BURN YOUR SIDDUR AWARD NOMINEE: Taking that PR axiom about releasing bad news on Friday afternoon a step further, the United Jewish Committee chose to release their National Jewish Population Survey on the afternoon prior to the second anniversary of September 11.
The numbers are no surprise to anyone who's ever read such a study before: growing intermarriage rates and lower birth rates indicate that Judaism is near extinction, even though all of the unmeasurable indicators not in the study- i.e., Jewish influence in American culture, politics, and life, have never been better. The UJC survey even throws in some happy numbers- the intermarriage rate is only 30%, and synagogue membership and identification with Israel are both way up.
Douglas Rushkoff, in a great Times op-ed almost a year ago in which he argued that judging Judaism "by the numbers" is basically meaningless, wrote that this very survey was supposed to be released last November, but the UJC held off at the last minute due to "missing data"- I guess they ultimately decided to do the next best thing and put it out when no one was paying attention. (And yes, I see the irony in posting on Friday afternoon about the "no one will see it on Friday afternoon" phenomenon.)