“The Shrinking Jewish Middle and The End of Jewish Exceptionalism”

Steven M. Cohen, Research Professor of Jewish Social Policy, Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion in New York, in conversation with Tomás Jiménez, Associate Professor of Sociology and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, Stanford University

 

Jews are the one major American group that can be characterized as both ethnic and religious. In both ways, Jews have been exceptional. Of all white European ethnic groups, Jews have been the most socially cohesive and institutionally organized. Of all liberal religious movements, Jews have exhibited unusually high rates of religious involvement at home and in the community. Yet recent socio-demographic trends points to the decline of the "Jewish Middle," populated by non-Orthodox Jews who are ethnically attached and religiously engaged. The ethnic and religious exceptionalism of American Jewry may soon be no more.