Imagining the American Jewish Community (2025)

“Painting a New Picture of American Jewry.” A Portrait of the American Jewish Community book review

Reconstruction, 2003

“Painting a New Picture of American Jewry.” A Portrait of the American Jewish Community. (Norman Linzer, et al.) Reconstruction (Fall 2003): Vol. 3, No. 4. http://reconstruction.eserver.org/BReviews/revPortaitAm.html. [site no longer functional]

Beyond Ambivalence: (Re)imagining Jewish American Culture; or, ‘Isn’t that the way the old assimilated story goes?’

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Illuminating the Path to Vibrant American Jewish Communities

Springer eBooks, 2022

Studies of Jews in Society focuses on social scientific studies of Jewry, and takes a broad perspective on "social science", to include anthropology, communications, demography, economics, education, ethnography, geography, history, politics, population, social psychology, and sociology. Books may rely on quantitative methods, qualitative methods, or both. The series is directed to social scientists and general scholars in Jewish studies as well as those generally interested in religion and ethnicity; academics who teach Jewish studies; undergraduates and graduate students in Jewish studies, sociologists interested in religion and ethnicity; communal professionals and lay leaders who deal with Jewish organizations and individuals. The style, while rigorous scientifically, is accessible to a general audience.

Reframing the study of contemporary American Jewish Identity

Contemporary Jewry, 2002

The 30-year enterprise of studying American Jewish identification and involvement in Jewish life has been based mainly on sociodemographic surveys. These surveys have tracked the activity levels of Jewish individuals in terms of ritual practice, cultural and educational involvements and institutional affiliations, philanthropic giving, and friendship networks, but they have not looked directly at Jewish identity as understood in the psychological sense. The bulk of the research about American Jewish identity during this period has centered on the question, How Jewish are American Jews, whether in comparison to other American ethnic groups (in terms of structural distinctiveness), in comparison to Jews of prior generations, or in comparison to an idealized way of being Jewish. Yet it is more apparent than ever that the important issues about the nature of contemporary American Jewishness fall along a different frontier. A new question has emerged. How are American Jews Jewish? In what ways, if any do they connect to Jewishness and Judaism? American Jewry is more diverse and dispersed than before, and the Jewish group in America today is characterized by a degree of integration and social acceptance that contrasts sharply to the situation 50 years ago or to Europe in the 18 century. In this new environment no one is either forced to be Jewish or to escape from being Jewish. The dynamic of acceptance versus rejection or belligerence regarding one’s Jewishness has been replaced by a dynamic of finding Jewishness to be meaningful or remaining indifferent to it. Jewish continuity of the group as a whole has come to depend on the individual’s commitments and decision-making. For this reason, in addition to looking at Jewish practices and involvements in Jewish life, it is essential to examine the subjective, inner experience of being Jewish.

U.S. Jewish Community Studies: Eight Response Arguments

Contemporary Jewry, 2016

In response to the main papers in this volume eight main arguments are presented: 1. National vs. global perspectives underlying the quantitative and qualitative fundamentals; 2. Problems in assessing Jewish populations; 3. Queries about local survey quality and comparability; 4. Socio-cultural drivers; 5. Socialstructural drivers; 6. A more transnational American Jewry; 7. Let's look forward: the missing longitudinal approach; 8. Some policy implications. Keywords Jewish population studies Á American Jewry Á Demography Á Jewish identity Á Research techniques The fine collection of essays on Jewish community studies in this issue of Contemporary Jewry elicits eight main response arguments. 1. National versus global perspectives underlying the quantitative and qualitative fundamentals. There exist two different Jewish demographies in the United States. Each is related to a different concept of the essence and meaning of being Jewish in America and of the American Jewish community within the changing American religious landscape (Rebhun 2016). On the one hand, Jews in America can be subsumed as a component of the broader American society. Jews stand out from the rest of society if they evidence a certain minimum amount of cultural or religious markers attributable to Judaism-a tradition not explicitly American, though increasingly recognized as compatible with, if not part of the American mainstream. On the other hand, Jews in America can be subsumed as a component of a broader transnational Jewish collective. Jews, in this case, stand out from the rest of American society if they evidence a sufficient amount of cultural and religious markers shared by Jews elsewhere-or if they do not display markers that are

Refraiming the study of contemporary American Jewish Identity

Contemporary Jewry, 2002

The Politics and Public Culture of American Jews (review)

Modern Judaism, 2000

Michael Marmur and ‎David Ellenson, “Introduction,” in Michael Marmur and ‎David Ellenson, eds., in American Jewish Thought Since 1934: Writings on Identity, Engagement, and Belief (Waltham, Mass: Brandeis University Press, 2020), xvii-xxx

Reconsidering the Size and Characteristics of the American Jewish Population

2007

who were each unfailingly generous in their willingness to give us feedback and "talk through" issues discussed in this report. Finally, we want to express our appreciation to Brandeis University President Jehuda Reinharz and Provost Marty Krauss. They create an extraordinary environment in which to do our scholarly work and have been exceptionally supportive of the Steinhardt Institute.

*American Jewish Thought Since 1934: Writings on Identity, Engagement, and Belief*, eds. Michael Marmur and ‎David Ellenson (Waltham, Mass: Brandeis University Press, 2020)