I need a source to support a dating report. In the early 90's I heard
from many sources that the divorce rate for Orthodox Jews was 2%. I
need 1 published source (1970's, 1980's, 1990's) that supports that
statistic.
I found a report from the Orthodox Union from 1999 that has a 3%
divorce rate, but the information I heard was 7 years before that -
and it was 2%. I specifically need a source for the 2% rate.

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Request for Question Clarification by ragingacademic-ga on 09 Mar 2003 18:58 PST

Dear dotherightthing,

Thanks for your question.  First, let me request that if any of the
following is unclear or if you require any further research – please
don’t hesitate to ask me for a clarification.

I have not been able to locate a source that supports a 2% claim – the
closest I could come was a similar – unsubstantiated – claim for
“orthodox” Christians –

“There are unsubstantiated claims that the divorce rate for Christians
who attended church regularly, pray together or who meet other
conditions is only 1 or 2 percent.”

In fact, it seems that even the 3% rate is questionable – 

“The Orthodox divorce rate of between 5-10% is a crisis”

http://www.shamash.org/listarchives/mail.liberal-judaism/digests/Volume8/v8n30.archive

This is further supported by the following article –

A May 26 1996 article in the Baltimore Sun titled “Of all the
mysterious statements in the Talmud” estimates the orthodox jew
divorce rate at about 5%.

The overall divorce rate for Jews in Israel is at 38% and rising –

http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:PC1JCRWTO9EC:www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/01/11/News/News.19197.html+%22jewish+divorce+rate%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Samuel Heilman, reviewing “A certain people: American Jews and their
lives today” by Silberman in The New Leader writes:
“In 1971 the National Jewish Population Survey found that in the
25-29-year-old group, 15 per cent of the households consisted of
separated or divorced individuals. Over the last 25 years, the
proportion of the Jewish Family Service caseload involving separation
and divorce has gone from 5 to 30 per cent. The Orthodox are part of
the pattern: In one rabbi in the Beth Din (Jewish Court) spent half
his time on divorces, three rabbis are dealing with them full time and
are overworked. More to the point, relatively few Jewish couples
dissolving their marriages go to a Beth Din and traditionalists view
secular divorces as "illegal" in terms of Jewish law, creating great
difficulty when the question of remarriage within the faith arises.”
The 1972-78 National Opinion Research Center survey indicates that
“the U.S. Jewish divorce (rate) remains the lowest of the three major
religions. But the highest Jewish rate occurs in the 35-44-year-old
age group (10 per cent).”   This is for Jews as a whole, not just for
orthodox Jews.
Albeit intensive searching, I was not able to locate a source that
would corroborate what you remember hearing years ago.

If this is satisfactory as an answer, please let me know and I will
post it as such.

Thanks,
ragingacademic-ga


References:

The New Leader, Oct 7, 1985 v68 p16(4) 
A certain people: American Jews and their lives today. (book reviews)
Samuel Heilman.

The Sun, May 26, 1996
Of all the mysterious statements in the Talmud


Additional Links:

Percentage of Divorces in Selected Countries
http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsWorld.shtml

Bibliography of Jewish Divorce Studies
http://users.aol.com/agunah/bib-agun.htm


Search Strategy:

"orthodox divorce rate"
“jewish divorce rate”
“orthodox jews” and “divorce rate”
orthodox and “divorce rate”
etc.

Searched Google, Proquest, ABI Inform and other sources

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 09 Mar 2003 20:15 PST

Like my colleague, I, too, must post a clarification, rather than an
answer.  The most credible information I could find indicates divorce
rates are much higher than 2% -- I've cited a key source below. 
However, let me note that divorce rates -- usually expressed as a
percent of *marriages* -- is sometimes expressed, instead, as a
percent of the overall population.  That is, even if 50% of modern
marriages fail, only 10% of the population may actually be divorced
because (1) older marriages are still intact and (2) many people are
not yet married.

So, even if orthodox jewish divorce rates are much higher than 2% (as
they appear to be), it could be that only 2% of the orthodx jews are
actually divorced (I hope I'm stating this clearly -- it's not that
easy to get your arms around).

Anyway, the citation I mentioned is:

Hasidic People: A Place in the New World, 
Book by Jerome R. Mintz; Harvard University Press, 1992 

page 390:

"It is estimated that the general American divorce rate for marriages
made between 1970 and 1985 is 50 percent. Rates of divorce among
American Jews are somewhat lower, with approximately one of every
three or four marriages predicted to end in divorce. The percentages
scale downward depending on degree of religiousness, with close to 50
percent predicted for the general Jewish population in most urban
centers, while a quarter of modern Orthodox marriages are destined for
failure, and divorces among the ultraOrthodox will hover at over 10
percent. All the rates for divorce are the highest in the history of
Judaism. See Nathalie Friedman and Theresa F. Rogers , The Divorced
Parent and the Jewish Community ( New York: American Jewish Committee,
1985); Jay Y. Brodbar-Nemzer, "Divorce and Group Commitment: The Case
of the Jews," Journal of Marriage and the Family 48, May 1986, pp.
329-340; Greer Fay Cashman, "Making Marriage Work," Jerusalem Post,
July 17, 1989."

If any of these sources look useful to you, let me know and I may be
able to track them down.

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Clarification of Question by dotherightthing-ga on 10 Mar 2003 10:32 PST

Thank you for the excellent work, but it does not answer the question.
I specifically need support for the 2% figure - which looks like it
needs to be researched offline. If you are able to do more research
offline, please contact Warm Wisdom Press