Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Social Self: Toward the Study of Jewish Lives in the Twenty-first Century

  • Published:
Contemporary Jewry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

He was the kind of guy who was always telling you what kind of guy he was.

— John Jeremiah Sullivan (2011, 100)

Abstract

This article reviews the conceptual frameworks that have underscored the social scientific study of Jewish identity and experiments with a methodological and analytical approach that aims to respond to contemporary social trends. Beginning with a historical account of the concept’s emergence in the study of American Jews, we consider the ways in which scholars and their research subjects have co-constructed the concept of Jewish identity. Based on our analysis of qualitative interviews with fifty-eight post-boomer American Jews, we propose that Jewish identity be understood primarily as a relational phenomenon that is constructed through social ties, rather than as a product of individual meaning-making or assessments of social impact. We set our exploratory findings in conversation with some of the most influential and widely cited qualitative studies of Jewish identity in the past to examine the implications of that conceptual shift for scholars and scholarship on Jewish identity in the 21st century.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The research for this paper was conducted with the support of the Jim Joseph Foundation and with the permission of the Stanford University Institutional Review Board.

  2. Segalman’s use of the term “identity” is itself anachronistic, as it is unclear as to whether or not the studies that constituted his data set used the language of identity in their examinations of American Jews. Nevertheless, the studies he reviewed included similar questions about attitudes and behaviors, exploring the range of American Jewish life that later came to be understood as comprising the category of “Jewish identity.”

  3. This and all other names are pseudonyms.

References

  • Alba, Richard D. 1992. Ethnic Identity: The transformation of white America, Reprint ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arnett, Jeffrey Jensen. 2000. Emerging adulthood: A theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. American Psychologist 55(5): 469–480.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bellah, Robert N., Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven M. Tipton. 1996. Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. Berkeley: Calif. University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Benor, Sarah Bunin. 2009. Do American jews speak a ‘Jewish Language’? A model of jewish linguistic distinctiveness. The Jewish Quarterly Review 99(2): 230–269.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berman, Lila Corwin. 2009. Speaking of Jews: Rabbis, intellectuals, and the creation of an American public identity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biale, David, Michael Galchinsky, and Susannah Heschel (eds.). 1998. Insider/outsider: American Jews and multiculturalism. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brettschneider, Marla (ed.). 1996. The narrow bridge: Jewish views on multiculturalism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brubaker, Rogers, and Frederick Cooper. 2000. Beyond ‘identity’. Theory and Society 29: 1–47.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruner, Jerome. 1994. The narrative construction of ‘Reality’. In Psychoanalysis and development: Representations and narratives, ed. Massimo Ammaniti, and Daniel M. Stern, 5–38. New York, NY: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cadge, Wendy, and Lynn Davidman. 2006. Ascription, choice, and the construction of religious identities in the contemporary United States. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 45(1): 23–38. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2006.00003.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cantarow, Ellen. 1988. Zionism anti-semitism, and Jewish identity in the women’s movement. Middle East Report 154: 38–50.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Charme, Stuart, Bethamie Horowitz, Tali Hyman, and Jeffrey Kress. 2008. Jewish identities in action: An exploration of models, metaphors, and methods. Journal of Jewish Education 74: 2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clandinin, D.Jean, and F.Michael Connelly. 1999. Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. Hoboken: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Erik H. 2010. Jewish identity research: A state of the art. International Journal of Jewish Education Research 1(1): 7–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, S.M., and L.J. Fein. 1985. From integration to survival: American Jewish anxieties in transition. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 480(1): 75–88. doi:10.1177/0002716285480001007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Steven M. 1983. American modernity and Jewish identity. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Steven M. 2003. Jewish identity research in the United States: Ruminations on concepts and findings. In Continuity, commitment, and survival: Jewish communities in the diaspora, ed. Sol Encel, and Leslie Stein, 1. Westport, CT: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Steven M., and Arnold M. Eisen. 2000. The Jew within: Self, family, and community in America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Steven M., and Ari Y. Kelman. 2008. Uncoupled: How our singles are reshaping Jewish engagement. New York: Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Steven M., and Jack Wertheimer. 2006. What ever happened to the Jewish people? Commentary 121(6): 33–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen, Steven M., and Jack Wertheimer. 2014. The Pew survey reanalyzed: More bad news, but a glimmer of hope. http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2014/11/the-pew-survey-reanalyzed/. Accessed 3 Mar 2016.

