Questions for Jews......How many synagogues in America?

Question

I have a few questions for practicing Jews.

#1 How many synagogues are in America.....and the world?

#2 do the Chief Rabbis answer to anyone in church authority.

#3 What percentage of Jews actually practice the religion?

#4 What are service in a synagogue like? Such as does the Rabbi teach, then pray? Is there a basic order?

#5 Are daily services offered at a Synagogue?

#6 What is different about Saturday services, compared to other services.

Thank you so very much. I'd love it if you could poinjt me to a site which offers statistics about Jews in America.

Answer 1

1.
In the United States about 3,500-4,000 would be a fair number.

2. There are no Chief rabbis in the United States. Those who do exist like in Israel are government positions.

3. Depends on what you mean by practice... about 50% of American Jews belong to a synagogue, but only about 10% follow Jewish law to a significant degree.

4. Order varies on denomination.

5 in large Orhodox synagouges there are services twice on weekdays. Conservative and Reform vary on what they want to do.

6. Longer, different prayers, and a large Torah reading.

Answer 2

1. I don't know.

2. I think so, but you don't hear much talk about it. There is also orthodox, conservative, reform, ect. I'm really mad at the conservative movement because they've caved in to The Homosexual Agenda, and reform has sucked for a long time, anyway, in my humble opinion which I have a right to express under Freedom of Speech.

3. A lot of people practice the traditions as it's convenient and the largest amount of people deem it sufficient to go to "shul" or their reform temple on the High Holidays around September.

4. The services in orthodox are in Hebrew, are as boring as hell and it's hard to keep awake. The other branches are in a combination of Hebrew and English, usually.

5. Only the orthodox has daily services, that I'm aware of.

6.Saturday is considered the sabbath and it starts on Friday evening.

ADDITIONAL NOTES. Even in the Orthodox shuls that have the services in Hebrew, the Rabbi will often give a sermon in English. There was this one I went to when I was growing up where the Rabbi did so. It was a large congregation and when someone was talking during his sermon, he would suddenly stop, then stand still and glare at the person for several minutes, and then everyone was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop!

And then they have cantors in there than sing hymns with a choir, but I could never really stand it, as I indicated. I'm more of a rebel, as you might guess, and I'm sure I'd feel that way in any church.

Answer 3

i think of that oftentimes, maximum Rabbis don't get hung up on what someone *believes*. they have a tendency to look greater at what someone DOES - and of path as you already know, that's an extremely Jewish physique of suggestions :) of path, that replaced right into a Reform Rabbi, and Reform Judaism is a lot greater comfortable than Orthodox or Conservative. so which you have gotten have been given a touch distinctive reaction from a greater Orthodox Rabbi... yet lower back, Judaism is involved in how someone behaves and how they manage their fellow people. base line: you wanted to attend Synagogue. The Rabbi little doubt replaced into sensible sufficient to recognize which you have a connection to Judaism whether you're an Atheist. Atheism would not conflict with Judaism interior the right comparable way that different faiths does, by using fact of path you're no longer worshipping 'fake gods'.

Answer 4

1) I honestly don't know.
2) theres nothing in Judaism as an all encompassing thing like equivalent to the vatican or anything like that. the Hassidic's have a little more structure in that sense I think, but its not really "like that" in general.
3) depends on who you ask and what definition you use of being jewish and practicing.
4) its pretty much all praying. theres a very specific order of prayers for each different service. theres usually a sermon, but that is by no means the point of the thing. most of the people there generally know whats going on anyway, so "teaching" aspects are generally limited to explaining whats going on and why when theres groups of visiting people. (like church groups and whatnot) for your regular service theres just not much need to. (in fact this is a hard one to answer because the idea seems so strange to me)
5) there are daily services that can be had, and I'm sure some synogogues, particularly the more observant in higher population areas, do offer it.
6) your "main" weekly services are the friday night and saturday morning. theres also a saturday evening, but at least the synogogue I grew up in, is very minor in comparison as far as importance. at my synogogue it was about an hour and a half on friday night, and the entire thing on saturday morning I think was like 3-4 hours.

edit: to below, >>"Jewish services will be primarily in English in the US with a touch of Hebrew thrown in."<<

you must have been going to purely reform or less-observant than...
even in conservative synogogues 95%+ of the service is purely in hebrew. only a few relatively modern prayers are in english.

honestly I wouldn't stay in a synogogue that did more than about 10-15% of the service in english. ... its just wrong.

Answer 5

I can't answer your questions; those details are not in my database.

What I can tell you is that the Jewish services are essentially identical to the Christian services. Remember, Judaism is the ancestor of Christianity. It only makes sense that the Christian services follow the Jewish services.

There are very few differences. Jewish services will be primarily in English in the US with a touch of Hebrew thrown in. Just like Catholic services in the US, most, will be primarily in English with a little Latin thrown in.

I'm Lutheran and I've attended many Jewish services and weddings and bar/bat mitzvahs in my life, so I've seen both sides of the coin.

Answer 6

Too many man.