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How Socially Integrated into Mainstream America are Young American Jews?

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Abstract

The degree to which Jews are or are not integrated into non-Jewish societies, and the consequences of this integration or the lack thereof, has been debated at least since the emancipation of Jews in the 18th century. As a contribution to this discussion, the present paper examines the social integration of young adult Jews into American society. Findings are based on social network analysis of data collected in the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University 2010 Jewish Futures Study as well as comparative data from other sources. First, ego network data are compared to a more conventional survey question about Jewish friends, revealing substantive differences in interpretation and distribution. Second, homophily index scores for young adults Jews are compared to those for young adults of other religions and are found to be similar. Third, the settings in which young adult Jews meet Jewish and non-Jewish friends and spouses are examined. The study finds that non-Jewish settings predominate in the lives of young adults, particularly as they grow older and separate from their Jewish family of origin. Non-Jewish spouses are more commonly met in college, graduate school, or the workplace, while Jewish spouses more commonly meet in childhood or through friends and family. The authors conclude that the creation of forums for meeting other young adult Jews should be a high priority on the Jewish communal agenda.

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Notes

  1. Subsequent to criticism from Cohen (1994), the figure was revised downward to 43 percent (Kotler-Berkowitz et al. 2004).

  2. Wording from the 2010 Jewish Futures Study (Saxe et al. 2011b). Other examples are the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01, Q229 (“How many of the people you consider to be your closest friends are Jewish? Would you say…None, Some, About half, Most, or All are Jewish?”) (United Jewish Communities 2003) and the National Jewish Population Survey 1990, Q117 (“Among the people you consider your closest friends, would you say that…None are Jewish, Few are Jewish, Some are Jewish, Most are Jewish, All or almost all are Jewish”) (Council of Jewish Federations 1991).

  3. For an introduction to social networks, see Kadushin (2011). For a discussion of the application of social networks to Jews, see Kadushin (2010).

  4. The current data set and codebook contains all the GSS questions and data 1972-2010 (Smith et al. 2011).

  5. For a discussion of the characteristics of this particular name generator and why it is appropriate for general purposes, see Marsden (1987).

  6. The data used here are the result of the same study as reported in Saxe et al. 2011. However, there were a small number of respondents (n < 30) who completed the survey too late to be included in the weighting process for the released report. These cases have now been included and weighted, and consequently, the response rate and number of cases reported here varies slightly from the figures reported in Saxe et al. 2011. In addition, because Saxe et al. 2011 was focused on measuring the impact of the Taglit program, respondents raised Orthodox were omitted from all analyses, since they have very low variance on most outcome measures of interest. However, such individuals are included in all analyses reported in this paper so that the extent to which religiousness impacts Jewish networks can be better assessed (See Appendix for these analyses).

  7. For analytic purposes, we removed seven respondents who gave more than one significant other (spouse, fiancé/e, etc.). If an alter was listed as both a spouse and a friend, only the spousal role was considered.

  8. There was no significant difference between Taglit participants and nonparticipants in regards to the number of their Jewish, non-family alters, and no significant difference between Taglit participants and nonparticipants on virtually all of the dozens of measures detailing how specific types of alters were met, discussed below. The only exceptions were in regards to how the respondent met his or her spouse. Taglit participants were significantly more likely to have met their spouse on a Taglit trip. In addition, Taglit participants were significantly more likely to have met their spouse in “some other way” that was not categorized. In all other respects Taglit participants and nonparticipants were not significantly different at the traditional 95 percent confidence level.

  9. A regression model isolates the impact of a single independent (“predictor”) variable on a given dependent variable while holding constant the effects of all other independent variables included in the model. In this case, both the “subjective” and “objective” measures of Jewish friendship circles were included as independent variables in a series of regression models.

  10. Marriage to a Jew was not included because the respondent’s spouse was invariably an alter in his or her non-family social network. Marriage to a Jew was therefore collinear with the objective social network variable, meaning that the two variables are measuring the same thing and should not be used to predict the other.

