{"id":3746,"date":"2014-04-30T14:22:44","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T14:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approach-to-studying-american-jews\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T19:23:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T19:23:52","slug":"a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/","title":{"rendered":"A Different Approach to Studying American Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n \n
\n \n \n
\n \n \n
\n\n \n

A Different Approach to Studying American Jews<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n By<\/span>Tobin Belzer<\/a><\/strong>\n \n April 30, 2014<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n \n
\n \n \n Share\n <\/span>\n \n \n <\/svg>\n <\/span>\n Copy Link<\/span>\n <\/a>\n \n \n <\/svg>\n <\/span>\n Facebook<\/span>\n <\/a>\n \n \n \n\n<\/svg>\n\n <\/span>\n X<\/span>\n <\/a>\n \n \n <\/svg>\n <\/span>\n LinkedIn<\/span>\n <\/a>\n \n \n \n \n <\/svg>\n <\/span>\n Bluesky<\/span>\n <\/a>\n \n \n <\/svg>\n <\/span>\n Email<\/span>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n \n\n\n\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n \n \n
\n\n \n

Since the Pew Research Center launched \u201cA Portrait of Jewish Americans: Findings from a Pew Research Center Survey of U.S. Jews<\/a>,\u201d I\u2019ve had a lot of interesting encounters with people who know I\u2019m a applied sociologist of American Jewry whose work leans heavily toward the qualitative. Jewish professionals and lay people alike have sidled up to me and cautiously asked my opinion of the (very quantitative) Pew study. I tell them that I feel really excited about the Pew study, because of its timeliness in terms of punctuating the need for a more nuanced understanding of how post- boomers articulate and enact their ideas about Jewishness, which happens to be a project I\u2019m currently working on.<\/p>\n

This spring, I am a visiting scholar at the Taube Center for Jewish Studies<\/a> at Stanford University, where I am working as part of a research team, headed by my colleague Ari Kelman, Jim Joseph Chair in Education and Jewish Studies in the Graduate School of Education. We\u2019re in the midst of conducting an in-depth qualitative study exploring, among other things, how emerging adults learn to be Jewish.<\/p>\n

In the past 20 years, social scientists have been expanding the study of Jewish identity to include inquiries examining \u201cHow Jewish are Jews?\u201d (as the Pew study did) as well as research that asks \u201cHow are Jews Jewish?\u201d It has been extremely beneficial to the field to expand the types of questions we\u2019re asking about Jewish identity. And we\u2019re trying to push the envelope even further. We\u2019re hoping that if we ask the questions in a different way, we\u2019ll learn something new.<\/p>\n

So, rather than putting forth a variety of diverse measures designed to understand respondents\u2019 knowledge, attitudes and behaviors–in effect, asking young adults to tell us how they fit into the framework of Jewishness as we define it–we\u2019re attempting to locate narrative authority with the research subjects themselves.<\/p>\n

Toward this end, we\u2019re using an inductive, life-history-based instrument adapted from the work of psychologist Dan McAdams, who is the director of the Foley Center for the Study of Lives<\/a> at Northwestern University\u2019s School of Education and Social Policy. The Foley Center supports interdisciplinary research committed to studying psychological and social development in the adult years.<\/p>\n

So far, we\u2019ve conducted 57 in-depth interviews with individuals who map roughly onto Jeffrey Arnett\u2019s concept of \u201cemerging adulthood<\/a>,\u201d which we\u2019re using to mean post-college and no children. We found these parameters helpful because of the exploratory nature of this phase of life, and the fact that it\u2019s the least institutionally defined.<\/p>\n

As a student, the educational system structures one\u2019s experience in fundamental ways, and as a parent, one generally begins to make decisions within the constructs of the parent-child relationship. \u201cEmerging adults\u201d do neither of these, which makes them particularly interesting, as they\u2019re figuring out who they are and who they want to be amid significant social, economic, cultural and personal flux. We used a snowball sampling method to locate respondents, which means we contacted people we know (both Jews and non Jews) and asked them for the names of Jewish people who fit the demographic profile of our ideal interviewee (identify as Jewish; non-college; no-kids).<\/p>\n

We\u2019re asking young adults to tell us the story of their lives: to think of their lives as a book with chapters. Then we\u2019re asking them to tell us about these chapters, focusing on positive or negative moments, events, encounters and people that influenced them–in other words, formative experiences. We\u2019re also asking them to reflect on how those moments have shaped how they understand themself and the world around them. In this way, we are attempting to avoid some of the challenges of earlier investigations of Jewish identity, which, we believe, might distort the magnitude of Jewishness in people\u2019s lives by focusing almost exclusively on questions pertaining to Jewish attitudes and practices. Instead, we wanted to hear about Jewishness \u201cin situ.\u201d<\/p>\n

