This book offers an examination of an expanding set of options for being Jewish in contemporary American society. It examines the evolution of Jewish identity across five epochs of Jewish civilization as well as the transformation of the American Jewish experience across four centuries. In addition, an institutional history and a geographic, demographic, and religious profile of American Jews are presented, including an outline of contemporary Jewish options to express Jewish identity in twenty-first century America. Readers will gain an understanding of how these options developed via the provision of a socio-historical and a social scientific analysis of each option in one integrated volume. The book also discusses contemporary challenges to the continuity of American Jewish community and identity including the issues of education, interfaith marriage, and philanthropy.
Arnold Dashefsky is the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies and Professor of Sociology Emeritus and was the founding Director of the Center for Judaic
Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut. Currently, he is Senior Academic Consultant to the Berman Jewish DataBank and Director Emeritus, as well as co-editor of the American Jewish Year Book. He has co-authored, co-edited, and edited 18 books and numerous articles and papers on Jewish identity, family, ethnicity, emigration, and interfaith marriage. He, along with Ira M. Sheskin is an author of the annual article on the American Jewish population, which appears on the Berman Jewish DataBank website and in the American Jewish Year Book. He was a founding member, secretary-treasurer, vice president, and president of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (ASSJ) and served as editor of its journal, Contemporary Jewry. He is the recipient of the Mandel L. Berman Service Award (2012) and the Marshall Sklare Award (2020), both from ASSJ.
Ira M. Sheskin is Professor of Geography and Sustainable Development and Director of the Jewish Demography Project of the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies at the University of Miami. He is the recipient of the Marshall Sklare Award (2023) from the Association for the Scientific Study of Jewry. His main research interest is in the geography and demography of American Jews, and he is co-editor of the American Jewish Year Book. He has completed more than 50 major local Jewish community studies for Jewish Federations throughout the country and has been a consultant to numerous synagogues, Jewish day schools, Jewish agencies, Jewish nursing homes, and Jewish Community Centers throughout the country. Dr. Sheskin was a member of the National Technical Advisory Committee of the United Jewish Communities from 1988 to 2003. This committee completed both the 1990 and 2000-01 National Jewish Population Surveys. He, along with Arnold Dashefsky is an author of the annual article on the American Jewish population which appears on the Berman Jewish Data Bank website and in the American Jewish Year Book. His publications include about 60 monographs and books, including: Survey Research for Geographers; How Jewish Communities Differ; and Comparisons of Jewish Communities: A Compendium of Tables and Bar Charts. He is currently working on a book with Arnold Dashefsky called Jewish Options.
J. Alan Winter was the Lucretia L. Allen Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Connecticut College. He was honored to serve as the president of the Jewish Federation of Southeastern Connecticut. His research interests were in the sociology of religion, poverty and society, and the social scientific study of Jewry. Dr. Winter applied his expertise by serving on the advisory committee of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut, as well as on a variety of committees of the United Way of Southeastern Connecticut and the
Waterford Economic Development Committee. He served as editor of the journal Contemporary Jewry for ASSJ, and was the author of many articles and book chapters on a variety to topics. One of his most compelling lines of his research and publications focused on the "Cost of Living Jewishly." Among the books that he authored were Continuities in the Sociology of Religion: Creed, Congregation and Community; Clergy in Action Training (with Edgar W. Mills and Polly S. Hendrick) and Jewish Choices (with Bernard Lazerwitz, Arnold Dashefsky, and Ephraim Tabory.
