American jewry: Survival or revival?

Abstract

A sociological analysis of American Jewry is the subject of these two books. Both books go beyond the usual discussion of assimilation and present us with analytical descriptions of the development and current state of Jewish life in the United States. Steven Cohen's book can be seen as two books in one. In the first part of his book he delineates his "modernization perspective." in which he draws "instructive parallels" from the responses of past Jewish communities in Europe to modernization and the present situation in this country. In the second part of his book, chapters 3 through 8, he analyzes generational change in religious practices and Jewish identification based primarily on an analysis of surveys of Boston Jews in 1965 (N = 1,569) and 1975 (N = 934) viewed through the lens of his modernization perspective. Co hen concludes that the Jewish response to modernity was a reformulation of religious practices and beliefs to comport with the demands of modern thinking. "The vast majority of Western Jews... to integrate into the social mainstream sharply reduced the scope and intensity of their subcultural involvement. Second, so as to survive as Jews, they innovated new modes of Jewish identity and community." Thus, according to Cohen, first-gener ation Jews tended to be Orthodox, and thirdand fourth-generation Jews