  • Cooley, Charles Horton. 1912. Social organization: A study of the larger mind. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooperman, Alan, and Gregory Smith. 2013. A portrait of Jewish Americans: Findings from a pew research center survey of U.S. Jews. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/.

  • Corbin, Juliet, and Anselm L. Strauss. 1990. Grounded theory research: Procedures, canons, and evaluative criteria. Qualitative Sociology 13: 3–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crenshaw, Kimberle. 1991. Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review 43: 1241–1299.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dashefsky, Arnold. 1972. And the search goes on: The meaning of religio-ethnic identity and identification. Sociological Analysis 33: 239–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dashefsky, Arnold. 1971. Being Jewish: An approach to conceptualization and operationalization. In Gratz college anniversary, ed. Stuart T. Lachs, and I.D. Passow, 35–46. Philadelphia, PA: Gratz College.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dashefsky, Arnold, and Howard M. Shapiro. 1974. Ethnic identification among American Jews: Socialization and social structure. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • DellaPergola, Sergio. 2015. End of Jewish/Non-Jewish dichotomy? Evidence from the 2013 Pew Survey. In American Jewish Year Book 2014, ed. Arnold Dashefsky, and Ira Sheskin, 33–39. Switzerland: Springer International.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Elliott, Jane. 2006. Using narrative in social research: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. London: SAGE Publications Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Emerson, Robert M., Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw. 1995. Writing ethnographic fieldnotes, 2nd ed. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fearon, James. 1999. What Is Identity? (AsWe Now Use the Word) “Draft Paper”. https://www.stanford.edu/group/fearon-research/cgi-bin/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/What-is-Identity-as-we-now-use-the-word-.pdf.

  • Gans, Herbert J. 1994. Symbolic ethnicity and symbolic religiosity: Towards a comparison of ethnicand religious acculturation. Ethnic and Racial Studies 17: 577–592.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gans, Herbert J. 1979. Symbolic ethnicity: The future of ethnic groups and cultures in America. Ethnic and Racial Studies 2(1): 1–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Geffen, Rela Mintz. 1997. Helping Jewish dual-career families relieve overload. In American jewry: Portrait and prognosis, ed. David M. Gordis, and Dorit P. Gary. West Orange, NJ: Behrman House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glaser, Barney G., and Anselm L. Strauss. 1967. The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine Transaction.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glazer, Nathan. 1957. American judaism. Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gleason, Philip. 1983. Identifying identity: A semantic history. Journal of American History 69: 910–931.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Glenn, Susan A., and Naomi B. Sokoloff (eds.). 2010. Boundaries of Jewish Identity. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goffman, Erving. 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstein, Sidney, and Calvin Goldscheider. 1968. Jewish Americans: Three generations in a jewish community. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gordon, Milton M. 1964. Assimilation in American life: The role of race, religion and national origins, 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology 78(6): 1360–1380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Granovetter, Mark S. 1983. The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited. Sociological Theory 1: 201–233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gregg, Gary S. 1991. Self-representation: Life narrative studies in identity and ideology. New York: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hansen, Marcus Lee. (1938) 1952. The problem of the third generation immigrant. Commentary. 1:5, 492-500.

  • Haraway, Donna. 1988. Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies 14(3): 575–599. doi:10.2307/3178066.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hartman, Harriet. 1997. Dimensions of Jewish identity among American Jews. Jewish Population Studies 29: 239–260.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartman, Harriet. 2014. Studies of Jewish identity and continuity: Competing, complementary and comparative perspectives. In The social scientific study of Jewry: Sources approaches, debates, 23:74–108. Studies in Contemporary Jewry. London: Oxford University Press.

