The UK Jewish population has been stable at around the 300,000 mark for about 20 years now. That’s pretty remarkable given that it fell by about a third between 1950 and 2000. But that stability masks considerable turbulence at the local level. Some areas are experiencing tremendous Jewish population growth, while others are facing relentless decline.
Growth can be seen particularly in charedi areas like Stamford Hill, Broughton Park and Gateshead. Decline can be seen in several regional communities, such as Liverpool, Brighton and Glasgow, as well as in certain parts of London, including Redbridge and Brent.
Jewish population decline is always challenging for local leaders to manage. There is often an admirable tendency to fight it tooth and nail, working harder to attract Jews into the area, to improve local community services and to invest in new ones. But at a certain point, the chances of stopping the decline, never mind reversing it, cease to be realistic. Demographic realities simply become too powerful.
To predict the future of a community, its age structure matters more than its size. Growing communities are overwhelmingly comprised of young people. Over half of all Jews living in Stamford Hill today are aged under 18, while just six per cent are aged 65 or above. Compare that with Liverpool, where only about 10 per cent are under 18 and a third are 65-plus. Demographically, the future of the former community looks assured; the future of the latter, much less so. Jewish demographers use different terms to describe different age structures. The type found in Stamford Hill is known as “traditional”. That found in Liverpool is categorised as “ageing”. But things can become even more ominous than the “ageing” state. An area in which the kinds of proportions found in Stamford Hill are seen entirely in reverse is labelled “terminal”. Without significant immigration into an “ageing” population, it will inevitably acquire the “terminal” label eventually.
Sometimes I feel like the Angel of Death when applying some of these labels to real living communities. But there’s no shame in seeing the Jewish population of an area decline. It rarely has anything to do with community leadership; it tends to be much more about local economic, political or social circumstances. So leaders of communities in this position needn’t throw their hands up in despair, or hide under the duvet. Decline is part of the natural life cycle of every community. The key challenge is how to manage it well.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, following news of regional communities having to close synagogues and care homes because of insufficient numbers. I don’t know the specifics in any of the cases, but a general assessment of the age structure of any declining community is the first step towards managing these types of issues strategically. Such assessments can be used to predict how many Jews are likely to live in an area for the foreseeable future, how many elderly Jews will need care, and how many Jewish children will need educating. That information can then be used to develop a coherent plan for a community as it declines, focusing clearly on its projected needs.
My own view is that communities in an empirically proven state of demographic decline can still do extraordinary things. Selling off key assets at the right time, so that any funds raised can still be invested in the community that remains — perhaps for elderly care, or a bursary scheme to send local young people to summer camps and Israel tours, or a heritage programme to preserve the community’s history — can actually help make such communities extraordinary places to live.
Yet it takes courage to do that. It’s all too easy to cling on for too long, hoping against all odds that fortunes will turn. But careful planning, based on the data, can help transform a situation that feels dire into one that can be engaging, dignified and even life-affirming.
