Chaim I. Waxman

In the end is it ideology?: Religio-cultural and structural factors in American aliya

This article reviews the major studies of American Jewish immigrants to Israel. It shows that the immigrants are increasingly comprised of Orthodox Jews, and argues that the increasing concentration of Orthodox among those immigrants is not solely the result of religioideological sources but, perhaps even more importantly, of sophisticated structural ones.

The Fourth Generation Grows Up: The Contemporary American Jewish Community

Because there are no religious questions in the studies conducted by the United States Bureau of the Census, much of the data on the demographic patterns of Jewish- Americans comes from more limited studies of local com munities. An examination of the major studies conducted dur ing the 1950s and early 1960s might have led one to predict a gradual but steady process leading to the almost total assimila tion of Americas Jews into the larger society. However, a number of major events occurred in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s that may have altered that process. This article examines recent trends in anti-Semitism and a series of contemporary American Jewish social patterns, including size, geographic distribution, occupation, education, income, political attitudes and behavior, relationship to the state of Israel, intermarriage, and denominational life, from which several significant but divergent trends emerge.

Tradition in transition : orthodoxy, halakhah, and the boundaries of modern Jewish identity

Students of modern Judaism have largely ignored the responsa literature as a source for comprehending the nature and development of Jewish history and thought during the last two hundred years. These original essays argue that the responsa, far from being unimportant to the investigation of the modern Jewish condition, provide a helpful framework for analyzing and understanding the story of the Jewish response to the modern world. The essays focus on issues of Jewish identity (intermarriage, patrilineal descent, and apostasy, among others) and reflect upon the variety of paths Orthodox Judaism has followed in response to the changed social and religious conditions of the modern era.

Ethnicity, identity, and history : essays in memory of Werner J. Cahnman

In a wide-ranging analysis of the drama of history, the importance of ethnicity, and Jewish identity, these essays explore areas of political and cultural disciplines fused with elegance in the work of the late eminent sociologist Werner J. Cahnman. The prominence of the American and European historians, philosophers, geographers, sociologists, and anthropologists in this volume represents evidence of the wide effect that Cahnmans work had on scholars in a number of fields in academic work. This volume will make timely and rewarding reading for social scientists and historians, especially those concerned with the religious factor. Contributors: Joseph B. Maier, Chaim I. Waxman, Louis Dumont, Karl Bosl, K.M. Bolte, Edmund Leites, Lewis S. Feuer, Lester Singer, Harriet D. Lyons, Andrew P. Lyons, Alvin Boskoff, Nathan Glazer, Irving Louis Horowitz, Herbert A. Strauss, William Spinrad, Calvin Goldscheider, Saul B. Cohen, and Emmanuel Maier.

Insights and Questions from the Pew Report on America’s Orthodox Jews

Despite the distinctiveness of Orthodox Jews in American Jewish life in their marriage patterns, the Modern Orthodox segment is actually not much different from Conservative and Reform Jews in their marriage rates. Also, despite the large share of Modern Orthodox with annual incomes of

South African Jews in Israel: Assimilation in Multigenerational PerspectiveSouth African Jews in Israel: Assimilation in Multigenerational Perspective, by RaijmanRebeca. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2015. 294 pp.

150,000 and over, that fact belies the great cost of living Jewishly that they incur to support their traditional life style. In the end, more research is called for to examine in greater detail the nuances of these findings.

60.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780803255388.

