of religion to become religiously unaffiliated.
• Muslims are the world’s second-largest religious group (25.6% of the world’s population) and the fastest-growing major religion, largely due to Muslims’ relatively young age structure and high fertility rate. They make up the vast majority of the population in the Middle East-North Africa region. In all other regions, Muslims are a religious minority, including in the Asia-Pacific region (which is home to the greatest number of Muslims).
• The religiously unaffiliated population is the world’s third-largest religious category (24.2% of the global population), after Christians and Muslims. Between 2010 and 2020, religiously unaffiliated people grew more than any group except Muslims, despite their demographic disadvantages of an older age structure and relatively low fertility. The unaffiliated made up a majority of the population in 10 countries and territories in 2020, up from seven a decade earlier.
• Hindus are the fourth-largest religious category (14.9% of the world’s population), after Christians, Muslims and religiously unaffiliated people. Most (99%) live in the Asia-Pacific region; 95% of all Hindus live in India alone. Between 2010 and 2020, Hindus remained a stable share of the world’s population because their fertility resembles the global average, and surveys indicate that switching out of or into Hinduism is rare.
• Buddhists (4.1% of the world’s population) are the only group in this report whose number declined worldwide between 2010 and 2020. This was due both to religious disaffiliation among Buddhists in East Asia and to a relatively low birth rate among Buddhists, who tend to live in countries with older populations. Most of the world’s Buddhists (98%) reside in the Asia-Pacific region, the birthplace of Buddhism.
• Jews, the smallest religious group analyzed separately in this report (0.2% of the world’s population), lagged behind global population growth between 2010 and 2020 – despite having fertility rates on par with the global average – due to their older age structure. Most Jews live either in North America (primarily in the United States) or in the Middle East-North Africa region (almost exclusively in Israel).
These are among the key findings of a Pew Research Center analysis of more than 2,700 censuses and surveys, including census data releases that were delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. This report is part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes global religious change and its impact on societies around the world. Funding for the Global Religious Futures project comes from The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation.
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Antisemitism in some unlikely places in America
By HENRY SREBRNIK Antisemitism flourishes in a place where few might expect to confront it – medical schools and among doctors. It affects Jews, I think, more emotionally than Judeophobia in other fields.
Medicine has long been a Jewish profession with a history going back centuries. We all know the jokes about “my son – now also my daughter – the doctor.” Physicians take the Hippocratic Oath to heal the sick, regardless of their ethnicity or religion. When we are ill doctors often become the people who save us from debilitating illness and even death. So this is all the more shocking.
Yes, in earlier periods there were medical schools with quotas and hospitals who refused or limited the number of Jews they allowed to be affiliated with them. It’s why we built Jewish hospitals and practices. And of course, we all shudder at the history of Nazi doctors and euthanasia in Germany and in the concentration camps of Europe. But all this – so we thought – was a thing of a dark past. Yet now it has made a comeback, along with many other horrors we assume might never reappear.
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, there has been a resurgence of antisemitism, also noticeable in the world of healthcare. This is not just a Canadian issue. Two articles on the Jewish website Tablet, published Nov. 21, 2023, and May 18, 2025, spoke to this problem in American medicine as well, referencing a study by Ian Kingsbury and Jay P. Greene of Do No Harm, a health care advocacy group, based on data amassed by the organization Stop Antisemitism. They identified a wave of open Jew-hatred by medical professionals, medical schools, and professional associations, often driven by foreign-trained doctors importing the Jew-hatred of their native countries, suggesting “that a field entrusted with healing is becoming a licensed purveyor of hatred.”
Activists from Doctors Against Genocide, American Palestinian Women’s Association, and CODEPINK held a demonstration calling for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., Nov. 16, 2023, almost as soon as the war began. A doctor in Tampa took to social media to post a Palestinian flag with the caption “about time!!!” The medical director of a cancer centre in Dearborn, Michigan, posted on social media: “What a beautiful morning. What a beautiful day.” Even in New York, a physician commented on Instagram that “Zionist settlers” got “a taste of their own medicine.” A Boston-based dentist was filmed ripping down posters of Israeli victims and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine did the same. Almost three-quarters of American medical associations felt the need to speak out on the war in Ukraine but almost three-quarters had nothing to say about the war in Israel.
Antisemitism in academic medical centres is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish healthcare professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate, according to a study by the Data & Analytics Department of StandWithUs, an international, non-partisan education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism.
“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics, and study co-author, Alexandra Fishman, said on May 5 in a press release. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”
The study, “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” included survey data showing that 62.8 per cent of Jewish healthcare professionals employed by campus-based medical centres reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing, the report said, the likelihood of antisemitic activity.
“When administrators and colleagues understand what antisemitism looks like, it clearly correlates with less antisemitism in the workplace,” co-author and Yeshiva University professor Dr. Charles Auerbach reported. “Recognition is a powerful tool — institutions that foster awareness create safer, more inclusive environments for everyone.”
Last December, the Data & Analytics Department also published a study which found that nearly 40 per cent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims. The study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom said they were subject to “social and professional isolation.” The problem left more than one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 per cent, “feeling unsafe or threatened.”
