Replacement We Can Believe In
The country seems to be divided these days (amongst other ways, admittedly) into those concerned by cancellation and those concerned with replacement. As a Venn diagram, these are not mutually exclusive, but let’s talk about “replacement” in general and a species of that genus — namely the fear that some have voiced about not be replaced by Jews.
Let’s begin with the obvious. We all get replaced. Some earlier than others. Some more completely than others, but we all get replaced: the space your ancestors lived on; the chair the previous worker occupied; a coastal village below sea level. A family of Greek immigrants lives in the apartment I grew up in, and as I write, the house we then moved to and sold last October when my father died at 100 is being remodeled for new owners.
Go looking for the landmarks of your youth: the sporting goods store, the candy shop, the local theatre, the Ben Franklin or the A & P. The First National Bank. All replaced by condos and coffee shops, by parking lots and multiplexes, vegan boutiques and conglomerate multinationals. If you walked down even the pre-pandemic, downtown main street of my youth, you’d have seen empty storefront after empty storefront, commercial tax base and social activity replaced by…a void. Across America, in large towns and small, and especially rural America, there are empty and rotting former industrial sites, grain silos and mills, schools, and doctor’s offices, and hospitals. Entire towns are being replaced as they slowly wither and die, while new ones spring up far away.
Then there is birthrate itself. According to Statista numbers published in January for fertility rates through 2018, Hawaiians and Native Islanders have the highest annual fertility rate in the U.S. at 2.106 births, followed by Hispanics at 1.9595, Black non-Hispanics at 1.792; American Indian and Alaskan Natives at 1.650; White (non-Hispanics) at a comparable 1.640, and Asians at 1.525. However, according to the UN Population Division, only a total fertility rate (TFR) above 2.1 children can be called, replacement level fertility. So only our Pacific Islander population, working at 100% of current capacity, is going to be replacing their own demographic, much less replacing anyone else’s.
Which brings us to the Jews (and if you’re Jewish, believe me, you’re thinking, “What took them so long?”). There are roughly 7 million of us in America, making up just a tad more than 2% of the population. The amount of procreation that would need to take place in this community to replace any other demographic is frightening even to just contemplate. When would there be time for arguing? According to a comprehensive Pew Research Center study in 2013, non-Orthodox Jewish women up to age 40, had a TFR of 1.5 — lower than any domestic racial group as a whole. (If you’re worried about being replaced by Ultra-Orthodox or Orthodox Jews, forget it; they are completely uninterested. They are completely uninterested even in other Jews, people they consider basically to be Unitarians, and the idea of replacing even them is absolutely unthinkable.) And 11% of American Jews are Ultra-, Orthodox, or Modern-Orthodox. This drops the “replacers” pool to 6.2 million.
And who exactly would we be replacing? I don’t think you’re going to get a lot of takers for replacing the Sweethearts of Sigma Chi and their tiki torch-marching ilk among rank and file Jews. Call me crazy, but I am quite confident that if the world suddenly runs out of live models for “Camp Auschwitz” hoodies, no Jew is going to cry a crocodile tear and rush in to take that place. This is a demographic we can let go extinct.
Besides, what is the one, overriding worry of Jews — other than the systematic closing of reasonably priced, Kosher delis and private school tuition? You guessed it. The replacement of Jews! By Jews! Self-replacement of intermarriage and assimilation. (There are two subsets: Jews that worries about being replaced at Ivy League Schools by Asians, and TV writers being replaced by everybody, but these are for another day.)
So, here is what’s really important about replacement. We need to replace conspiracy and suspicion that’s spread through ignorance, fear, and insularity. We need to acknowledge that along with the five alarm fires of Covid-19, global warming, racial injustice, and economic disparity, there’s a Marshall Plan needed for public education so that our replacement generations can be adequately educated and broadened to take on all coming challenges to the smooth evolution of the American Experiment into the coming centuries. We cannot deport and suppress our way into a fantasy future based on ethnic supremacy. That ship has sailed, and there is no port of re-entry. Time, instead, for all hands to grab the oars and start pulling in a positive and productive direction.
