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The Relationship of Jewish Community Contexts and Jewish Identity: A 22-Community Study

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Abstract

This paper explores the manner in which Jewish community contexts relate to Jewish identity. We employ the Decade 2000 Data Set that contains almost 20,000 randomly selected Jewish households from 22 American Jewish communities interviewed from 2000 to 2010. Because of the large sample size, and its incorporation of community infrastructure data, this research also is able to examine various influences on Jewish identity that have not been definitively addressed in previous research, including the manner in which characteristics of Jewish community infrastructure are related to individuals’ Jewish identity. The Decade 2000 Data Set used for the analysis is described and some of the methodological considerations involved in its use are presented. Jewish identity is conceptualized as multidimensional, and a factor analysis results in four Jewish identity factors: a communal religious factor, a private religious factor, a broader ethnic factor, and a local ethnic factor. Multiple regressions for each of the Jewish identity factors are related to Jewish community characteristics; more commonly researched individual-level variables (Jewish background and connections, family status, socioeconomic status, demographic/geographic characteristics); and survey-level variables (such as size of sample and year of study) are also controlled. Surprisingly, except for the local ethnic factor, Jewish community characteristics have little relationship to individual Jewish identity. The contributions to a “sociology of Jewish place” and suggestions for further research are also discussed.

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Notes

  1. However, the majority of Jewish youth attend college away from home (Kadushin and Tighe 2008), and the rise of online dating services may mitigate the need for a local Jewish marriage market.

  2. Personal communication from Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz, Director, Research and Analysis, Jewish Federations of North America, March 4, 2011.

  3. Meta-analysis has been conducted by Saxe (2010) and Tighe et al. (2010) to estimate US Jewish population size. They do not include local Jewish community studies as they do not represent all of the United States geographically.

  4. Differences exist among questionnaires as deemed necessary by local leadership in each community.

  5. In 17 of the 22 communities, for budgetary reasons, the RDD survey was supplemented by calling households with one of over 200 Distinctive Jewish Names (DJN) listed in the most recent computerized local telephone directory (Sheskin 1998). In the Twin Cities (Sheskin 2005c), Russian Jewish first names were also used. Since the RDD sample is more representative than the DJN sample, appropriate weighting factors were applied to the DJN sample to adjust for the demographic bias of using DJNs. With these weighting factors applied, no statistically significant differences are seen between the RDD and DJN samples on any of the key variables, such as age and income. Note that in one community (Jacksonville) sampling also was done from the Jewish Federation mailing list.

  6. With the exception of Detroit, Las Vegas, and Washington, telephone numbers were dialed at least four times to determine eligibility for the sample and then to participate in the survey itself. Again, with the exception of Detroit, Las Vegas, and Washington, an interviewing staff that was primarily or entirely Jewish was used to facilitate cooperation and questionnaires were completed using paper and pencil. For Detroit, Las Vegas, and Washington, Social Science Research Solutions (Media, PA), while using mostly non-Jewish interviewers, used Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing and 8–10 call backs.

  7. Using roughly the criteria that the tolerance level should exceed .1 and the VIF not exceed 10.

  8. In each community, a “Jewish Institutions Survey” was administered to local synagogues, the Jewish Community Center(s), the Jewish day schools(s), and the Jewish Federation collecting data on memberships, enrollments, and the Jewish Federation annual campaign.

  9. Two other variables measuring the percentage of the Jewish households living in the community for 0–4 years and the percentage of Jewish households living in the community for 20 or more years, were considered for analysis, but multicollinearity prevented us from using these variables in the four regression models.

  10. Provided by Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz of the Research Department of the Jewish Federations of North America.

  11. Detailed hypotheses for each individual-level variable are presented in a more in-depth report on this research project available at www.jewishdatabank.org.

  12. The complete SPSS outputs for the multiple regressions are available from the authors upon request.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the North American Jewish Data Bank for Harriet Hartman’s 2010 Berman Summer Research Fellowship and to the Religious Research Association for Harriet Hartman’s Jacquet Research Award. Naturally, responsibility for the content presented herein is the sole responsibility of the authors.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Rowan University, 1181 Robinson Building, 201 Mullica Hill Road, Glassboro, NJ, 08028, USA

    Harriet Hartman

  2. Department of Geography and Regional Studies, University of Miami, 217 Ferre Building, PO Box 248067, Coral Gables, FL, 33124, USA

    Ira M. Sheskin

  3. Jewish Demography Project of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, 33124, USA

    Ira M. Sheskin

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Hartman, H., Sheskin, I.M. The Relationship of Jewish Community Contexts and Jewish Identity: A 22-Community Study. Cont Jewry 32, 237–283 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-012-9090-2

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