Abstract
Since we assumed the editorship of the American Jewish Year Book in 2012, we have organized three “Forums” on topics of contemporary interest. Each of them brought together a very distinguished group of academics to provide brief commentaries, and this year we have done the same. The first was a “Forum on the Pew Survey, A Portrait of Jewish Americans” (Dashefsky and Sheskin 2015). The second was a “Forum on the Pew Survey, A Portrait of American Orthodox Jews: A Further Analysis of the 2013 Survey of US Jews” (Dashefsky and Sheskin 2017). The third was a “Forum on Contemporary American Jewry: Grounds for Optimism or Pessimism?” (Dashefsky and Sheskin 2019). This fourth forum uses the same format to discuss the 2020 report on Jewish Americans completed by the Pew Research Center.
Sergio DellaPergola, Ariela Keysar, Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz, Bruce A. Phillips, Leonard Saxe, Michelle Shain, and Emily Sigalow are member of the 2020 Pew study panel of expert advisors
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Notes
- 1.
The word data is used here as a collective plural.
- 2.
- 3.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx. Accessed August 19, 2021
- 4.
- 5.
Gender in “doing gender” is posed as masculinity and femininity although more gender- fluid models can be applied as well. In this essay, I will be using the term gender primarily as a binary system although feminist interpretive models are not limited to male/female gender categories.
- 6.
- 7.
Feminist interpretive theories often are well suited to ethnographic and qualitative studies. And while we cannot generalize to populations at large from such studies, we can generalize to theory.
- 8.
Contemporary interpretation forbids men to hear women’s singing or chanting voices.
- 9.
Bullet proof Stockings refers to the thickness of ultra- Orthodox women’s tights.
- 10.
See PEW 2013 and 2020; PEW also reports that younger Jews are more likely than the eldest cohort to say that observing Jewish law is essential to being Jewish (19% vs. 12%). See Kaufman (2019) for a discussion of JNRs.
- 11.
U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P60–270, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2019.
- 12.
As opposed to meeting basic expenses with a little left over for extras (30%) or living comfortably (53%).
- 13.
In contrast, gender, region and immigrant status are weakly if at all associated with economic vulnerability. However, a strong majority (86%) of single parents facing economic vulnerability are women.
- 14.
Among married/partnered Jews, economic vulnerability does not vary by whether their spouse/partner is Jewish or not.
- 15.
As opposed to good or excellent.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
- 21.
JNRs, according to Pew, are individuals who have Jewish parentage, consider themselves Jewish but do not identify Judaism as their religion.
- 22.
As opposed to the exclusion of adult JNRs with one Jewish parent, DellaPergola does include adult Jews by Religion with one Jewish parent. DellaPergola’s (2017) earlier definition of “core Jews,” included those who see themselves as Jews by ethnicity or other cultural criteria and appeared to include those with any Jewish parentage.
- 23.
The present analyses were conducted on a preliminary dataset made available to members of its Advisory Board in August 2021.
- 24.
Referred to as the American Jewish Population Project (AJPP), our 2020 estimate yields a total US Jewish population of 7.6 million. Although the Pew estimate is very close, AJPP’s estimate suggests a larger JBR population.
- 25.
I use the term “Jewish social location,” in my book American Jewbu (2019), to explore the set of orientations produced by the position of Jewish Americans as a distinctively left-liberal, urban, secular, and upper-middle-class religious minority in the US. This set of orientations led American Jews to their engagement in Buddhism and fundamentally shaped the character of it.
- 26.
See Smith 2005; Rebhun 2016; and Pew Religious Landscape Survey 2013.
- 27.
Smith, 2005
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Dashefsky, A. et al. (2022). Forum on the New Pew Survey, Jewish Americans in 2020. In: Dashefsky, A., Sheskin, I.M. (eds) American Jewish Year Book 2021. American Jewish Year Book, vol 121. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99750-2_2
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