This book traces the emergence and development of an organized, institutionalized Jewish social science, and explores the increasing importance of statistics and other modes of analysis for Jewish elites throughout Europe and the United States. The Zionist movement provided the initial impetus as it looked to the social sciences to provide the knowledge of contemporary Jewish life deemed necessary for nationalist revival. The social sciences offered empirical evidence of the ambiguous condition of the Jewish diaspora, and also charted emancipation and assimilation, viewed as dissolutions of and threats to Jewish identity. Liberal, assimilationist scholars also utilized social science data to demonstrate the continuing viability of Jewish life in the diaspora. Jewish social science grew out of a sustained effort to understand and explain the effects of modernization on Jewry. Above all, Jewish scholars sought to give the enormous transformations undergone by Jewry in the nineteenth century a larger meaning and significance

This volume of Studies in Contemporary Jewry directs its searchlight on the social scientific study of Jewry. Its symposium consists of 11 essays that discuss sources, approaches, and debates in different complementary fields of demography, sociology, economy, and geography. Taken as a group, the essays cover the major areas of Jewish life today in Israel, the United States, Europe, and Latin America.

This book examines the connection between the nineteenth century transformation of the human sciences into the social sciences and notions of Jewish assimilation and integration, demonstrating that the quest for Jewish assimilation is linked to and built into the conceptual foundations of modern social science disciplines.

Defines the distinctive field of Jewish cultural studies and its basis in folkloristic, psychological, and ethnological approaches. Jewish Cultural Studiescharts the contours and boundaries of Jewish cultural studies and the issues of Jewish culture that make it so intriguing—and necessary—not only for Jews but also for students of identity, ethnicity, and diversity generally. In addition to framing the distinguishing features of Jewish culture and the ways it has been studied, and often misrepresented and maligned, Simon J. Bronner presents several case studies using ethnography, folkloristic interpretation, and rhetorical analysis. Bronner, building on many years of global cultural exploration, locates patterns, processes, frames, and themes of events and actions identified as Jewish to discern what makes them appear Jewish and why. Jewish Cultural Studiesis divided into three parts. Part 1 deals with the conceptualization of how Jews in complex, heterogenous societies identify themselves as a cultural group to non-Jews and vice versa—such as how the Jewish home is socially and materially constructed. Part 2 delves into ritualization as a strategic Jewish practice for perpetuating peoplehood and the values that it suggests—for example, the rising popularity of naming ceremonies for newborn girls, simhat bat or zeved habat, in the twenty-first century. Part 3 explores narration, including the global transformation of Jewish joking in online settings and the role of Jews in American political culture. Bronner reflects that a reason to separate Jewish cultural studies from the fields of Jewish studies and cultural studies is the distinctiveness of Jewish culture among other ethnic experiences. As a diasporic group with religious ties and varying local customs, Jews present difficulties of categorization. He encourages a multiperspectival approach that considers the Jewish double consciousness as being aware of both insider and outsider perspectives, participation in ancient tradition and recent modernization, and the great variety and stigmatization of Jewish experience and cultural expression. Students and scholars in Jewish studies, cultural studies, ethnic-religious studies, folklore, sociology, psychology, and ethnology are the intended audience for this book.

The French tradition: 1789 and the Jews -- The German tradition: capitalism and the Jews -- The American tradition: the city and the Jews

This collected volume is based on the proceedings of a symposium held in 2018 at York University, Canada, which was held to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Israel. This symposium highlighted contemporary Jewish identity, Israel-Diaspora relations, and how Jewish life has been transformed in light of various types of antisemitism. The book considers the diasporic Jewish experiences through examining the intersections between various Jewish communities sociologically, historically, and geographically. The text covers world Jewry in general, and each of the diaspora and Israeli Jewries more specifically in the context of mutual responsibility, but also focuses on areas of tension concerning values and political matters. The challenges of antisemitism, racism, and nationalism are explored in terms of the relationship of the Jewish diasporas to their host countries. This text also covers antisemitism, which may take the form of traditional antisemitism or of the new antisemitism in the era of anti-Israel activity related to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The latter movement is especially prevalent on university campuses and has an impact on students, faculty, and staff. This volume is unique in its international perspective in examining issues of Jewish identity, Israel-diaspora relations, and antisemitism and will appeal to students and researchers working in the field.

A piercing portrait of the struggles and triumphs of one of America's renowned Jewish neighborhoods in the wake of unspeakable tragedy that highlights the hopes, fears, and tensions all Americans must confront on the road to healing. Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, is one of the oldest Jewish neighborhoods in the country, known for its tight-knit community and the profusion of multigenerational families. On October 27, 2018, a gunman killed eleven Jews who were worshipping at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill--the most deadly anti-Semitic attack in American history. Many neighborhoods would be understandably subsumed by despair and recrimination after such an event, but not this one. Mark Oppenheimer poignantly shifts the focus away from the criminal and his crime, and instead presents the historic, spirited community at the center of this heartbreak. He speaks with residents and nonresidents, Jews and gentiles, survivors and witnesses, teenagers and seniors, activists and historians. Together, these stories provide a kaleidoscopic and nuanced account of collective grief, love, support, and revival. But Oppenheimer also details the difficult dialogue and messy confrontations that Squirrel Hill had to face in the process of healing, and that are a necessary part of true growth and understanding in any community. He has reverently captured the vibrancy and caring that still characterize Squirrel Hill, and it is this phenomenal resilience that can provide inspiration to any place burdened with discrimination and hate.