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This is exactly what I was wishing and hoping for, thank you very much for writing and posting it!

it's pretty grim trying to scrabble together a living by acting as quarter-time rabbi for two or three different small communities, plus free-lance funerals and the odd paid radio or TV gig.

This is really interesting, because it's a basically identical trend to that in a lot of 'creative' occupations (it might also be true in non-creative ones, but I don't have as much exposure to them!) - design, writing, that sort of thing have all been moving from salaried positions to freelancing, with the same effect of low security and wages. The specific demographic issue of small-and-shrinking provincial communities is not the same, of course, but I wonder if this is part of a much broader trend in the way people think about employment generally.

I didn't realise that so many kids going to Jewish schools was a relatively recent thing! I can never make up my mind about religious schools - like you, I am a firm multiculturalist but I feel British schools are pretty default-Christian (when term breaks are, that sort of thing), although that's based on vague impressions talking to my friends who are parents, and could be wrong.

Re: conversions and Israel, I knew about the Orthodox status issues around who-gets-to-be-Jewish were affecting marriages, but I didn't realise how much that was feeding how much young Jewish people are encouraged to socialise with each other/not assimilate - that's quite interesting!

I mean, if communities throw out their members for marrying a non-Jew, it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy that any offspring the couple have are not going to feel engaged in the Jewish community! But the fact of having a non-Jewish spouse is blamed instead of the actual problem, namely the community's rejection of them and their kids.

Well, quite. This is one thing that has always genuinely puzzled me, as with most Orthodox-y issues I'm not fussed about I can see *why* they're doing what they're doing (alienating women with a giant fuck-off mechitza is great if your goal is to have fewer women involved in public life in your community!), but with this one they're going "we'll solve the demographics problem by driving people out of the community!" Um, good luck with that?

I have lots of thoughts on many other parts of this but it's dinnertime - thank you again for putting this up!