Conclusion
From its inception, Judaism has had specific regulations that define membership for individuals and has set limits beyond which one is considered outside of the Jewish community. Over time, these obviously have undergone change. Moreover, as I have tried to show here, the definition of community is multifaceted, just as are the Jewish identities associated with the notion of community. The real challenge in the years ahead is to find a way to maintain a living and vital Jewish community—whatever its character and whomever the Jews are who choose to be part of it. In an article quoted in many places among those who study communities, Laurence Iannaccone has argued that for a religious group to retain its vitality and maintain its discrete existence, “a certain amount of tension with secular society is essential to success—the trick is finding and maintaining the right amount.”28
We might conclude the same is true for the Jewish community in America. For it to maintain itself (in whatever form it is manifest) and its hold over its members, we shall have to find the right amount of tension with the larger American society. Without that tension, the community ties will slacken and loosen; with too much, they will break. The future will tell if American Jews have been able to get it right.
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Notes
For a full discussion of the concept of symbolic ethnicity, see Herbert Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups in America,”Ethnic and Racial Studies 2 no. 1 (cl979).
Richard D. Alba,Ethnic Identity: The Transformation of White America. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 75.
Mary C. Waters,Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990).
These numbers come from the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey.
Clifford Geertz,The Interpretation of Cultures (NY: Basic Books, 1973) p. 12.
To be sure, symbolic ethnicity also is largely a matter of choice. In that sense, it lies on the border between culture and ethnicity, which is why it issymbolic rather than the real ethnicity.
Samuel Heilman,Portrait of American Jews: The Last Half of the Twentieth Century (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1996).
Achad Ha-Am was the pen name of Asher Ginsberg.
Herbert J. Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity and Symbolic Religiosity: Towards a Comparison of Ethnic and Religious Acculturation,”Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1994, 17, 4, Oct, pp. 577–592.
Indeed, in his elaboration of this concept of symbolic religion, which he modeled on the earlier notion of symbolic ethnicity, Herbert Gans drew on his illustrative data from studies and observations about Jewry.
S. M. Cohen, “Content or Continuity?: The 1989 National Survey of American Jews,”American Jewish Committee, 1991, p.70.
The 2000 U.S. Census shows, for example, that twice as many people under the age of 18 are multi-racial as those above that age. Of course, race also is the strongest barrier to intermarriage in American society. See also Richard Alba, “Assimilations Quiet Tide,”Public Interest (Spring 1995), pp.3–18 and Richard Alba, “Intermarriage and Ethnicity among European Americans,”Contemporary Jewry (1991), pp.3–19.
David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, Reuel DenneyThe Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character, Abridged and revised edition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001) and Robert D. PutnamBowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
Robert Putnam, “Civic Disengagement in Contemporary America,” inGovernment and Opposition, 2001, 36, 2, spring, pp. 135–156.
See Gerald B. Bubis and Steven M. Cohen. “American Jewish Leaders View Board-Staff Relations” (JCPA, 1998) p.48.
Steven M. Cohen and Arnold M. Eisen, “The Sovereign Self: Jewish Identity in Post-Modern America”Jerusalem Letter / Viewpoints No. 453 8 Iyar 5761/1 May 2001.
Marc Dollinger,Quest for Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).
Daniel F. Polish, “Judaism and Human Rights,” inHuman Rights in Religious Traditions (New York: The Pilgrim Press, 1982).
Lowell W. Livezey notes that the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (now called the Union for Reform Judaism) “is the only major Jewish denomination that is active in the international human rights movement, and even its work in the human rights field is considerably less that that undertaken by cultural or ‘secular’ Jewish agencies such as the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith International, and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith” (Livezey, “US Religious Organizations and the International Human Rights Movement,”Human Rights Quarterly 11, no. 1 (February 1989):42.
Herman Schmalenbach, “The Sociological Category of Communion,” in Parsons et. al.Theories of Society (Glencoe: Free Press).
This seems to be the philanthropy of choice among increasing numbers of American Jews. According to the 1999 “Philanthropy 400,” the list of 400 top charities published in the biweekly Chronicle of Philanthropy, the nation’s 15 most successful Jewish federations increased their private support by only 4.3 percent, compared to a 16 percent average for the 400 as a whole. (See Nacha Cattan “In A Charity Boom, Federation Gifts Lag,”Forward July 22, 2000).
For an example of one such community, see the listing of the Los AngelesG’mach at http://www.lajewishguide.com/html/communitv/gmach.htm. For another example in the Atlanta Jewish community, see http://www.toll-free.com/bethjacob/communit.html. For one in Florida’s Century Village, look at http://www.yicc.org/chesed.html
“Holding Firmly with an Open Hand: Life in Two Conservative Synagogues,” in Jack Wertheimer, ed.Jews in the Center (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000), pp.95–196.
Marcel Mauss,The Gift (New York: Norton, 2000).
See Zali Gurevitch and Gideon Aran, “Never in Place: Eliade and Judaic Sacred Space”Archives de sciences sociales des religions 39: 87 (July–September 1994): pp. 135–152.
Samuel Heilman, Harvey Goldberg and Barbara Kirshenblatt Gimblett,The Israel Experience: Studies in Jewish Identity and Youth Culture (NY & Jerusalem: Bronfman Foundation, 2002).
Paul Ritterband, “Public Worship: The Partnership Between Families and Synagogues,” in Jack Wertheimer, ed.Jews in the Center (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000), p. 201.
Laurence Iannaccone, “Why Strict Churches are Strong.”American Journal of Sociology 99, #5 (1994) p. 1203.
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Heilman, S.C. American Jews and community: A spectrum of possibilities. Cont Jewry 24, 51–69 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02961570
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02961570