Refraiming the study of contemporary American Jewish Identity

摘要

The 30-year enterprise of studying American Jewish identification and involvement in Jewish life has been based mainly on sociodemographic surveys. These surveys have tracked the activity levels of Jewish individuals in terms of ritual practice, cultural and educational involvements and institutional affiliations, philanthropic giving, and friendship networks, but they have not looked directly at Jewish identity as understood in the psychological sense. The bulk of the research about American Jewish identity during this period has centered on the question, How Jewish are American Jews, whether in comparison to other American ethnic groups (in terms of structural distinctiveness), in comparison to Jews of prior generations, or in comparison to an idealized way of being Jewish.