Local Jewish Community Studies Research Articles

Social Science and Consensus in Estimates of the US Jewish Population: Response to Sasson and DellaPergola

In response to Isaac Sasson and Sergio DellaPergola’s commentaries on our assessment of the validity of the Pew Research Center's 2020 estimate of 7.5 million US Jewish adults and children (Tighe et al. 2022), we address key points of agreement and contention in the validity of the estimate; in particular, how the Jewish population is identified and defined. We argue that Pew’s definition of the Jewish population is consistent with major studies of American Jewry, from NJPS 1990 to recent local Jewish community studies. Applying a consistent definition that includes the growing group of “Jews of no religion” with one Jewish parent, as Pew Research Center does, allows for a faithful comparison across national and local studies and a more accurate understanding of levels of Jewish engagement and expressions of Jewish identity.

Social Class and Social Cohesion among American Jews

Background Distinctions in social class and their implications for social cohesion have periodically emerged among American Jews, but they largely receded in the last quarter of the 20th century as most Jews reached middle and upper class status. The connections between them have received little attention since then. Purpose We revisit the relationship between social class and social cohesion among American Jews. Though American Jews have been disproportionately located in the middle and upper social classes for many decades, they are nonetheless still stratified internally by social class distinctions. Our research asks: are the social class distinctions that continue to stratify American Jews related to their social cohesion? Methods We use data from 27 local Jewish community studies pooled into one data file with 24,733 cases. We measure social class with a bi-directional index composed of income and education, and we measure social cohesion with a question on feeling part of the local Jewish community. We analyze these data using generalized linear mixed models that adjust for clustering by community and specify a cumulative logit link for ordinal outcomes. Our models include other predictors of social cohesion and interaction terms between social class and the other predictors. We also calculate model-based probabilities for dependent variable outcomes. Results Modest, positive relationships are found between social class and social cohesion. As social class status increases, so too do felt connections to the local Jewish community. Social class also variably interacts with every other predictor, strengthening the relationship between social class and social cohesion among certain subsegments of the population and reducing it among others. Conclusions and implications Even as American Jews are disproportionately located in the middle and upper social classes, social class continues to stratify them, to modestly reduce the group's overall social cohesion, and to concentrate social cohesion among those with higher social class status. The relationship between social class and social cohesion has implications for social class bias in the processes and dynamics of the organized Jewish community that warrant further research.

Jews, Jewish Institutions, and the Construction of Identity in Changing American Cities and Urban Neighborhoods

The restructuring of the American economy in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has implications for the local geographies and social structure of Jewish life. Jewish urban population growth has been associated with the expansion of professional workplaces in such fields as higher education, medicine, and finance in the American world cities of the global professional service economy. As well, Orthodox populations concentrated in urban neighborhoods have grown. These changes have been taking place in the urban cores of metropolitan areas with large Jewish populations and also in some with smaller ones. Data from 20 local Jewish community studies indicate an increase in urban Jewish population, often at a faster rate than in the federation area as a whole, and in many cases, these indicate that Jews have been becoming a larger fraction of total local urban population. Available data from various sources allow a preliminary exploration of the emergent significance of the increased urban Jewish presence for the social construction of identity. The exploration considers neighborhood relations in Orthodox enclaves, the values and preference of highly educated professionals, cosmopolitanism as an outlook and an urban neighborhood characteristic, the role of urban Jewish institutions in identity construction, and economic challenges facing residents and institutions in thriving urban centers. Areas of future research are suggested.

Religious Diversity and Religious Participation in U.S. Jewish Communities

This article examines variations in Jewish denominational identification (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Just Jewish) among fifty-five U.S. Jewish communities completing local Jewish community studies from 1993 through 2011. We relate these variations to levels of religious and ethnic participation, contributing to the literature on how and whether religious pluralism relates to religious and ethnic participation. First, five denominational clusters are created via k-means cluster analysis (high Orthodox; equal, except Orthodox; high Reform; high Reform/low Just Jewish; and high Just Jewish). We then examine differences in geographic and demographic factors and in levels of religious participation among these denominational clusters. Second, various indexes of Jewish denominational diversity (index of dissimilarity, Shannon Index, Simpson Index, and largest group) are developed. The relationship of the level of Jewish denominational diversity to religious and ethnic participation is explored. The basic finding is that more Jewish denominational diversity does result in higher levels of religious participation but not ethnic participation.

