National Trends in Jewish Ethnicity: A Test of the Polarization Hypothesis

The purpose of this study is to test whether national patterns of Jewish identification indicate a "polarization" trend (i.e., increased identification among younger Orthodox Jews and decreased identification among younger Reform and non-denominational Jews). Using data from the National J...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal for the scientific study of religion Vol. 23; no. 2; pp. 140 - 154
Main Authors Himmelfarb, Harold S., Loar, R. Michael
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Storrs, Conn., etc Society for the Scientific Study of Religion 01.06.1984
Subjects
Ethnicity
Identification
Jew/Jews/Jewry/Jewish (see also Judaism)
Jewish Americans
Jewish art
Jewish music
Jewish peoples
Jewish politics
Judaism
Orthodox Jews
Orthodoxy
Social generations
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Summary:The purpose of this study is to test whether national patterns of Jewish identification indicate a "polarization" trend (i.e., increased identification among younger Orthodox Jews and decreased identification among younger Reform and non-denominational Jews). Using data from the National Jewish Population Study we found mixed results regarding the polarization hypothesis. Our findings show that by the fourth generation Orthodoxy seems to be maintaining its numbers while the dropout rate from Conservative and Reform Judaism substantially increases the proportion of non-denominational Jews for the first time. However, age trends within denominational and generational groups do not show any clear trend toward either greater or less identification among younger Jews. The implications of the various changes and trends discovered are explored in detail and the similarities to changes in Protestant denominational affilations are discussed.
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ISSN:0021-8294
1468-5906
DOI:10.2307/1386105