RABBI WEIN ON THE VANISHING AMERICAN TRADITIONAL JEW

The Jewish community in the United States has changed dramatically over the last sixty years. A trip down nostalgia lane will reveal that the backbone of the Jewish community in the United States then was the traditional Jew. That Jew did not attend synagogue services often but was somehow vaguely familiar with the prayer service itself. He or she was not strictly observant of the laws of Judaism by any measure of observance but retained a connection to that observance by eating matzo on Pesach, lighting Sabbath candles on Friday night and eating food that had some relationship to being kosher.