Abandon is a pretty strong word; I could have worded my title differently, but I believe that most of modern Jewry have, for all intents and purposes, left the fold. Only a small number of Jews are observant Jews, and I am not one of them. I decided to explore this question, and hopefully clarify for myself not just what it means to be a Jew, but what it means for me to be Jew. As you look at the lives of Jews whom you know, you might want to explore some of these issues with them. I am including some of my personal experiences as a Jew, and I will leave you to determine the legitimacy of my claims.
First, I was raised in a nearly secular family. We rarely if ever discussed G-d. I don’t even know if my father believed in G-d. Although my mother occasionally mentioned G-d, her level of belief (if at all) was unclear. Both my parents were raised in broken homes, with some version of Judaism that might have included keeping kosher, but I honestly don’t know if they observed any of the holidays. I know that my father read Hebrew, but I just now realize that I don’t know if he was a bar mitzvah. And both my parents have died. When I asked my father why he grudgingly went to synagogue on the High Holidays, he said he didn’t need to go there to experience G-d. Whether he experienced G-d elsewhere I’ll never know.
More
I am continually dismayed by the level of fear, contempt, and anger that many educated/urban/upper-middle-class people demonstrate toward Christians and rural people (especially southerners). This complex of negative emotions often greatly exceeds anything that these same people feel toward radical Islamists or dangerous rogue-state governments. I’m not a Christian myself, but I’d think that one would be a lot more worried about people who want to cut your head off, blow you up, or at a bare minimum shut down your freedom of speech than about people who want to talk to you about Jesus (or Nascar!)
Dennis Prager
A week ago the Israeli Knesset froze implementing a plan to open a new mixed-gender prayer area at Jerusalem’s Western Wall. Originally the change had been endorsed, even by the ultra-Orthodox Jews, but the effort was shut down at the last minute. Not only was Israel’s political Left furious, but our American Jewish Left was, too, making subtle threats over financial support of Israel.
I have a friend, a dear and kind man. He’s not an intellectual, neither atheist nor agnostic; in fact, I’m sure he does not even know what an agnostic is. (I’m not sure I do either, except that I think I’m one.) He’s Christian and accomplished, but not highly educated. He’s hardcore blue collar, the son of a farmer. Yet despite all this, he’s of the Left. It seems incongruous, but that’s what he is. He doesn’t hate conservatives, he just believes that the Left shows a more empathetic way; a kinder way. In his world, life is hard, and harder for some than for others. Government, to him, seems the best and most efficient way to soften life’s edges and help those who have it tough. To him, that is progress. Republicans impede that progression in his view: they oppose funding; they oppose welfare programs; they oppose everything. In his mind, it’s always about money for the Right. Dirty pieces of paper with pictures of dead men on them.
Radical academia strikes again
There was a time when the rate of crimes committed by blacks was within two percentage points as those committed by whites. And both were below 15 percent. There was a time when the murder rate among blacks was almost identical to that of whites and they were both below 14 percent. Likewise, there was a time when the percentage of children born out of wedlock among blacks was almost identical to that of whites. And they were both under 16 percent.
Growing up, my South African father used to remind us American kids that “There are only two types of people in the world: Jews and anti-semites.” This used to upset us terribly. It’s patently false, we would think. Our experience shows our society to be tolerant and kind. Where in the United States is friendlier and more welcoming than suburban Atlanta? Of course, the specter of 
A few years ago I got sucked into a LinkedIn college alumni chat group where political discussions were going on. For the most part, the participants were smart, articulate adults, not college students, all of whom, moreover, had endured the famously rigorous classical core curriculum of our alma mater. Nonetheless, in due course, every Media Matters talking point and lunatic piece of campus-Marxist SJW nonsense was trotted out one by one and presented as revealed truth requiring no further proof. These debates — which were heated but civil by Internet standards — went on for close to two years before they finally succumbed to a combination of acrimony and the meddling and censorship of the university’s busybody apparatchiks who ran the thing. Apparently, people don’t like to have their core beliefs about the world subjected to critical scrutiny and found wanting. No minds were changed. It was, on the whole, a depressing experience.