In Melbourne we have a large and diverse community that offers much choice when it comes to synagogues and Jewish education. From Orthodox to Reform and most things in between; there is something for everyone. With a significant proportion of Holocaust survivors and their progeny, a very strong Chabad presence which spurred significant growth in the 1960s and following, and as yet relatively low rates of intermarriage (compared to the US), Orthodox Judaism remains the most dominant flavour here.

But interestingly, some of the largest and oldest shuls have a significant proportion of members that fall into an interesting category: they are not practicing Orthodox, they remain members of an Orthodox shul, and only attend a few times per year. I’ve dubbed them ‘Orthodox Affiliated‘.

A good way to understand this category of people is through the perceptual map below, which plots a variety of Jewish flavours on a scale which measures ‘Level of Engagement’ on the vertical, against ‘Connection with Tradition’ on the horizontal.

I apologize in advance for the crudeness of this classification, which is bound to offend someone. The underlying principle is that with increasing connection to tradition, comes increasing level of engagement with Jewishness. One can’t be Haredi without being extremely engaged with Jewishness – going to shul three times a day, dressing and eating in a particular manner etc. On the other end of the scale, being a Reform Jew has a far lesser requirement for engagement. And so we can place a number of flavours of Judaism on this map, recognizing that they each have a range when it comes to both connection with tradition, and level of engagement, and while I’ve drawn the map for illustrative purposes only, the ranges likely do overlap.

The Gen08 Australian Jewish Population Study also noted in its report on Jewish continuity that there is correlation between level of engagement with Jewishness and number of Jewish ‘touch-points’, and the ability to successfully transmit to the next generation.

When we consider ‘Orthodox Affiliated’ using this framework, they are something of an outlier compared with the others. This is because they display a low level of engagement to a Jewish group that has a relatively high connection with tradition.

How does someone become ‘Orthodox Affiliated’? Most commonly, this happens because one’s parents or grandparents were Orthodox, and members of an Orthodox synagogue. While the level of engagement with Jewishness may have dropped off with successive generations, the association with Orthodoxy remained. This could be out of respect for past generations, or perhaps a desire to remain connected to a brand of Judaism they considered more ‘authentic’, despite their own life choices. This is more common in the Australian Jewish community than in the US, because here a much larger proportion of non-Observant Jews had Observant grandparents or great-grandparents. Another way to become ‘Orthodox Affiliated’ might be through Chabad, which attracts the unaffiliated, but makes few demands for observance.

The more important question is: what is the path beyond being ‘Orthodox Affiliated’? The low level of engagement with Judaism means the ability to transmit Jewishness is weak. It’s quite possible that the children of ‘Orthodox Affiliated’ parents are more likely to drop-off completely than move across the perceptual map to a flavour of Judaism that better matched their desired level of engagement. This is particularly the case as they get one generation further from ancestors who were Orthodox. It’s worth noting that Chabad’s engagement model may reduce the risk of drop-offs, and even leave open the possibility of increased engagement in the next generation, which is clearly the long-term (unstated) goal.

Clearly there are serious Jewish continuity risks associated with being ‘Orthodox Affiliated’. It raises a question which would certainly be hotly contested: is it better to be an engaged Reform Jew or a disengaged Orthodox Affiliated?