Comparing Jewish Engagement across the Anglo Diaspora
By Reviva Hasson
For many South African Jews, the question often comes up: how do we compare?
Whether thinking about emigration, family abroad, or simply the state of Jewish life globally, we instinctively measure ourselves against communities in other countries. Anecdotal experiences from friends and family provide one perspective, but another avenue offering a more objective, broader birds-eye view approach is a comparison based on survey data.
The Jewish Community Survey of South Africa (JCSSA) is the largest survey of South African Jews. It was conducted in 2019 by the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies, based at the University of Cape Town, in collaboration with the London based Institute for Jewish Policy Research. Similar Jewish population surveys have been run across the Anglo world in similar periods which creates the unique opportunity to be able to compare Jewish populations, – in the United States Pew2020, the United Kingdom NJCS 2022, Australia Gen17 2017, and Canada SJC 2018.
A comparison with these four countries is not arbitrary. South Africa shares important features with other Anglo communities based on a common language and cultural heritage rooted in British institutions. Moreover as 70% of South Africa’s Jewish emigrants have moved to these four countries, the comparison is also personal.
Countries can be compared on many different variables. In terms of the size of the Jewish population, America has the largest population outside of Israel with some 6.5 million Jews, Canada has 400 000 Jews, the UK 312 000 and Australia 117 000. South Africa ranks 11th in world Jewry with 52 300 Jews. This article however focuses on Jewish life – how Jews express their Jewish identity through relationships, beliefs, practices, and values.
In the analysis that follows the comparison is grouped into four themes:
- sociocultural engagement
- religious engagement,
– connection to Israel, and
– the value placed on different elements of Jewish identity.
Of course, splitting Jewish life into different categories is artificial and any behaviour can be experienced in multifaceted ways, however for the purpose of this article it is useful to think about Jewish identity taking expression through different avenues.
SOCIOCULTURAL ENGAGEMENT
This theme explores the social and communal dimensions of Jewish life, including friendship networks, family traditions, charitable giving, and participation in activities that connect Jews to one another. While a Passover seder is rooted in religious ritual, it’s also a powerful expression of culture, bringing multiple generations together around a shared tradition. Similarly, the synagogue is a house of prayer, but it is also one of the primary spaces where community takes form.
In the figures that follow South Africa is shown by the black bar with the percentage of the community that answered in the affirmative to each measure. When interpreting the results it’s important to appreciate that the percentage who did not answer “yes” mainly include those that said “no” but also includes other responses like “some/sometimes” and “don’t know” or “Prefer not to say”. Where there are missing bars for a certain country it’s because that question was not asked in the relevant survey.
Figure 1 shows that 57% of South African Jews are members of a synagogue, similar to the UK and Canada but below Australia where almost 80% of the community are members. 71% of South African report having mostly Jewish friends and 81% attend or host a Passover seder every year – both of which are comparable to Australia. 88% of South Africans made a financial donation to a Jewish charity in the past year, similar to the UK.
Intermarriage rates measure the proportion of marriages in a given timeframe that are between Jews and non-Jews, here South Africa exhibits the lowest rates with intermarriage at 17%. by contrast in America the rate is close to 60%
Taken together, the data suggest that South African Jewry exhibits strong levels of sociocultural Jewish engagement by Anglo-diaspora standards.
RELIGIOUS ENGAGEMENT
Religious engagement indicators examined in Figure 2 below include both measures of practical observance and expressions of belief.
South Africa performs among the strongest communities and leads in areas such as belief in God (78%), lighting Shabbat candles (52%) and fasting on Yom Kippur (76%). Significantly lower proportions of the community keep kosher (33%) and view halacha (Jewish law) as central to being Jewish (26%).
It’s interesting to observe that while only 21% of South African Jews indicated in the JCSSA that they are Shomer Shabbat (data not shown here) – a marker for religious Orthodox observance, the above data reveal significantly higher levels of participation across other religious life indicators. This suggests that religious engagement in South Africa extends beyond a small observant minority.
CONNECTION TO ISRAEL
A third dimension of Jewish engagement is connection to Israel, which for many Jews serves as an important expression of their Jewish identity, serving as a homeland and the centre of Jewish peoplehood.
Connection to Israel is an area in which South African Jewry stands out (Figure 3). 66% of South African express a strong attachment to Israel, and when those who report being “moderately” attached are included, 90% express a positive connection. Significantly higher than elsewhere in the Anglo world.