The Challenges of Local Jewish Community Studies: An Introduction

Local Jewish community studies face a range of methodological and communal challenges. The methodological challenges reflect larger difficulties facing the survey research industry as a whole, combined with the task of surveying a rare population. Numerous communal developments - including greater pressures for research-driven planning and policy making, increasing expectations of institutional transparency, and a fragmented philanthropic environment - complicate the mobilization of financial and social support for local studies and their operational implementation. Despite these challenges, demand for Jewish community studies remains strong, a testament to the critical information they provide local communities. Responding to this demand, researchers who specialize in local community studies bring varied and competing strategic approaches, methodologies and innovations to community studies, as illustrated in a set of articles and responses presented in this issue of Contemporary Jewry. Going forward, local Jewish community studies - standing squarely at the intersection of research and community - are likely to remain complex and valuable projects.

Good Practices in Local Jewish Community Studies

Survey research is both an art and a science. Once the issues to be addressed by a local Jewish community study are defined, one has to deal with questions of sampling, selecting a survey mechanism, designing a questionnaire, producing reports, and presenting results. This paper deals with various aspects of these four major components of conducting a local Jewish community study. Note that the title of this paper refers to “good practices” and not “best practices.” This is mainly a reflection of the fact that all local Jewish community studies are conducted within an environment of limited financial resources. Best practices would require a much larger budget than Jewish federations can muster for such projects. This paper argues for three things: (1) the importance of using a random digit dialing telephone survey to produce a probability sample that can be used to represent the entire Jewish population and to estimate the size of the Jewish population, (2) the importance, while meeting the specific needs of the community commissioning a given study, of maintaining comparability with other studies, and (3) the need to produce reports that communicate all the results to the community.

Deficient, If Not Distorted: Jewish Community Studies That Totally Rely upon Known Jewish Households

In recent years, responding to new challenges and rising costs, local Jewish community studies have increasingly moved to eliminate a Random Digit Dial (RDD) component or functional equivalent thereof. Using the Jewish Community Study of New York 2011, this paper contrasts RDD respondents with those appearing on the expanded Federation lists (Fedlist) and Distinctive Jewish Name (DJN) respondents. The analysis demonstrates wide differences separating Fedlist from other respondents. Hence, conducting studies of the Jewish population that omit a significant RDD component are quite often deficient and distorted. They ignore and downplay important population groups. The biases are far from random, but systematic and overlapping, as many features of Jewish marginality are underplayed. Without sufficient caveats, such studies can also become deceptive and destructive. They are deceptive in that they feed and reinforce understandable yet misleading stereotypes of the Jewish population. All such studies need to be publicized with huge warning labels prominently displayed on the press releases and report. They are destructive in that they would seduce leadership into feeling self-satisfied in seeing a Jewish population that is relatively well-connected Jewishly and not all that needy socially and economically. Ideally, all Jewish community studies should contain a Random Digit Dialing component so as to allow “unknown” Jews to be known and visible. In the event that such is not the case, researchers should strongly and repeatedly reinforce the message that their results and analyses pertain only to those Jews most connected and most visible to the organized Jewish community.

‘All Politics is Local’: Challenges in the Study of Local Jewish Communities

Jews are a small proportion of the overall population and local community surveys are inherently challenging to conduct. Until recently, primary sample random digit dialing (RDD) surveys have been the preferred approach. But the proliferation of cellphones and declining response rates make RDD extremely expensive. The result is that communities who use RDD end up relying on small and/or biased samples. To overcome these challenges, the authors have developed a multi-method approach. It relies on cross-survey synthesis of extant RDD survey data that yields, along with significant cost savings, a more comprehensive sample. The approach also utilizes a broad list-based sample that goes beyond local federation lists and includes multiple other organizations. To maximize response rates, surveys are fielded both by phone and email. Finally, to correct for sample bias, adjustments are made using census-like data on organizational memberships and enrollments. In a series of four local Jewish community studies, the use of multiple methods has produced results that can be cross-validated against known data about the local Jewish community and known information that describes the local community context. Responding to the challenges posed by local Jewish community studies requires being transparent about the strengths and weaknesses of the methods used, while being responsive to the questions posed by communal sponsors.

