Abstract
Barry Kosmin, Ariela Keysar, and Egon Mayer have observed an increase taking place in the number of Jews who identified with “no religion” during the 1990s. They have proposed two explanations. Kosmin and Keysar interpret this increase as part of a larger American secularization trend. Mayer understands it to be a specific “disaffection from organized Jewish life.” Implicit in both explanations is the emergence of a new secular Jewish identity that excludes identification with Judaism. As such, this new identification represents a radical departure from the American Jewish norm. American Jews have long been comfortable identifying with Judaism even though their outlook is as secular as the most secular of all Americans. Using the 2000–2001 National Jewish Population Survey and the 2001 American Jewish Identification Survey these two hypotheses are tested and rejected because secular Jews were found to be less “ethnic” than Jews by religion both in terms of attitudes and behaviors. Instead a third explanation is explicated which attributes the increase in the number of secularly identified Jews to a compositional change in the American Jewish population. Jews with no religion are overwhelmingly of mixed ancestry; and the number of such Jews increased dramatically between 1990 and 2000 as a result of intermarriage. Two OLS regressions show that both ethnic attitudes and behaviors are influenced primarily by Jewish background experiences. Jews of mixed ancestry are less likely to have these and thus score lower. A third OLS regression shows that these background experiences strengthen ethnic attachments which in turn influence ethnic behaviors. A logistic regression demonstrates that ancestry does have a direct influence on identification as secular above and beyond Jewish background experiences. Secular Jews choose the “no religion” option because it allows them to identify as Jews without having to choose between either of their parents’ two religions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The Amish and Hutterites would also be examples.
See also Winter (2002).
This term appears on the Kahal Yosef website.
From the Nessah website.
Defined by the NJPS as a non-monotheistic religion.
Jews by choice would have no Jewish background experiences, and this is a key component in the analysis.
e.g. “very” emotionally attached to Israel, feeling “very positive” about being Jewish, or “strongly agree” with a statement.
All groups disagreed with this statement.
When the stronger GSS wording is used, Jews by religion appear even more secular: only 27% say they “know God exists” as compared with 59% of “liberal” Protestants and 65% of Catholics. The only religion close to this figure is the no religion group at 22%. To make the two questions more comparable, 80% of Jews by religion in the NJPS say they believe in God, but only 27% of Jews by religion in the GSS say that they know God exists for certain.
Converts to Reform and Conservative Judaism typically add Sarah as their mother.
Bibliography
Abraham, M., and S. Windmueller. 2000. Principles of Jewish communal life for the new millenium. Journal of Jewish Communal Service 76: 252–256.
Alba, Richard D. 1981. The twilight of ethnicity among American Catholics of European ancestry. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 454 (1): 86–97.
Abramson, Harold. 1973. Ethnic diversity in Catholic America. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Bubis, G. 1976. Professional education for the Jewish component in casework practice. Journal of Jewish Communal Service LII (3, Spring): 270–277.
Bubis, G. 1994. Jewish communal service today: Paradoxes and problems. Journal of Jewish Communal Service 71: 6–36.
Chammou, E. 1976. Migration and adjustment: The case of Sephardic Jews in Los Angeles. PhD dissertation, UCLA, 1976.
Cohen, S.M. 1983. American modernity and Jewish identity. New York: Routledge.
Cohen, S.M. 1988. American assimilation or Jewish revival?. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Cohen, S.M. 2001. Religiosity and ethnicity: Jewish identity trends in the United States. In Who owns Judaism? Public religion and private Faith in America and Israel, vol. XVII, ed. E. Lederhendler, 101–130. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
Cohen, S.M., and A.Y. Kelman. 2005. Cultural events & Jewish identities: Young adult Jews in New York. The National Foundation for Jewish Culture with a grant from: UJA—Federation of New York, Commission on Jewish Identity and Renewal.
Cohen, S.M., and A.Y. Kelman. 2007. The continuity of discontinuity: How young Jews are connecting, creating, and organizing their own Jewish lives Andrea and Charles Bronfman Foundation.
Cohen, S.M., and L.J. Fein. 1985. From integration to survival: American Jewish anxieties in transition. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 48: 75–88.
Ebaugh, Helen Rose, and Janet Saltzman Chafetz. 2000. Religion and the new immigrants: Continuities and adaptations in immigrant congregations. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.
Elazaar, D.J. 1976. Community and polity, the organizational dynamics of American Jewry. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America.
Elazaar, D.J. 1991. Jewish political studies. Modern Judaism 11 (1): 67–90.
Ellwood, Robert S. 1997. The fifties spiritual marketplace: American religion in a decade of conflict. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Feldstein, D. 1980. What do we mean when we say that our agencies should be more Jewish Proceedings of Annual Sunday Seminar. New York: Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York.
Gans, H.J. 1958. The origin and growth of a Jewish community. Social Patterns of an American Group. M. Sklare. New York, the Free Press/Macmillan: The Jews.
Gans, H.J. 1979. Symbolic ethnicity: The future of ethnic groups and cultures in America, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 2, January l979, l–20.
Glazer, N. 1957. American Judaism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Glazer, N., and D.P. Moynahan. 1963. Beyond the melting pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gordon, A.I. 1959. Jews in Suburbia. Boston: Beacon Press.
