Federation Survey Finds Jews Connect with Chabad More Than Others

Judah Ari Gross reports at eJewishPhilanthropy.com:

As American Jewry overall has experienced an increase in Jewish engagement in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks, in what has been deemed “The Surge,” the largest rise has been seen among those connected to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, outpacing all other denominations and among unaffiliated Jews, according to survey data from Jewish Federations of North America that were provided exclusively to eJewishPhilanthropy.

According to the findings, which come from data collected by JFNA earlier this year, among the Jews affiliated with Chabad, 44% reported deeper involvement in Jewish life since Oct. 7.

This can refer to both someone who was already engaged Jewishly but became more so or someone who was previously uninvolved who has started taking part in Jewish activities.

This places the Hasidic movement above Orthodox Judaism (42%), Conservative Judaism (36%), Reform Judaism (33%) and those of “no particular denomination” (24%).

The survey polled 1,877 self-identifying Jews who were recruited via text message from March 5-25.

There is, however, an overlap between these groups, as most of those who reported participating in Chabad activities also identified with another denomination.

According to the poll, some 30% of the respondents said that they took part in Chabad activities in a typical year. Of these, 39% identified as Reform, 20% as Conservative, 21% as Orthodox, 4% as something else and 15% as no particular denomination.

The survey data does not indicate why Chabad saw the greatest increase in engagement, though Mimi Kravetz, the chief impact and growth officer at JFNA, said there are indications of what may be driving the growth, principally Chabad’s many locations and the unintimidating atmosphere that Chabad leaders have cultivated.

Kravetz said that these findings, particularly the latter, should be taken into consideration by other organizations.

“We often see in our local research that when we ask people why they’re not engaging, they say, ‘There’s nothing near me.’ So it’s accurate to say that one of the reasons that Chabad might see higher engagement is that they’re more likely to be local because they just are in lots of communities, including small communities. So that’s definitely part of it,” Kravetz told eJP.

“There’s other quotes that we saw in our interviews that also indicate that often… people feel very comfortable and very welcome [at a Chabad], in a moment when they’re looking for something. And there’s not that financial barrier to entry that synagogues sometimes [have, since people] think of them as membership organizations. So that’s something for our institutions to consider and think about.”