Financial Constraints on Intensive Jewish Education: The Interactive Effects of Financial Capacity and Jewish Connections

This paper examines the independent and interactive effects of financial capacity and Jewish connections on reported constraints in purchasing two intensive forms of Jewish education, day school and overnight summer camp. The analysis is structured around three hypotheses: (1) financial capacity is inversely related to constraints on Jewish education; (2) Jewish connections increase or decrease the level at which financial capacity determines financial constraints on Jewish education; (3) the strength of the inverse relationship between financial capacity and financial constraints on Jewish education varies by the strength of Jewish connections. We merge data from 13 local Jewish community studies to test the hypotheses with bivariate crosstabulations and multivariate logistic regression models. We assess the empirical evidence as showing moderately strong, though admittedly variable, support for our three hypotheses. The most robust support for the hypotheses comes in the case of financial constraints on Jewish day school education, with less consistent support when modeling constraints on Jewish summer camp. A final section highlights and integrates the main findings and concludes with several strategic and normative considerations.

Uses of Local Jewish Community Study Data for Addressing National Concerns

This paper argues that local Jewish community studies have much to contribute, not only at the local level, but also to the national discussion of American Jewry. Local communities have invested significant resources executing local Jewish community studies because the results contribute much to the understanding of, and planning for, individual communities. In an era when no national study has been completed for more than a decade, researchers should make more use of the significant number of extant local Jewish community studies. Examples are provided of the utilization of local Jewish community study data in the examination of national issues.

Attachment of American Jews to Israel: Perspectives from Local Jewish Community Studies

This paper: (1) examines two “distancing hypotheses” concerning the extent to which distancing from Israel has or has not been occurring in American Jewish society; and, (2) describes and explains geographic variations in levels of attachment to Israel. Distancing Hypothesis I states that younger Jews are less attached to Israel than are older Jews. Distancing Hypothesis II states that the overall attachment of American Jews to Israel has been decreasing over time. Evidence on the distancing hypothesis from national studies of American Jews is briefly reviewed to show that researchers have been unable to agree on a conclusion. Evidence from as many as 37 local Jewish community studies shows support for Distancing Hypothesis I, but the strength of this support varies among communities. Evidence from local community studies, however, does not support Distancing Hypothesis II and sometimes shows the reverse. An implication is that some of the Jewish continuity programming, such as Birthright Israel, may be impacting American Jews. Level of attachment to Israel, whether measured by visits to Israel, willingness to send one’s teenagers to Israel, emotional attachment to Israel, or the extent to which respondents indicate that Israel motivates their donations to Jewish organizations, varies significantly by community. These geographic variations by community can be explained, in part, by community variations in the percentage of married couples who are intermarried, percentage Just Jewish, percentage Orthodox, percentage age 18–34, percentage elderly, and the year each study was conducted.

The Contours of Canadian Jewish Life

Though a small minority (approximately 1% of the Canadian population), Jews have been important in shaping Canadian culture and identity and have had an open presence in the country since 1760. This paper seeks to provide an historical overview of the immigration and settlement of Jews into Canada and the subsequent growth and development of the community. Using recent Canada census data and local Jewish community studies, it identifies key demographic features of contemporary Jewish life and, where possible, compares this to the United States. The paper paints a picture of Jews as fulfilling the twin promise of Canadian multiculturalism: they have been successful in integrating into larger Canadian society while at the same time retaining a vibrant internal Jewish religion and culture. By outlining current issues and trends in Jewish life in Canada, this work demonstrates the growth and maturation of the Canadian Jewish community. The paper moves beyond the outdated “time-lag” theory in order to explain the more traditional nature of Canadian Jewry compared to the United States. It identifies a range of other historical, political and geographical factors to account for this difference.

A Geographical Approach to an Analysis of the Distancing Hypothesis

This paper reacts to the Sasson–Kadushin–Saxe and Cohen–Kelman papers on distancing of American Jews from Israel. I argue that the problem with both of these papers is that they utilize data from a consumer panel. These data are clearly not a random sample of American Jews. I further argue that data from local Jewish community studies have much to say about the issue, revealing that distancing is occurring to different degrees in different American Jewish communities.

Comparisons between local Jewish community studies and the 2000–01 national Jewish population survey

About 50 Jewish federations completed local community studies from 1985 to 2003. This paper provides guidance to researchers wishing to compare local community study results with one another and with results of the National Jewish Population Survey 2000–01. If these comparisons are to be properly interpreted, an understanding of the varying purposes and methodologies of local community studies and NJPS 2000–01 is necessary. This paper concludes that more can be learned by comparing local community study results with one another than with NJPS 2000–01 results.