Where Jewish Life Thrives in America

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Forget the teeth-gnashing alreadyoccasioned by a new study on Jewish identity in the U.S. by thePew Research Religion & Public Life Project. The only thingevery generation of Jews has in common is the conviction that itwill be the last. What matters for the continuity of Jewish lifeis quality, not quantity. And in today’s America, Jewishintellectual, cultural, spiritual and religious life isflourishing. Case in point: Beth Medrash Govoha of Lakewood, NewJersey, known as BMG or simply “Lakewood” -- one of the twobiggest yeshivas, or Talmudic colleges, in the history of theworld.

At Lakewood, 6,700 undergraduate and graduate studentspursue a curriculum focused on the Babylonian Talmud, thecompendium of legal argument and ethical narrative that hasinformed traditional Judaism for a millennium and a half. Evenat the height of the golden age of yeshivas in pre-war Europe,it is doubtful if that many people were studying the Talmud fulltime. The once-famed yeshiva at Volozhin (modern Valozhyn, nowin Belarus), the progenitor of the modern yeshiva movement, hadno more than 300 students, and perhaps as few as 150; only 60were officially registered.