This approach is enabling us to explore the ways in which young adults articulate who they are, what is meaningful to them and how they understand and engage with the world around them. And, specifically, the extent to which Jewishness plays a part in these individuals\u2019 life stories.<\/p>\n

In this way, their stories are less an accounting of their Jewish educational experiences or of how often their family observed Shabbat or whether they belonged to a synagogue or a Jewish community center (although many of those topics certainly came up). Instead, by hearing their Jewish stories within the broader context of their lives, we believe that we are developing a more nuanced account of how they learn to be Jewish, one that we think better reflects the scope of Jewishness in their lives. Ultimately, we hope our approach will contribute to reshaping our understanding of the dimensions and dynamics of contemporary Jewish life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, rather than putting forth a variety of diverse measures designed to understand respondents\u2019 knowledge, attitudes and behaviors–in effect, asking young adults to tell us how they fit into the framework of Jewishness as we define it–we\u2019re attempting to locate narrative authority with the research subjects themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":881,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[38,33,54],"class_list":["post-3746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-judaism","tag-religious-affiliation","tag-tobin-belzer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Different Approach to Studying American Jews<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Different Approach to Studying American Jews - Center for Religion and Civic Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So, rather than putting forth a variety of diverse measures designed to understand respondents\u2019 knowledge, attitudes and behaviors--in effect, asking young adults to tell us how they fit into the framework of Jewishness as we define it--we\u2019re attempting to locate narrative authority with the research subjects themselves.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Center for Religion and Civic Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-04-30T14:22:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-12-19T19:23:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"hkisiel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"hkisiel\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#\/schema\/person\/6dea852ab0c0f3d2ba3b884d87d3e278\"},\"headline\":\"A Different Approach to Studying American Jews\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-04-30T14:22:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-19T19:23:52+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/\"},\"wordCount\":7,\"commentCount\":0,\"keywords\":[\"Judaism\",\"Religious Affiliation\",\"Tobin Belzer\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Commentary\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/\",\"name\":\"A Different Approach to Studying American Jews - Center for Religion and Civic Culture\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-04-30T14:22:44+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-12-19T19:23:52+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#\/schema\/person\/6dea852ab0c0f3d2ba3b884d87d3e278\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Different Approach to Studying American Jews\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/\",\"name\":\"Center for Religion and Civic Culture\",\"description\":\"USC Dornsife Center for Religion and Civic Culture\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#\/schema\/person\/6dea852ab0c0f3d2ba3b884d87d3e278\",\"name\":\"hkisiel\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/77dd2f81aa02ba1109c56494482c6b9731f32a1c4dc76edd918c9e7e8ad75556?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/77dd2f81aa02ba1109c56494482c6b9731f32a1c4dc76edd918c9e7e8ad75556?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"hkisiel\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/author\/hkisiel\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Different Approach to Studying American Jews","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Different Approach to Studying American Jews - Center for Religion and Civic Culture","og_description":"So, rather than putting forth a variety of diverse measures designed to understand respondents\u2019 knowledge, attitudes and behaviors--in effect, asking young adults to tell us how they fit into the framework of Jewishness as we define it--we\u2019re attempting to locate narrative authority with the research subjects themselves.","og_url":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/","og_site_name":"Center for Religion and Civic Culture","article_published_time":"2014-04-30T14:22:44+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-12-19T19:23:52+00:00","author":"hkisiel","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/"},"author":{"name":"hkisiel","@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#\/schema\/person\/6dea852ab0c0f3d2ba3b884d87d3e278"},"headline":"A Different Approach to Studying American Jews","datePublished":"2014-04-30T14:22:44+00:00","dateModified":"2025-12-19T19:23:52+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/"},"wordCount":7,"commentCount":0,"keywords":["Judaism","Religious Affiliation","Tobin Belzer"],"articleSection":["Commentary"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/","url":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/","name":"A Different Approach to Studying American Jews - Center for Religion and Civic Culture","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-04-30T14:22:44+00:00","dateModified":"2025-12-19T19:23:52+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#\/schema\/person\/6dea852ab0c0f3d2ba3b884d87d3e278"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/a-different-approached-to-studying-american-jews\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Different Approach to Studying American Jews"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/","name":"Center for Religion and Civic Culture","description":"USC Dornsife Center for Religion and Civic Culture","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#\/schema\/person\/6dea852ab0c0f3d2ba3b884d87d3e278","name":"hkisiel","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/77dd2f81aa02ba1109c56494482c6b9731f32a1c4dc76edd918c9e7e8ad75556?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/77dd2f81aa02ba1109c56494482c6b9731f32a1c4dc76edd918c9e7e8ad75556?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"hkisiel"},"url":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/author\/hkisiel\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/881"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3746"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105263,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3746\/revisions\/105263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/crcc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}