  • Hartman, Harriet, and Moshe Hartman. 1999. Jewish identity, denomination and denominational mobility. Social Identities 5(3): 279–311.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hartman, Harriet, and Debra Kaufman. 2006. Decentering the study of Jewish identity: Opening the dialogue with other religious groups. Sociology of Religion 67(4): 365–385.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hart, Mitchell B. 2000. Social science and the politics of modern Jewish identity, 1st ed. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herberg, Will. 1956. Protestant, catholic, Jew: An essay in American religious sociology. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Herman, Simon N. 1977. Jewish identity: A social psychological perspective. Beverly Hills, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill Collins, Patricia. 1991. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Himmelfarb, Harold S. 1982. Research on American Jewish identity and identification: Progress, pitfalls, and prospects. In Understanding American Jewry, ed. Marshall Sklare, 56. Piscataway: Transaction Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horowitz, Bethamie. 1998. Connections and journeys: Shifting identities among American Jews. Contemporary Jewry 19(1): 63–94. doi:10.1007/BF02963427.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horowitz, Bethamie. 1999. Indicators of Jewish identity: Developing a conceptual framework for understanding American Jewry. Cleveland: Mandel Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horowitz, Bethamie. 2000. Connections and journeys: Assessing critical opportunities for enhancing Jewish identity. New York, NY: UJA-Federation of New York. http://www.bjpa.org/Publications/downloadFile.cfm?FileID=4052.

  • Horowitz, Bethamie. 2002. Reframing the study of contemporary American Jewish identity. Contemporary Jewry 23(1): 14–34.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Igo, Sarah. 2007. The averaged American: Surveys, citizens, and the making of a mass public, 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson, Matthew Frye. 2008. Roots too: White ethnic revival in post-civil rights America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kadushin, Charles. 2011a. Social networks and Jews. Contemporary Jewry 31(1): 55–73. doi:10.1007/s12397-010-9030-y.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kadushin, Charles. 2011b. Understanding social networks: Theories, concepts, and findings, 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kadushin, Charles, Graham Wright, Michelle Shain, and Leonard Saxe. 2012. How socially integrated into mainstream America are young American Jews? Contemporary Jewry 32(2): 167–187. doi:10.1007/s12397-012-9086-y.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, Debra. 2010. The circularity of secularity: The sacred and the secular in some contemporary post-Holocaust identity narratives. Contemporary Jewry 30(1): 119–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, Debra Renee. 1999. Embedded categories: Identity among Jewish young adults in the United States. Race, Gender and Class 6(4): 76–87.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaufman, Debra Renee. 2005. The place of judaism in American Jewish identity. In Cambridge companion to American Judaism, ed. Dana Evan Kaplan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, Ruby Jo Reeves. 1944. Single or triple melting pot? Intermarriage trends in New Haven, 1870–1940. American Journal of Sociology 49: 331–339.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kosmin, Barry A. 2005. The need for a systematic comparative approach to national population surveys of Jews. Contemporary Jewry 25: 33–49.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krasner, Jonathan. 2016. On the origins and persistence of the Jewish identity industry in Jewish education. Journal of Jewish Education 82(2): 132–158. doi:10.1080/15244113.2016.1168195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuhn, Thomas S. 1970. The structure of scientific revolutions, 2nd ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lieblich, Amia, Rivka Tuval-Mashiach, and Tamar Zilber. 1998. Narrative research: Reading, analysis, and interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Liebman, Charles S. 1973. The Ambivalent American Jew: Politics, religion and family in American Jewish Life. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAdams, Dan P. 2001. The psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology 5(2): 100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McAdams, Dan P. 2005. The redemptive self: Stories Americans live by. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McAdams, Dan P. 1997. The stories we live by: Personal myths and the making of the self, 1st ed. New York: The Guilford Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGinity, Keren R. 2012. Still Jewish: A history of women and intermarriage in America. New York: NYU Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGinity, Keren R. 2014. Marrying out: Jewish men, intermarriage, and fatherhood. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mead, George Herbert. 1934. Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mead, George Herbert. 1913. The social self. Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 10(14): 374–380.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mink, Louis. 2001. Narrative form as a cognitive instrument. In The history and narrative reader, ed. Geoffrey Roberts, 211–220. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nicholson, Linda. 2008. Identity before identity politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Oppenheim, Michael. 1984. A ‘Fieldguide’ to the study of modern Jewish identity. Jewish Social Studies 46(3/4): 215–230.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, Bruce A. 2010. Accounting for Jewish secularism: Is a new cultural identity emerging? Contemporary Jewry 30(1): 63–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, Bruce A. 2013. Psychoanalysis and development: Representations and narratives. Contemporary Jewry 33(1–2): 103–119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plath, David W. 1980. Long engagements, maturity in modern Japan. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prell, Riv-Ellen. 2000. Developmental Judaism: Challenging the study of Jewish identity in the social sciences. Contemporary Jewry 21: 33–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American Community, 1st ed. New York: Touchstone Books by Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rich, Adrienne. 1986. Split at the root: An essay on Jewish identity. Adreinne Rich, Blood, bread, and poetry: Selected prose, 1979–1985, 100–123. New York, NY: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roof, Wade Clark, Bruce Greer, Mary Johnson, and Andrea Leibson. 1994. A generation of seekers: The spiritual journeys of the baby boom generation. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sasson, Ted. November 11, 2013. New analysis of pew data: Children of intermarriage increasingly identify as Jews. Tablet Magazine. http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/151506/young-jews-opt-in.