  11. For regression models, see Appendix.

  12. Recent Israel Census Bureau surveys that dealt with religion (2008, 2009), do not ask this question.

  13. GSS 2004 asked for the religion of up to five persons named in the ego network question. Using similar procedures used to analyze friends in the Jewish Futures Study, we matched same religion as the respondents for friends, excluding spouse and relatives, and calculated the mean who were Protestant, Catholic, or None. For Jews, we relied on our own survey that had a sufficient number to make the calculation. Only GSS respondents who were 23 through 36, white, and college-educated were studied.

  14. The 1988 and 1998 GSS using a somewhat different format also asked about the religion of up to five friends. Jews in our age bracket cannot be compared with current figures because there was only one respondent. For all Jews (n = 52) Hi was .70. The Hi score for Protestants was lower at .33, Catholics were higher at .51 and “Nones” were also higher at .24. Jews today may generally be more socially integrated into the United States than they were 20 years ago. Protestant fundamentalism may have lead to somewhat greater homophily today while Catholics are following the Jewish tendency toward greater integration. GSS 1988 and 1998 asked the ego network questions slightly differently than GSS 2004, so these reported differences may also reflect differences in question format.

  15. In addition, meeting friends and potential marriage partners is affected by the density of Jews in particular settings (Horowitz and Solomon 1992). This introduces an additional variable that we cannot directly take account of, though the density of Jews in different settings is part of the very character of these settings and is so noted.

  16. Because family members were excluded from this analysis, this category is not reflected in the figures or discussion below.

  17. These responses are excluded from this analysis.

  18. See Kelner (2002) for a similar finding for adolescents.

  19. JDate advertises itself as an “Ideal destination for Jewish men and Jewish women to make connections, and find friends, dates and soul mates, all within the faith. With hundreds of thousands of members, fun and easy online features, fantastic offline activity options (including, travel and events), JDate is the number one place for Jewish romance in the world!” [http://www.jdate.com/]

  20. Snijders in an email circulated to the Social Networks Association list (reproduced with his permission), notes that: “Disentangling selection and influence is possible only under the assumption that the available observed networks and individual variables contain all the variables that play a role in the causal process, and if moreover a number of distributional assumptions are made. . . The sensitivity to the distributional assumptions is a serious question, and this is a topic that should and will be investigated. The assumption that all relevant variables are observed is always questionable, but statistical inference very often is done under such assumptions. . . As the great statistician R. A. Fisher said when asked how to make observational studies more likely to yield causal answers: ‘Make your theories elaborate.’”

  21. http://blog.jdubrecords.org/2011/07/13/jdub-to-close-up-shop/

  22. “Synagogues at the forefront of Jewish life have rightly become concerned about the changeover from the baby-boomers to their children, the twenty- and thirty-year-olds whom sociologists call Gen X and Gen Y. At stake is Jewish continuity, particularly in the liberal sector, that 90% or so of Jews are not necessarily committed to significant Jewish identity. Coordinating a sustained and successful engagement strategy to the next generation is the next frontier in synagogue life.” http://www.synagogue3000.org/invitation-next-synagogue-frontier

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the sponsors of the Jewish Futures Project whose support made the study possible: the Robert K. and Myra H. Kraft Family Foundation, the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation, Taglit-Birthright Israel, and donors to the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies. We also thank our research team at the Cohen Center and the Steinhardt Social Research Institute who make our work possible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies MS 014, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 02454, USA

    Charles Kadushin, Graham Wright, Michelle Shain & Leonard Saxe

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  1. Charles Kadushin
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  4. Leonard Saxe
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Correspondence to Charles Kadushin.

Appendix

Appendix

Objective versus Subjective Measures as Predictors of Jewish Engagement

Table 2 Ordered Logistic Regressions on Connection to Israel
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Table 3 Logistic Regression on Synagogue Membership
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Table 4 Logistic Regression on Donation to Jewish Causes
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Predicting Objective versus Subjective Measures

Table 5 Predicting Objective versus Subjective Measures
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Kadushin, C., Wright, G., Shain, M. et al. How Socially Integrated into Mainstream America are Young American Jews?. Cont Jewry 32, 167–187 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-012-9086-y

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