Janet Krasner Aronson

Pew’s Portrait of American Jewry: A Reassessment of the Assimilation Narrative

New analyses by the authors of the Pew Research Center’s, Portrait of Jewish Americans, critically reexamine the prevalent narrative drawn from the report of decline and assimilation in the American Jewish community. Comparisons of the Pew findings to NJPS 1990 and 2000-2001 demonstrate a substantial increase in the US Jewish population and stable levels of belonging to the Jewish people, observance of Jewish ritual, and connection to Israel. The overall population increase is driven primarily by higher-than-expected retention of young adult children of intermarriage, most of whom were raised without Jewish religious identity and disproportionately identify as Jews of no religion. Nonetheless, the engagement of the next generation of adult children of intermarriage is lower than that of other American Jews. Intermarriage, thus, presents both a challenge and an opportunity.