Jewish Identity On The Suburban Frontier

Collected essays by a preeminent authority on American Jewish history.

These essays address Jewish identity, Jewish survival, and Jewish continuity. The authors account for and analyze trends in Jewish identification and the reciprocal effects of the relationship between the Diaspora and Israel at the end of the twentieth century. Jewish identification in contemporary society is a complex phenomenon. Since the emancipation of Jews in Europe and the major historic events of the Holocaust and the establishment of the State of Israel, there have been substantial changes in the collective Jewish identity. As a result, Jewish identity and the Jewish process of identification had to confront the new realities of an open society, its economic globalization, and the impacts of cultural pluralism. The trends in Jewish identification are toward fewer and weaker points of attachment: fewer Jews who hold religious beliefs with such beliefs held less strongly; less religious ritual observance; attachment to Zionism and Israel becoming diluted; and ethnic communal bonds weakening. Jews are also more involved in the wider society in the Diaspora due to fewer barriers and less overt anti-Semitism. This opens up possibilities for cultural integration and assimilation. In Israel, too, there are signs of greater interest in the modern world culture. The major questions addressed by this volume is whether Jewish civilization will continue to provide the basic social framework and values that will lead Jews into the twenty-first century and ensure their survival as a specific social entity. The book contains special contributions by Professor Julius Gould and Professor Irving Louis Horowitz and chapters on "Sociological Analysis of Jewish Identity"; "Jewish Community Boundaries"; and "Factual Accounts from the Diaspora and Israel."

On Rockingham Street explores, in memoir form, how assimilation of Jewish immigrants arriving from Eastern Europe was shaped and affected by the culture of Southern suburbia in the 1950s and 1960s. It probes the key questions of Jewish survival, including whether American Judaism has left many Jews unable to answer the question “Why are we Jewish?” and whether the education of Jewish youth by the modern American synagogue is adequate to maintain Judaism as a distinctive and meaningful voice.

Employing insights from a broadly conceived social psychology, Simon N. Herman examines contemporary Jewish life in its totality as a constellation of interdependent factors. He sets forth criteria for the Jewish identity, analyzes the religious and national elements that interweave in it, the constancies and variations in that identity across the years and across countries, the impact on it of the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel. An illuminating chapter is devoted to the question "Who is a Jew?" In his foreword to the fkst edition of this volume, Herbert Kelman of Harvard University described it as "a pioneering contribution to the study of ethnic/national identity." The second edition incorporates additional data derived from two recent studies conducted by the author. It includes a discussion of the direction of changes in the Jewish identity in the decade since publication of the first edition. Special attention is given to the Jewish reactions to the worldwide resurgence of anti-Semitism and to the turbulent events in and around Israel. A careful analysis is undertaken of the factors in the present situation that strengthen and weaken the Jewish identity.

A multifaceted exploration of what makes a home 'Jewish', materially and emotionally, and of what it takes to make Jews feel 'at home' in their environment.