Sociology of American Jewish Community
Prof. Sylvia Barack Fishman
Brandeis University
Fall 2008

     This course explores transformations in modern American Jewish societies, first surveying Jewish social groups in historical Jewish communities and then focusing on American Jews in the second half of the 20th century. The course uses an interdisciplinary approach, analyzing material culture, literature, and film as well as sociological and social-historical texts. It is the goal of this course that students learn about the field of the social scientific study of American Jewish societies as a discipline, as well as about the societies themselves. All students are expected to do each of the required readings by the date indicated, and to be ready to participate in class discussions. A written mid-term examination, a final examination, and a major research paper (15-20 pages) will be required.

Required Texts for all Students:

• 1. Sylvia Barack Fishman, The Way Into the Varieties of Jewishness (2007)
• 2. Sylvia Barack Fishman, Jewish Life and American Culture (2000)

• 1. Post WW II Immigration: Helmreich, William, “Making a Living in America,” and “All For the Children,” excerpted from Against All Odds: Holocaust Survivors and the Successful Lives They Made in America (Simon and Schuster, 1992).
• 2. Upward Socio-economic Mobility: Silberman, Charles, selections from A Certain People (Summit Books, 1985).
• 3. Acculturation and Accommodation: Jenna Joselit, “Red Letter Days” from The Wonders of America (Hill & Wang, 1994), pp. 89-134, and “Kitchen Judaism,” pp. 171-218.
• 4. Gans, Herbert. J. “Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in America,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 2, No. 1 (January, 1979)
• 5. Marshall Sklare, “The Image of the Good Jew in Lakeville.” Antisemitism and Intergroup Relations
• 6. Selections from Kenneth S. Stern, Antisemitism Today: How it is the same, how it is different, and how to fight it (New York: American Jewish Committee, 2006). Israel-Diaspora Relations--the American View
• 7. Irreconcilable Differences? The Waning of the American Jewish Love Affair with Israel, Rosenthal, Steven T. (Brandeis University Press, 2001), selections (pp. 22-41, 116-155, 195-216). American Jewish Identity
• 8. Selections from Len Saxe, Ten days of birthright Israel: A journey in young Jewish adult identity
• 9. “The Differential Impact of Jewish Education on Adult Jewish Identity,” Steven M. Cohen, in Jack Wertheimer, ed., Jewish Education in An Age of Choice (University Press of New England, 2007), pp. 34-58

• 1. Marshall Sklare, Observing America’s Jews (University Press of New England, 1993)
• 2. Jack Wertheimer, ed., Jewish Education in An Age of Choice (University Press of New England, 2007)
• 3. Sylvia Barack Fishman, Double or Nothing? Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage (University Press of New England, 2004)
• 4. Sylvia Barack Fishman & Daniel Parmer, Matrilineal Ascent/ Patrilineal Descent: Gender Imbalance in American Jewish Life.

• · Methods of studying American Jews as a contemporary social group: Triangulation--Using quantitative and qualitative research and cultural artifacts to understand American Jewish life.
• · What we can learn about sociology of American Jews by reading newspapers.

• · Read Fishman, The Way into the Varieties of Jewishness, Introduction and Chapters One and Two.

• · Characteristics of Jewish societies in historical, pre-modern Jewish communities. How did Sephardic and Ashkenazi communities differ in the social characteristics they developed? How did historical Jewish communities understand the communities of their past? How did Emancipation, and the Jewish Enlightenment change Jewish life?

• · Read Fishman, Varieties of Jewishness, Chapter Three. Recommended: View “The Jazz Singer” Monday evening 6:30-8:30 with film class.

• · Early waves of Jewish immigration to America; Pre-immigration Jewish societies in the 19th century; How did modernity transform Jewish identity, values and behavior in various geographical areas? Immigration to the United States before World War II

• · Read selections by Helmreich, Against All Odds

• · Holocaust survivors; Recent immigration: Former USSR, Israelis, North and South Africa, Latin America, Canada

• · Read Charles Silberman, selections from A Certain People, Jenna Joselit, “Red Letter Days” and “Kitchen Judaism,” from The Wonders of America, Fishman, Jewish Life and American Culture, chapters One and Two

• · Jews adapting to American middle class culture at mid-century (behavior, material culture). How did educational and occupational factors transform Jewish life? What were the agendas of acculturation? How were Jewish ceremonies and institutions and concepts of Jewish behavior transformed? How did Jewishness affect Jewish secular education and occupation, and the socio-economic status of American Jews?

• · Read Fishman, Jewish Life and American Culture, Chapters Five and Six, view films: “Hester Street,” “Goodbye, Columbus.”
• · Jewish family unit.

• · The Jewish family as the basic building block of Jewish society.

• · American Jewish families at mid-20th-century and beyond: changing patterns of family formation, gender construction, and identity.

• · Read Gans, “Symbolic Ethnicity: The Future of Ethnic Groups and Cultures in America,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 2, No. 1 (January, 1979), and Marshall Sklare, “The Image of the Good Jew in Lakeville”

• · Marshall Sklare and the creation of the field of sociology of American Jews; how can we study American Jewish behavior, attitudes, social change. Sklare’s analysis of American Jewish identity and social change. Interpretive framework: how a social scientist positions him/herself.
• · Jews adapting to American middle class culture at mid-century (behavior, material culture). What were the agendas of acculturation? Are they still factors in American Jewish life? What is “ethnic identity”? What is “social capital”?
• · Discussion sections: The image of the “good Jew” in You-ville.

• · Read Varieties of Jewishness, Chapters 4-5-6-7

• · The varieties of American Jewish religious culture and how they grew. Interactions, mutual influences, and conflicts between Reform, Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Secular Jewish Humanist, Jewish Renewal wings of Judaism, and others. Defining inclusion and exclusion within diverse wings of Judaism. Galvanizing issues within each movement. Jewish feminism as a force for conflict and revitalization. Have we arrived at a post-denominational time? Do denominations have significance to young American Jews today?

• · Read selections from Stern and Rosenthal.

• · What is antisemitism and how has it changed over history? The “rediscovery” of the Holocaust and Holocaust memorializing. The impact of the “Six Day War” on American Jewish attachments to Israel. Israel, the dream, the ideal, and the transforming reality---in the minds of American Jews. How did American Jew attachment to Israel grow? Has is receded or simply become more complicated? Are there generational or denominational differences in feelings about Israel? How does attachment to Israel interact with American Jewish political values? How do college students and GenXers relate to Israel?

• · Read selections on Jewish education (Cohen, Fishman, Saxe)

• · What are the various forms of formal and informal Jewish education? How did they develop? What impact do they have on Jewish values and behaviors?

• · Read Double or Nothing, Chapter 8 and Varieties of Jewishness, Chapter 8

• · Cultural and sociological challenges to changing Jewish families.

• · Read Jewish Life and American Culture, Chapter 7

• · What they are and how they function in American Jewish communities on a local and national level. What is the role of American Jewish organizations today, and how has the relationship of American Jews to their organizations changed? The impact of geographical mobility and regionalism on Jewish organizational life; the new crop of American Jewish organizations; the impact of feminism on Jewish organizational life; organizations try to adapt to meet changing American Jewish psyche.

• · Read Varieties of Jewishness and Jewish Life and American Culture, concluding chapters.

• · Gendered differences in American Jewish identity and behavior.