Language:
English
Year of publication:
2022
Titel der Quelle:
Contemporary Jewry
Angaben zur Quelle:
42,3-4 (2022) 385-411
Keywords:
Identification (Religion)
;
Jews Identity
;
Judaism History 21st century
Abstract:
An individual may self-identify as Jewish based on ethnicity, culture, family background, peoplehood, nationality, race, community, ethical and moral life, intellectual curiosity, pursuit of justice, history, caring about Israel, or religion. The Pew Research Center’s 2013 report “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” does not take the respondent’s self-identification as Jewish American at face value. Most respondents who self-identify as Jewish for non-religious reasons are relabeled in the report as “not Jewish,” and are excluded from most tables and discussions in the report. We examine the responses from all respondents to questions on religious attitudes and non-religious attitudes. We specifically compare the distributions of responses for those labeled as “Jewish” and those labeled as “not Jewish.” There is not much difference in distributions between these two levels for non-religious questions. Half the respondents claim a denomination of Orthodox, Conservative, or Reform. For questions on religious attitudes, we see differences in response distributions among those three denominations; the other half of the respondents (from less populous denominations or with no denomination) are almost indistinguishable. For questions on non-religious attitudes, none of the denominations are distinguishable from each other or from respondents who do not claim a denomination. We suggest that an additional measure of contemporary Jewish identity, for example a consistently defined measure of Jewish engagement, be included in all studies.
DOI:
10.1007/s12397-022-09456-9
URL:
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