The vast majority (89%) have visited Israel at least once and many have visited multiple times, a figure matched by Australia and the United Kingdom. By comparison, fewer than half of American Jews have visited Israel.
The one area where South Africa performs relatively poorly in terms of its Israel engagement profile is Hebrew literacy where only 24% report being able to speak Hebrew quite well. (The proportion who can read Hebrew is higher (54%), far below Canada’s 40%.
WHAT MATTERS MOST TO JEWISH IDENTITY
Figure 4 shifts the focus from behaviour to attitudes, examining the proportion of respondents who rated various elements of Jewish identity as being “very important” to their personal sense of Jewish identity. The exact same question was asked in the UK and Australia surveys hence our comparison is limited to these three countries.
Note. Q. How important or unimportant are each of the following to your own sense of Jewish Identity? This graph only shows the percentage that answered, “very important”. The other options included: important, unimportant, don’t know and prefer not to say.
South Africa however stands out. In all but one of the thirteen statements, South African Jews are more likely to select “very important” than their Australian and British counterparts. Moreover, in five areas South Africa stands out particularly strongly compared to the UK and Australia: moral and ethical behaviour (85%), remembering the Holocaust (81%), donating money to charity (55%), belief in God (53%) and payer (36%).
A SUCCESS STORY WITH CAVEATS
Taken together, the findings reveal a community that compares remarkably well with its counterparts across the Anglo-Jewish world. The South African Jewish population consistently ranks among the most engaged across multiple dimensions of Jewish life. Moreover, the high levels of importance attached to many elements of Jewish identity suggest that this engagement is not merely behavioural, but underpinned by strongly held values, beliefs, and sense of Jewish peoplehood. Overall, South Africa emerges as the strongest performing of the major English-speaking Jewish communities, with Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom occupying a middle position, while the United States ranks lowest overall. This is a particularly striking finding. Despite its relatively small size, South African Jewry emerges as one of the most engaged Jewish communities in the Anglo diaspora, consistently punching above its demographic weight.
These affirming findings about SA Jewry should be viewed alongside several important qualifications. South African Jewry is not a single homogenous community, and important differences exist across the geographical landscape. Across almost every measure from religious belief and practice to sociocultural expressions, connections and belonging, Johannesburg Jewry emerges as the most engaged Jewish centre in the country. Cape Town and Durban exhibit significantly lower levels of Jewish engagement in most areas. The national picture therefore conceals significant regional variation.
Moreover, South African Jewish life is not static. Tracking specific forms of Jewish engagement across historical surveys reveals diverging trends. On the one hand, there has been a gradual increase in Orthodox observance. The proportion of Jews who keep shabbat has risen from 9% in 1974 to 21% in 2019. This is mirrored in the data on Jewish strands of identity where a quarter of South African Jews have switched to a more religious Jewish strand of identity than the one they were raised in.
On the other hand, there is a parallel trend away from Jewish engagement. Intermarriage rates have increased such that in the 1970s 7% of all marriages occurring were interfaith unions, while in the most recent period (2015-2019) this has increased to 19%. Similarly, several markers that were historically near universal such as attending Passover seders, fasting on Yom Kippur, and lighting Shabbat candles, have declined in recent decades.
Why South African Jewry compares so strongly with its counterparts abroad is ultimately a question that warrants further study. However, several domestic factors likely play an important role, these include: exceptionally high rates of Jewish day school attendance – 75% of school-aged Jewish children currently attend Jewish schools, the highest in the Anglo world; relatively low incidence of intermarriage, strong communal institutions, and the dense social networks characteristic of a small and geographically concentrated Jewish population. Scholars have also pointed to broader historical and social influences, including the community’s largely Lithuanian heritage, the role of Orthodox outreach movements, and aspects of South Africa’s unique social and political history that may have reinforced communal cohesion.
Comparisons such as these do not tell us every dimension of a Jewish community. They do, however, provide empirical validation for something that many South African Jews have long felt intuitively: that there is something distinctive about both the breadth and strength of Jewish life in South Africa. Claims about the vitality of Jewish life in South Africa are not merely anecdotal; they are supported by a substantial body of evidence spanning religious practice, social connectedness, Israel attachment and the importance attached to many elements of Jewish identity. This broad-based pattern of Jewish engagement is perhaps one of the defining characteristics of contemporary South African Jewry.
Feature picture: Cape Town’s Old Synagogue, the first synagogue built in South Africa in 1863, which since 2000 has housed the South African Jewish Museum. (Photo: Ariadne Van Zandbergen/Alamy).
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