NAOMI LEVIN

THE first round of results are in and Australia’s Jewish community is set to discover more than it ever knew about itself.

The preliminary findings from the Jewish Population Study were launched this week by Monash University’s Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation.

The study’s lead author Professor Andrew Markus said the findings provided a “rich insight into the various subgroups within the Jewish population, ranging from the strictly Orthodox to the disconnected”.

“We have been actively working on this project for more than two years, beginning with the establishment of advisory committees, proceeding to focus group discussions, finalising the content of the questionnaire, pilot testing, more than six months of surveying and then three months for this first stage of data analysis,” he said.

The result is a comprehensive overview of Jewish community attitudes on everything from Israel to education and from anti-Semitism to Jewish identity.

Prof Markus said the study had received tremendous support from community partners — both individuals and organisations.

“The fact that so many people have been involved in making the survey possible is itself a telling statement about Jewish life today,” he said.

One of the key community partners in the survey was Victoria’s Jewish Care, which was with Monash from the beginning.Jewish Care’s involvement also helped attract additional funding for the study and chief executive officer Bruce Salvin said he was pleased with its progress, particularly its success in attracting a substantial number of marginalised or unaffiliated respondents.

“From our current understanding there appears to be some very interesting and useful information from the survey and we look forward to analysing it in greater detail,” Salvin said.

Other community organisations, including the survey’s NSW partner, the Jewish Communal Appeal, are also expected to use the findings in their operations.

As expected, the study contains a range of interesting findings. Prof Markus said working on the survey brought up new discoveries all the time.

“I approach survey work with an open mind so in a sense all of the findings come as a surprise, the more so because it is nearly 20 years since the last major survey was undertaken [and] there was no recent data to inform our expectations.”