Greeley, A. 1976. Ethnicity, denomination and inequality. Sage Papers in the Social Sciences, vol. 4. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Greeley, A. 1977. The American Catholic: A social portrait. New York: Basic Books.
Greenberg, A. 2006. Grande Soy Vanilla Latte with Cinnamon, No Foam…. Jewish Identity and Community in a Time of Unlimited Choices’ reboot.
Hammond, P. 1988. Religion and the persistence of identity. JSSR 27 (1): 1–11.
Heilman, S.C. 1995. Portrait of American Jews. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Herman, S.N. 1971. Israelis and Jews. New York: Random House.
Herman, S.N. 1977. Jewish identity. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Hout, M., and C.S. Fischer. 2002. Why more Americans have no religious preference: Politics and generations. American Sociological Review 67 (2): 165–190.
Houtman, D., and S. Aupers. 2007. The spiritual turn and the decline of tradition: The spread of post-Christian spirituality in 14 western countries, 1981–2000. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 46 (3): 305–320.
Hudnut-Beumler, J.D. 1994. Looking for God in the suburbs: The religion of the American dream and its critics, 1945–1965. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Kaufman, D. 1999. Shul with a pool: The “Synagogue-Center” in American Jewish History. Hannover and London: Brandeis University Press and University Press of New England.
Kosmin, B.A., and S. Lachman. 1993. One nation under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society. New York: Harmony Books.
Kosmin, B., and A. Keysar. 2001. American Religious Identification Survey 2001. New York: CUNY Graduate Center.
Kosmin, B.A. 2007. Contemporary secularity and secularism. Secularism and secularity. CT, Hartford: B. A. Kosmin and A. Keysar. Trinity College.
Kotler-Berkowitz, L., and S.M. Cohen. 2003. The National Jewish Population Survey, 2000–2001: Strength challenge, and diversity. New York: United Jewish Communities.
Liebman, C.S. 1973. The ambivalent American Jew. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
Mayer, E., and B. Kosmin. 2001. American Jewish Identity Survey Center for Jewish Studies Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Mayer, E. 2003. The rise of seculars in American Jewish Life. New York: Center for Cultural Judaism.
Monson, Rela Geffen. 1991. The sociology of the American Jewish Community. Modern Judaism 11 (1): 147–156.
Moore, Deborah Dash. 1981. At home in America: Second generation New York Jews. New York: Columbia University Press.
Novick, Peter. 1999. The Holocaust in American Life. Boston Houghton: Mifflin.
Perlmann, J. 2006. The American Jewish periphery: An overview, Working Paper #473. Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. www.levy.org/vauthdoc.aspx?auth=216-87k.
Phillips, B.A. 1997. Re-examining intermarriage: Trends, textures and strategies. Boston: Wilstein Instittute of Jewish Policy Studies and the American Jewish Committee.
Phillips, B.A. 2005a. Assimilation, transformation, and the long range impact of intermarriage. Contemporary Jewry 25: 50–74.
Phillips, B.A. 2005b. American Judaism in the 21st century. The Cambridge companion to American Judaism, 397–415. New York: D. Kaplan Cambridge University Press.
Phillips, B.A. 2008. Does Rabbinic officiation make a difference? Paper presented at the association for Jewish studies, Washington, DC.
Rosenberg, Jennifer, and Susan Sherr-Seitz. 2002. Jewish Communal Service: Now and then. Journal of Jewish Communal Service 79: 67–70.
Sandberg, N. 1974. Ethnic identity and assimilation: The Polish-American community. New York: Praeger Publishers.
Sarna, J.D. 2004. American Judaism. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Shrage, B. 1992. A communal response to the challenges of the 1990 CJF National Jewish Population Survey: Toward a Jewish life worth living. Journal of Jewish Communal Service 68 (4): 321–330.
Sharot, S. 1973. The three-generations thesis and the American Jews. The British Journal of Sociology 24 (23): 151–164.
Sharot, S. 1991. Judaism and the secularization debate. Sociological Analysis 52 (3): 255–275.
Sklare, Marshall, and Joseph Greenblum. 1967. Jewish identity on the suburban frontier: A study of group survival in the open society volume. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Smith, T. 2005. Jewish distinctiveness in America, a statistical portrait American Jewish Committee.
Tenenbaum, S. 1993. A credit to their community. Detroit: Wayne State University Press.
Warner, Stephen R., and Judith G. Wittner, ed. 1981. Gatherings in Diaspora religious communities and the new immigration. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Waxman, C.I. 1983. America’s Jews in transition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Winter, J.A. 2002. Consistency and importance of Jewish identity and one’s own or one’s child’s intermarriage. Review of Religious Research 44 (1): 38–57.
Woocher, J.S. 1986. Sacred survival: The Civil Religion of American Jews. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Zeitz, Joshua Michael. 2000. ‘If I am not for myself’… the American Jewish establishment in the aftermath of the Six Day War. American Jewish History 88 (2): 253.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Phillips, B.A. Accounting for Jewish Secularism: Is a New Cultural Identity Emerging?. Cont Jewry 30, 63–85 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-009-9020-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-009-9020-0