Conservative and Reform Jews: Merging Temples in LI

There is an interesting article in Newsday about the decline of conservative and reform Jewry in Long Island. The great decrease in numbers has forced their congregations to merge temples and this is causing some strife among some of it's congregants. One of the causes for the decline is a huge thorn in the side of both conservative and reform: Intermarriage. Intrafaith demographics are also playing a role in the mergers. From 1991 to 2002, the percentage of Nassau County Jewish respondents who identified themselves as Reform declined from 42 percent to 39 percent while the number of Conservative respondents fell from 40 percent to 35 percent, according to the Jewish Community Study of New York. Meanwhile, the number of respondents identifying themselves as Orthodox in Nassau jumped from 5 percent to 11 percent, along with those who said they were "just Jewish," from 14%to 16 %".