Passover

From USA Today:
"What does being Jewish mean in 2014?"

Jews all over the world sit down at sundown Monday to celebrate the freedom of their ancestors from slavery in ancient Egypt as the first night of Passover begins. The eight-day festival is celebrated from the 15th through the 22nd of the Hebrew month of Nissan. By following the rituals of Passover, Jews have the ability to experience the freedom that their ancestors attained. Today's American Jews have become more acclimated than generations past. Rates of secularism and intermarriage have risen, yet certain rituals, such as the Passover seder, remain ingrained in the life of a Jew. In fall 2013, the Pew Research Center, a polling and analysis organization, released A Portrait of Jewish Americans. Launched in 2001, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, seeks to promote a deeper understanding of issues at the intersection of religion and public affairs. In A Portrait of Jewish Americans, those polled were a nationally representative sample of more than 70,000 screening interviews. Longer interviews were completed with more than 3,000 Jews. Overwhelmingly, American Jews said they are proud to be Jewish and have a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people. But the survey also suggested that Jewish identity is changing in America, where 20% of Jews now describe themselves as having no religion.  The changing nature of Jewish identity is clearer when looking generationally at the survey's results. Fully 93% of Jews in the aging Greatest Generation identify as Jewish on the basis of religion with 7% describing themselves as having no religion. By contrast, among Jews in the youngest generation — the millennials — 68% identify as Jews by religion while 32% describe themselves as having no religion and identify as Jewish on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity or culture. Two-thirds of Jews do not belong to a synagogue and one-fourth do not believe in God. The survey showed that Reform Judaism continues to be the largest Jewish denominational movement in the United States. One-third of all U.S. Jews identify with the Reform movement while 18% identify with Conservative Judaism, 10% with Orthodox and 6% with a variety of smaller groups. About 3 in 10 American Jews say they do not identify with any particular Jewish denomination. Emotional attachment to Israel has not waned among American Jews in the past decade: 70% remain "strongly" or "somewhat" attached to Israel.

Despite the changes in Jewish identity in America, 75% also said they have "a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people."

^ It is Passover and so it seemed fitting to include this poll on how American Jews see themselves. ^

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/04/14/passover-jewish-monday/7712487/