Abstract
Attachment to Israel is one of the markers and consequences of the upbringing and education of young North American Jews. As a marker it is directly associated with synagogue attendance, sense of Jewish peoplehood and non-religious involvement. However, studies of the relationships between Jewish affinity and affinity to Israel do not prove causation. At the heart of the debate over whether Israeli and American Jews are growing apart is whether patterns of support are generational or related to the life cycle. The generational approach says that young American Jews will remain less attached to Israel as they age. The life-cycle approach asserts that as they get older, they will become more attached to Israel, as their parents are. The goal of this chapter is to track the development of Jewish identity and relations with Israel from adolescence to adulthood based on a unique longitudinal study spanning over 23 years in the lives of young North American Jews. The study comprises quantitative data from four surveys and qualitative personal stories from several online focus groups. I utilize the rich data to introduce a theoretical framework for understanding the evolution in the attachment to Israel of young Jews of the millennial generation.
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Notes
- 1.
The longitudinal study was sponsored by the Pew Charitable Funds, the Avi-Chai Foundation, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the Louisville Institute.
- 2.
Note: the European FRA 2012 question wording differs from that of the Bar/Bat Mitzvah Survey in 1995.
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Keysar, A. (2022). The Evolution of North American Jews’ Relations with Israel from Adolescence to Adulthood: The Bar/Bat Mitzvah Class of 1994–95 (5755). In: Kenedy, R.A., Rebhun, U., Ehrlich, C.S. (eds) Israel and the Diaspora: Jewish Connectivity in a Changing World. Studies of Jews in Society, vol 3. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-80872-3_4
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