South African Jews in Israel: Assimilation in Multigenerational Perspective contains detailed quantitative and qualitative analyses of the migration patterns and processes of assimilation into Israel of South African Jews who migrated there primarily between 1968 and 2013. Where most similar studies have focused on the immigrants themselves, their motives for migrating to Israel and, perhaps, their absorption experiences, Rebeca Raijman contributes a valuable multigenerational perspective by studying three groups: immigrants who arrived in Israel as adults, those who arrived as children, and Israeliborn children of immigrants. In contrast to theories of migration that focus on economic motives, Raijman finds that South African Jewish migration to Israel has been motivated by both push—unstable socioeconomic and political—and pull— Jewish and Zionist identity—factors. Indeed, realization of the desire to migrate was enabled by intense social networks and institutional frameworks between the organized South African Jewish community and Israel. These networks and frameworks became even more significant with development of the Internet, through which the most current and most extensive information is available. Raijman does not mention it, but one additional significant aspect of the role of the Internet and of telecommunications in Israeli immigration patterns from some countries is that they enable new arrivals to retain employment in their native countries. For example, there are immigrants in fields such as accounting, radiology, and technology, among others, who are able to continue working in their previous positions because their work does not require them to be physically present at their offices and all of the information they need for their work is readily transmitted on the Internet. They can also have a telephone number that is based in their previous country but which is relayed to where they are in Israel. In many ways, though Raijman does not explore this extensively, the immigration patterns of South African Jews are similar to those of American Jews who immigrated to Israel. One major difference is the relative absence in the United States of the types of socioeconomic and political instability that were push factors for South African Jews, and it is probably for that precise reason that the rate of Jews migrating to Israel from the United States is so much lower than that of South Africa. Analyzing linguistic assimilation, Raijman found Hebrew proficiency to be higher for migrants with more extensive contacts with Israelis and with higher education. Although the first generation arrives with a good knowledge of Hebrew, its members typically prefer to communicate in English, and they live in ethnic neighborhoods that allow them to do so comfortably. Their Israeliborn children as well as those who arrived in Israel as children are typically bilingual. Though this generation prefers to use Hebrew with friends and family, they have good command of English and use it as well. By the next generation, Hebrew was found to have replaced English as the primary language. However, the international prominence of English renders knowledge of it a valuable asset, and in this generation as well it is desirable to retain Englishlanguage skills. The education rates for South African men and women in Israel are very similar to those of their counterparts from North America. Further, they are the highest among all groups in Israel, with both men and women having more than 16 years of education and 70 percent or more having academic degrees. Not surprisingly, given their educational status and their facility with both Hebrew and English, South African immigrants have very high labor-force participation rates. What is not clear is why their rates are even higher than those of immigrants from North and South America, Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Perhaps, with 466 Reviews

Adam S. Ferziger. Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2015. 352 pp.

period under discussion was the pinnacle of RJC creativity (209). Barzel presents the RJC moment through the music and perspectives of its musicians, but a richer account would also have included how the music was received by critics and audiences. The reader is left wondering whether a community arose in conjunction with the music and whether the RJC moment had any tangible cultural or religious impact. These criticisms aside, New York Noise fills an important void in the study of contemporary Jewish music and provides an array of insights into a unique efflorescence of Jewish culture that is sure to stimulate fans and scholars alike.

18 American Jews and the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process: A Study of Diaspora in International Affairs

The Middle East has been an arena of concern for American foreign policy since World War II and, within that geographic area, the Arab/Palestinian-Israel conflict receives special attention. This chapter deals with attitudes of American Jews toward central issues in Arab-Israel conflict and the peace process. It focuses on three dimensions: perceptions of Americas Jews as to Arab objectives-reclaiming territory, or destruction of Israel; American Jewish support of and/or opposition to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state; and American Jewish stances with respect to concessions on status of Jerusalem as a unified city under Israeli jurisdiction. The chapter has a comparative nature, tracing changes in attitudes over the course of a twelve-year period, from 1998 to 2010. It contributes to the corpus of knowledge about diasporas and international affairs in general and, in particular, the positions of Jewish diaspora in the United States toward advancing peace in Middle East. Keywords: American foreign policy; American Jews; destruction of Israel; Israeli-Palestinian peace process; Jerusalem; Jewish diaspora; Palestinian-Israel conflict

The Threadbare Canopy: The Vicissitudes of the Jewish Family in Modern American Society

One of the major social issues which was widely debated during the 1970s was the future of the family in modern society. The issue was probed from a variety of perspectives and involved spokepersons from such fields as sociology, social welfare, social history, religion, and politics; indeed, Sussman (1978) has suggested that the 1970s may well come to be known as the decade of &dquo;The Great Family Debate.&dquo; The sources of that debate and an evaluation of the various prognoses will not be offered herein. For the purposes of this article it is sufficient to point out that within the American Jewish community, as well, there was (and is) widespread concern over the future of the American Jewish family. However, whereas regarding the larger societal issue of the future of the family, there were those who were not overly concerned about the implications of the decline of the family, within the Jewish community, there has been a virtual consensus that the decline of the American Jewish family present a serious challenge to the future of the American Jewish community. It should be emphasized that the focus of concern has been upon individuals as members of the American Jewish community and the implications for the continuity of that community, and not solely upon the well-being of individuals qua individuals. Why is American Jewry so uniquely concerned about the future of the American Jewish family? This article will attempt to