The official journal of the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine concurs. According to “The Moral Imperative of Countering Antisemitism in US Medicine – A Way Forward,” by Hedy S. Wald and Steven Roth, published in the October 2024 issue of the American Journal of Medicine, increased antisemitism in the United States has created a hostile learning and practice environment in medical settings. This includes instances of antisemitic behaviour and the use of antisemitic symbols at medical school commencements.
Examples of its impact upon medicine include medical students’ social media postings claiming that Jews wield disproportionate power, antisemitic slogans at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine, antisemitic graffiti at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Cancer Centre, Jewish medical students’ exposure to demonization of Israel diatribes and rationalizing terrorism; and faculty, including a professor of medicine at UCSF, posting antisemitic tropes and derogatory comments about Jewish health care professionals. Jewish medical students’ fears of retribution, should they speak out, have been reported. “Our recent unpublished survey of Jewish physicians and trainees demonstrated a twofold increase from 40% to 88% for those who experienced antisemitism prior to vs after October 7,” they stated.
In some schools, Jewish faculty are speaking out. In February, the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group at UCLA accused the institution in an open letter of “ignoring” antisemitism at the School of Medicine, charging that its indifference to the matter “continues to encourage more antisemitism.” It added that discrimination at the medical school has caused demonstrable harm to Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.
Given these findings, many American physicians are worried not only as Jewish doctors and professionals, but for Jewish patients who are more than ever concerned with whom they’re meeting. Can we really conceive of a future where you’re not sure if “the doctor will hate you now?”
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
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The 2025 Toronto Walk (and talk ) for Israel
By GERRY POSNER There are walks and then there are walks. The Toronto UJA Walk for Israel on May 25, 2025 was one of a kind, at least as far as Canada and Jews are concerned. The number of people present was estimated to be 56,000 people or 112,000 total shoes. (How they get to that number is bewildering to me, since there is no one counting). This was 6,000 more than last year. Whether it is true or not, take it from me, it was packed. The synagogues in Canada should be so fortunate to get those numbers in total on High Holidays. The picture here gives you a sense of the size of the crowd.
This was my first walk in Toronto for Israel and I was with my granddaughter, Samantha Pyzer (not to forget her two friends whom she managed to meet at the site, no small feat, even with iPhones as aids). The official proceedings began at 9:00 a.m. and the walk at 10:00 a.m. There was entertainment to begin with, also along the way, and at the finish as well. The finish line this year was the Prosserman Centre or the JCC as it often called. The walk itself was perhaps 4 kilometres – not very long, but the walking was slow, especially at the beginning. There were lots of strollers, even baby carriages, though I did not see any wheelchairs. All ages participated on this walk. I figured, based on what I could see on the faces of people all around me that, although I was not the oldest one on the walk, I bet I made the top 100 – more likely the top 20.
What was a highlight for me was the number of Winnipeggers I met, both past and present. Connecting with them seemed to be much like a fluke. No doubt, I missed la lot of them, but I saw, in no particular order (I could not recall the order if my life depended on it): Alta Sigesmund, (who was, a long time ago, my daughter Amira’s teacher), Marni Samphir, Karla Berbrayer and her husband Dr. Allan Kraut and family. Then, when Samantha and I made it to the end and sat down to eat, I struck up a conversation with a woman unknown to me and as we chatted, she confirmed her former Winnipeg status as a sister-in- law to David Devere, as in Betty Shwemer, the sister of Cecile Devere. I also chanced upon Terri Cherniack, only because I paused for a moment and she spotted me. As we closed in near the finish, I met ( hey were on their way back), Earl and Suzanne Golden and son Matthew, as well as Daniel Glazerman. That stop caused me to lose my granddaughter and her pals. Try finding them amid the noise and size of the crowd – but I pulled it off.
As I was in line to get food, I started chatting with a guy in the vicinity of my age. I dropped the Winnipeg link and the floodgates opened with “ Did I know Jack and Joanie Rusen?” So that was an interesting few minutes. And I was not too terribly surprised to come across some of my Pickleball family. All of these meetings, along with spotting some of my sister’s family and other cousins, were carried on with the sound of the shofar as we moved along the way. In short, this was a happening. Merchants selling a variety of products, many of them Israeli based, were in evidence and, of course, the day could not have ended without the laying of tefillin, aided by Chabad, who have perfected the procedure to take less than a minute. See the photo. Chabad had a willing audience.
Aside from the joy of sharing this experience with my granddaughter, the very presence of all these Jews gathered together for a common reason made this day very special to me. However, there was a downside to the day. The downside was that, as we began to walk back to our car there was no other way I could figure out how to return when the rains came and came. While we walked faster, we were impeded by pouring rain and puddles. But Samantha wanted to persevere, as did I. We made it, but were drenched. My runners are still drying out as I write this two days later.
What with being surrounded by 56,000 people, the noise, the slow walking, and the rain, I can still say the day was a real highlight for me – one of the better moments since our arrival in Toronto in 2012. As well as the photos we took along the way, I have the reminder of the day, courtesy of the UJA, as evidenced from the photo. It was not just the walk, but the talk that accompanied the walk that made it so worthwhile for me. I would do it again, minus the rain.