WASHINGTON — Secularism is increasing among American Jews because many believe that God did not intervene in events such as the Holocaust, according to Barry Kosmin, director of research for the Institute for Jewish Policy Research in London.
“The majority of Jews don’t think that religion is a public good and they don’t think religion is good for anything else either,” said Kosmin at a symposium on Jews and American public issues May 9 at the Brookings Institution.
Kosmin said a large proportion of today’s Jews are “disenchanted with the world and its assumed creator.”
At least 25 percent of the American Jewish population has a secular world view, according to a study of 50,000 U.S. Jews by his institute and researchers from City University of New York. Kosmin defined secular Jews as being non-Judaic and ascribing to no religion. Historically, the rise of secularism among Jews started in western Europe as a result of the persecution of Jews in World
War I and World War II, he said.
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