CHAIR: Bethamie Horowitz

Joel Perlmann, “The American Jewish Periphery: An Overview”

Bruce Phillips, “Periphery and Core: Connections”

Calvin Goldscheider, “Boundary Maintenance and Stratification: Jews in Comparative and Historical Perspective”

Richard Alba, “The Sociological Significance of the American Jewish Experience: Boundary Blurring, Assimilation and Pluralism”

Nathan Glazer, "The American Jewish Periphery—Another Case of Jewish Exceptionalism?”

Chair: Sidney Goldstein

Todd Endelman, "The American Jewish Periphery in Historical Perspective."

Jack Wertheimer, “The Nature of Community in the Light of this Phenomenon”

Other participants (from beyond the Bard College community): Myrna Baron, Lynn Davidman, David Gordis, Ben Phillips, and Werner Sollers.

The Institute gratefully acknowledges supplemental support drawn from a grant provided by the Center for Cultural Judaism to the Jewish Studies program at Bard College.

The term "the American Jewish Periphery" is meant to refer to individuals who identify with Jewishness only marginally, or who do not identify at all—but who nevertheless have Jewish origins in the recent past. While there have always been such people, and by no means do they come only from among the offspring of the intermarried, the size of this peripheral group has increased greatly in numbers since (roughly) 1970, during which time the rate of American-Jewish intermarriage has been high. Survey results confirm that among the adult offspring of the intermarried, there is an especially high concentration of people who identify marginally or not at all as Jews, whether in religious or secular/cultural terms. At the same time, of course, the range of identities that now typify the adult offspring of the intermarried is very diverse; many identify strongly with their Jewishness, many others do not. Thus the periphery is meant to denote those with some recent Jewish origins but with very weak or non-existent ties to things Jewish. This group now constitutes a large and growing fraction of all those with Jewish origins.

Our interest is not to consider the familiar question raised by intermarriage concerning the nature of American Jewish survival over the long term. Rather, the existence of a very marginal group among those with Jewish origins, some of whom call themselves Jews and others do not, raises questions about American Jewish life in the near-term future. Among these are the social characteristics of this American Jewish periphery compared to more mainstream American Jews (education, income, place of residence, etc.) and their political outlook; questions of identity and views of their Jewish origin and of Jewish issues; how this periphery interacts with the Jewish mainstream, including intermarriage patterns. Also important will be how American Jewish institutions define themselves in terms of these people—are these people potential members? Under what conditions? And finally, how can these people best be studied in the near future?

Participants (other than those from Bard) will include by affiliation (or emeritus affiliation) sociologists Richard Alba (SUNY Albany), Myrna Baron (Center for Cultural Judaism), Lynn Davidman (Brown), Nancy Foner (CUNY), Nathan Glazer (Harvard), Calvin Goldscheider (Brown) Alice Goldstein (Brown), Sidney Goldstein (Brown), Bethamie Horowitz (Mandel Foundation), Barry Kosmin (Trinity), Ben Phillips (Brandeis), Bruce Phillips (HUC-JIR, LA), Mary Waters (Harvard), historian of Jewish assimilation Todd Endelman (Ann Arbor), American Studies expert Werner Sollers (Harvard) as well as David Gordis (President, Hebrew College, Boston and founder of the center for Jewish policy studies) and Jack Wertheimer (Provost, Jewish Theological Seminary, NYC).

Some Background Readings:

Richard Alba,
“On the Sociological Significance of the American Jewish Experience: Boundary Blurring, Assimilation, and Pluralism”

Lynn Davidman,
“Growing up in an Intermarried Household”

Nathan Glazer,
“The Jewish Periphery: Another Case of Jewish Exceptionalism?”

Calvin Goldscheider,
“Boundary Maintenance and Stratification: Jews in Comparative and Historical Perspective”

Bethamie Horowitz,
“Connections and Journeys: Assessing Critical Opportunities for Enhancing Jewish Identity”

Barry A. Kosmin,
“The Need for a Systematic Comparative Approach to National Population Surveys of Jews”

Joel Perlmann,
“The American Jewish Periphery: An Overview “

Joel Perlmann and Mary C. Waters,
“Intermarriage and Multiple Identities”

Benjamin Phillips and Sylvia Barack Fishman
“Ethnic Capital and Intermarriage: A Case Study of American Jews”

Bruce Phillips,
“American Judaism in the Twenty-First Century”

“Assimilation, Transformation, and the Long Range Impact of Intermarriage”

“Catholic (and Protestant) Israel: The Permutations of Denominational Differences and Identities in Mixed Families”

Jack Wertheimer, Charles S. Liebman and Steven M. Cohen,
“How to Save American Jews”