  • Sasson, Theodore, Leonard Saxe, Fern Chertok, Michelle Shain, Shahar Hecht, and Graham Wright. 2015. Millennial children of intermarriage: Touchpoints and trajectories of Jewish engagement. Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies.https://www.brandeis.edu/cmjs/pdfs/intermarriage/MillennialChildrenIntermarriage1.pdf.

  • Segalman, Ralph. 1967. Jewish identity scales: A report. Jewish Social Studies 29(2): 92–111.

    Google Scholar 

  • Selengut, Charles. 1999. Jewish identity in the postmodern age: Scholarly and personal reflections. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharot, Stephen. 1973. The three-generations thesis and the American Jews. The British Journal of Sociology 24(2): 151–164. doi:10.2307/588375.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sheskin, Ira M. 2013. Comparisons of Jewish communities: A compendium of tables and bar charts. Number 8: Synagogue Membership. Storrs, CT: Berman Institute—North American Jewish Data Bank.

  • Silberstein, Laurence J. (ed.). 2000. Mapping Jewish identities. New York: NYU Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sklare, Marshall, and Joseph Greenblum. 1967. Jewish identity on the suburban frontier: A study of group survival in the open society. Second printing edition: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strauss, Anselm L. 1959. Mirrors and masks: The search for identity. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, John Jeremiah. 2011. Getting down to what is really real. In Pulphead: Essays, ed. John Jeremiah Sullivan, 89–108. New York: FSG Originals.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tenenbaum, Shelly, and Lynn Davidman. 2007. It’s in my genes: Biological discourse and essentialist views of identity among contemporary American Jews. Sociological Quarterly 48: 435–450.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson, Jennifer A. 2013. Jewish on their own terms: How intermarried couples are changing American Judaism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thorne, Avril. 2000. Personal memory telling and personality development. Personality and Social Psychology Review 4(1): 45–56. doi:10.1207/S15327957PSPR0401_5.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waters, Mary C. 1990. Ethnic options: Choosing identities in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wirth, Louis. 1928. The Ghetto. Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wuthnow, Robert. 1998. After heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s, New ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wuthnow, Robert. 2007. After the baby boomers: How twenty- and thirty-somethings are shaping the future of American religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wuthnow, Robert. 1988. The restructuring of American religion: Society and faith since World War II. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Ari Y. Kelman, Ziva Hassenfeld, Ilana Horwitz & Matthew Casey Williams

  2. University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Tobin Belzer

Authors
  1. Ari Y. Kelman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tobin Belzer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ziva Hassenfeld
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ilana Horwitz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Matthew Casey Williams
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ari Y. Kelman.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kelman, A.Y., Belzer, T., Hassenfeld, Z. et al. The Social Self: Toward the Study of Jewish Lives in the Twenty-first Century. Cont Jewry 37, 53–79 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-016-9182-5

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-016-9182-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation