Abstract
This chapter examines the basic question of who is Jewish. As a consequence of the increasing fluidity of Jewish identity and the porosity of the boundaries of Jewish communities in America, there is widespread disagreement about who is Jewish. One important, and often overlooked, dimension of the porosity of Jewish community boundaries is the large and increasing number of people who live in what can be called “the borderland” – the boundary between Jewish and not Jewish. Most borderland Jews self-define as “partly Jewish.” Other borderland Jews self-identify as Jewish but profess another religion. Data are presented on the size of the partly Jewish group and the composition of the borderland cohort. Examples of different responses from those who are neither clearly Jewish nor clearly not Jewish in community studies help to understand the complexity of the borderland. The discussion then turns to an analysis of who are the partly Jewish. The chapter concludes with strategic options for turning porous boundaries into a communal asset and for ensuring that the inclusion of borderland Jews is on the communal agenda.
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Notes
- 1.
See, e.g., Charles Liebman “The ‘Who is a Jew?’ Controversy: Political and Anthropological Perspectives,” in Conflict and Consensus in Jewish Political Life, Stuart Cohen and Eliezer Don-Yehiha (eds), (Bar-Ilan University Press, 1986) pp. 101–117; S. Vernon Kurtz, “Who – Not What – Is a Jew?,” Sh’ma (March 4, 1994), pp. 3–4; Harold M. Schulweis, “When Lucy Cohen’s Mother Is Not Jewish,” Sh’ma (March 4, 1994), pp. 4–5: Susan Glenn, Naomi Sokoloff, and Josh Rolnick, “Who Is a Jew and What Is Jewish?,” Sh’ma (March 1, 2011), pp. 1–3.
- 2.
Herbert J. Gans, “Jews of No Religion and the Future of American Jewry,” e-Jewish Philanthropy (June 1, 2015); Zohar Rotem, “Who by Religion? The ‘Jews of No Religion’ Category Is Misleading – A Response to Herbert J. Gans,” e-Jewish Philanthropy (June 1, 2015); Becka A. Alper and Alan Cooperman, 10 Key Findings about Jewish Americans (Pew Research Center, 2021); Rachel B. Gross, “If You Are Asking American Jews If They’re Religious, You Don’t Understand American Jews,” JTA (May 11, 2021).
- 3.
This term was developed by the author, Ron Miller, and Steven Cohen during the 2011 New York Jewish Community Study.
- 4.
This issue was a focus of attention in the 2011 study of New York Jewry. See Steven M. Cohen, Jacob B. Ukeles, and Ron Miller, Special Study on “Partly Jewish” Jews (UJA-Federation of New York, 2013); see also Jacob B. Ukeles “Jewish Community Population Studies – Where Do We Go from Here?” Contemporary Jewry 36/3 (October 2016), pp. 320–328.
- 5.
Irving Greenberg, “Will There Be One Jewish People by the Year 2000,” in Perspectives (New York: The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership). The essay originally appeared in June 1985 and in a revised version in February 1986.
- 6.
Ibid., p. 1.
- 7.
Harriet Hartman, “Studies of Jewish Identity and Continuity in the U.S.: Competing, Complementary, and Comparative Perspectives,” in Uzi Rebhun (ed.), Science and Ideology in Jewish Social Research (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Aaron J. Hahn Tapper, Judaisms: A Twenty-First-Century Introduction to Jews and Jewish Identities (University of California Press, 2016); Ari Y. Kelman, Tobin Belzer, Ziva Hassenfeld, Ilana Horwitz, and Matthew Casey Williams, “The Social Self: Toward the Study of Jewish Lives in the Twenty-first Century,” Contemporary Jewry 37:1 (April 2017), pp. 53–79.
- 8.
Judy Maltz, “How Many U.S. Jews Are There? Israeli Expert Offers Provocative Answer,” Haaretz (November 17, 2021) https://www.haaretz.com/u-news; Becka A. Alper and Alan Cooperman, 10 Key Findings about Jewish Americans (Pew Research Center, 2021).
- 9.
Nina Beth Cardin, “Of Borders and Boundaries,” Sh’ma (October 1999), pp. 7–8; Sylvia Barack Fishman, Jewish and Something Else (American Jewish Committee, 2001).
- 10.
For one of the few discussions about the Jewish/non-Jewish boundary, see Sergio Della Pergola, “End of Jewish/Non-Jewish Dichotomy? Evidence from the 2013 Pew Survey,” in American Jewish Year Book 2014, Arnold Dashevsky and Ira Sheskin (eds.) (Springer, 2015), pp. 33–39.
- 11.
2010 Greater Baltimore Jewish Community Study.
- 12.
Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011.
- 13.
See, e.g., Sergio Della Pergola and Uzi Rebhun, eds., Jewish Population and Identity: Concept and Reality (Springer, 2018).
- 14.
Susan Katz Miller “Being ‘Partly Jewish,’” New York Times (November 1, 2013), p. A31.
- 15.
“Americans Express Increasingly Warm Feelings Toward Religious Groups,” Pew Research Center (February 15, 2017).
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Ukeles, J.B. (2022). Porous Boundaries and Borderland Jews. In: Illuminating the Path to Vibrant American Jewish Communities. Studies of Jews in Society, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-07642-8_3
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