The contemporary jewish studies of marshall sklare

Abstract

By virtue of his first book, published more than 20 years ago, Marshall Sklare became the leading spokesman for the sociological study of contemporary American Jewry. He began that book—on Conservative Judaism—with the statement that much of the territory on contemporary Jewish religious movements constituted a terra incognita, though abundant material on historical aspects of the Jewish com munity existed (1955a: 15). More than any other individual, Sklare has been responsible for the development of the sociological study of Jewry. As another writer (Singer, 1975) has stated, "Sklare can be credited with almost single-handedly establishing 'contemporary Jewish studies.' " While not the field's only researcher —as Sklare himself notes in a recent essay—he has been the field's major researcher and teacher, as well as its leading spokesman. Further, he has published more prolifically and taught specifically in the area of contemporary Jewish studies (and especially the sociology of Jewry) longer than any other individual. As Sklare notes in his recent essay (1974d), there have been several approaches to the sociological study of Jewry: (1) the assimilationist approach, represented by pre-World War II Jewish sociologists who viewed American Jews "as a dying people whose existence is artificially prolonged by Gentile prejudice," and focused on ways of easing the Jews' redefinition of themselves from "Jew" to "secularist"; (2) the critical intellectual approach, represented by post-World War II, left-oriented, Jewish sociologists who viewed American Jews "as a reprehensible group which has succumbed to corruptions resulting from newly achieved class position," and praised the ghetto's "sense of community" and "left-orientation" while criticizing the current community; (3) the survivalist approach, represented by a 1950s-'70s group varying widely in Jewish commitment, being neither assimilationists nor critics per se, but focusing on identity problems of contemporary American Jewry from a pluralistic perspective (p. 165). The distinctions among these categories are not clear cut but, not adhering strictly to the suggested time sequence, are accurate overall categorizations. Sklare clearly falls into the survivalist category. Assimilationists are not interested in developing a sociology of Jewry; rather, they explain why such a sociology should not exist. The critical intellectuals, while committed to Jewish identity (but probably more universalistic than they recognize), are more concerned with criticizing than with comprehensively analyzing. On the