Silent Holocaust (Hebrew: שואה שקטה|Shoah Shketa, sometimes called "another holocaust" or a "second holocaust") is a controversial expression that has been used with various meanings, and is used by certain Jewish communal and religious leaders to describe Jewish assimilation (cultural assimilation, religious assimilation) and interfaith marriages between Jews and gentiles.[1] [2] The term compares the resulting demographic effects (decrease in the Jewish population) to the Holocaust of Europe's Jews during World War II resulting in the genocide of six million Jews. Communal leaders, such as Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald of the National Jewish Outreach Program, popularized the phrase.[3] [4]
The word silent is meant to evoke a state of shock due to the fact that millions of Jews are freely choosing to leave Judaism. For some, the loss of millions of Jewish coreligionists is deemed serious enough to be called a holocaust (meaning a "wholesale sacrifice or destruction".)[5]
Some Jewish communal leaders, such as Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald of the National Jewish Outreach Program in New York, refer to the assimilation of Jews into non-Jewish societies as a type of Holocaust. Since World War II, assimilation has been the leading cause of Jewish population decline in Western countries. Buchwald said in 1992 that the Jewish community would not be recognizable in 25 to 30 years.[6] According to the 2000—2001 National Jewish Population Survey, from 1996, 47% of American Jews married a non-Jew. The NJPS survey claims that higher levels of education are associated with lower levels of intermarriage.[7] [8]