A long time ago, in the prehistoric days of pre-Pew-study Jewish community research, I wrote an article about "the mystery of the fifth Jew". This individual, the "fifth Jew", is to be found "in almost every sample" when Jewish surveys are conducted. My article mentioned a number of examples. "In a previous AJC survey, 18 percent of respondents said that they felt 'somewhat distant' emotionally from Israel… when American Jews are asked whether the goal of the Arabs is ‘the destruction of Israel’, 78 percent say yes, and 18 percent say no… Nineteen percent said that they would never speak about Israel or defend it in non-Jewish company". My fifth-Jew article was mostly concerned with the Israel connection, but I was reminded of it as I was reading an article by Tamar Frydman about the "fifth son at the Seder" – the son that "is missing; he is the one that doesn’t even come to the table".
Frydman refers in her article to the "downward trend in seder participation". The New York Jewish community study, for example, found that "more households in 2011 never participate in a Seder (14% in 2011, up from 8% in 2002)". In another article, Steve Lipman listed a number of similar findings about the Seder "losing steam". The studies still report a high attendance of Jews in the Seder: "The 2013 National Jewish Population Survey: 68 percent. The 2013 Pew Forum report: 70 percent. The 2011 UJA-Federation Jewish Community Study: 69 percent. The Jewish Federation of Atlanta’s 2006 Jewish Community Centennial Study: 62 percent. In California’s East Bay, which has a reputation as a particularly liberal area, a 2011 study found that exactly half of the Jewish community goes to a seder". Yet all these surveys "share the conclusion that the seder, which ranks with Chanukah candles and the Yom Kippur fast at the top of Jews’ observance list, has lost its drawing power and its status as a not-to-be-missed event."
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