Abstract
Background
Distinctions in social class and their implications for social cohesion have periodically emerged among American Jews, but they largely receded in the last quarter of the 20th century as most Jews reached middle and upper class status. The connections between them have received little attention since then.
Purpose
We revisit the relationship between social class and social cohesion among American Jews. Though American Jews have been disproportionately located in the middle and upper social classes for many decades, they are nonetheless still stratified internally by social class distinctions. Our research asks: are the social class distinctions that continue to stratify American Jews related to their social cohesion?
Methods
We use data from 27 local Jewish community studies pooled into one data file with 24,733 cases. We measure social class with a bi-directional index composed of income and education, and we measure social cohesion with a question on feeling part of the local Jewish community. We analyze these data using generalized linear mixed models that adjust for clustering by community and specify a cumulative logit link for ordinal outcomes. Our models include other predictors of social cohesion and interaction terms between social class and the other predictors. We also calculate model-based probabilities for dependent variable outcomes.
Results
Modest, positive relationships are found between social class and social cohesion. As social class status increases, so too do felt connections to the local Jewish community. Social class also variably interacts with every other predictor, strengthening the relationship between social class and social cohesion among certain subsegments of the population and reducing it among others.
Conclusions and implications
Even as American Jews are disproportionately located in the middle and upper social classes, social class continues to stratify them, to modestly reduce the group’s overall social cohesion, and to concentrate social cohesion among those with higher social class status. The relationship between social class and social cohesion has implications for social class bias in the processes and dynamics of the organized Jewish community that warrant further research.
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Notes
In using intermarriage in our analysis, we are not entering the long-standing debate about causal mechanisms that may link intermarriage and cohesion, nor are we suggesting intermarriage denotes cultural assimilation or disengagement from Jewish life. In this note, we limit our interest to the empirical association between intermarriage and social cohesion (Cooperman and Smith 2013).
See the Jewish Federations of North America’s Public Directory: Jewish Federations at https://fedweb-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/federation-directory/Federation_Public_Directory_Feb2021.pdf. There are also 10 Jewish Federations in Canada.
The sampling units for local Jewish community surveys are Jewish households. A Jewish household is defined as a household with one or more Jewish adults. Non-Jewish respondents are interviewed when a Jewish adult is identified as residing in the household but is unavailable or refuses to be interviewed. While non-Jewish respondents can supply much of the household data, questions that measure attitudinal or emotional connections to various aspects of Jewish life and community may not be relevant to them and may yield inaccurate data. Because our dependent variable concerns attitudinal connection to the local Jewish community, we removed the small share of households with non-Jewish respondents.
More specifically, we used the highest level of education among household members (high school or less, college degree, or post-graduate degree); the number of full-time and part-time employed household members (0, 1, or 2 or more); the number of men in the household (0, or 1 or more)); and the number of household members ages 35–64 (0, or 1 or more).
The inflation rate from 2000 to 2018 was about 47% (www.bls.gov).
The original income brackets are under $15,000, $15,000-$24,999, $25,000 - $49,999; $50,000–74,999, $75,000-$99,999, $100,000-$149,000, $150,000-$199,999, and $200,000 or more.
In nine communities, median income was between $50,000 and $74,999, with substantially lower income at less than $25,000 and substantially higher income at $100,000 or more. In 12 communities, median income was between $75,000 and $99,999, with substantially lower income at less than $50,000 and substantially higher income at $150,000 or more. In 6 communities, median income was between $100,000 and $149,000, with substantially lower income at less than $75,000 and substantially higher income at $200,000 or more.
We consider our measure of class an index, not a scale (Babbie 2010, Chap. 6; Janda, no date). Indices summarize ordinal or nominal indicators that may not be intercorrelated, or as highly intercorrelated as the indicators that comprise a scale. For a similar approach, albeit with more indicators of class location, see Zuckerman, Valentino, and Zuckerman 1994.
A score of -1 on the index indicates either (a) income substantially below the group’s median and a college degree (7% of respondents) or (b) income at or near the group’s median and less than a college degree (16%). A score of + 1 on the index indicates either (a) income substantially above the group’s median and a college degree (9%) or (b) income at or near the group’s median and a graduate/professional degree (15%). A score of 0 on the index indicates either (a) income at or near the group’s median and a college degree (18%); (b) income substantially below the group’s median and a graduate/professional degree (4%); or (c) income substantially above the group’s median and less than a college degree (4%).
“Just Jewish” is typically used in Jewish surveys as a response option for respondents who do not identify with one of the institutional denominations (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform).
New York is not included in our pooled sample because the most recently available study for that region, conducted in 2011, did not contain our dependent variable.
Roughly one quarter of all American Jews live in New York City and Westchester, Suffolk and Nassau counties combined (and roughly one sixth of American Jews lives in NYC alone). The share of all Orthodox Jews in the United States who live in NYC and the three suburban counties is well over half.
Odds ratios are always positive, but because they are multiplicative factors, their interpretation depends on whether they are less than or greater than 1. Odds ratios for negative coefficients are less than one, and they indicate that the odds of being in a higher ordered category decline. The bigger the absolute value of a negative coefficient, the smaller its corresponding odds ratio becomes below one, and the greater is the multiplicative reduction in the odds of being in a higher ordered category. In contrast, odds ratios for positive coefficients are greater than one, and they indicate the odds of being in a higher ordered category increase. The bigger the absolute value of a positive coefficient, the more its odds ratio climbs above one, and the greater is the multiplicative increase in the odds of being in a higher ordered category.
In other words, among those ages 18–34, social class has an inverse relationship with feeling connected to the local Jewish community; the higher on the social class index 18–34 year-olds are, the less they feel part of the local Jewish community, all else being equal.
See also the Pew Research Center’s new national survey of U.S. Jews (Pew Research Center 2021) for evidence of increasing ethnic and racial diversity in moving from older to younger age cohorts.
Miami 2004 and 2014, South Palm Beach County 2005, West Palm Beach County 2005, Broward County 2016, Las Vegas 2005, and Houston 2016.
More specifically, the strength of the relationship between social class and social cohesion may be stronger among Hispanics than others. Multivariate models with Hispanic ethnicity are available from the authors on request.
Bergen County 2001; Washington DC 2003; Broward County 2016; Houston 2016; Indianapolis 2017; Miami 2004, Omaha 2017; St. Petersburg 2017; and Detroit 2018.
Multivariate models with party support are available from the authors on request.
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Acknowledgements
An initial version of this analysis was presented at the 2019 annual conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, held in San Diego, CA.
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Both authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection was performed by Ira M. Sheskin. Data analysis was primarily performed by Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz. The first drafts of the original manuscript and of the revised manuscript were written by Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz and both authors contributed to subsequent drafts. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript submitted for review.
Neither author received funding for the specific analysis described in this manuscript. Sheskin received financial compensation for his work as the principal investigator of the community studies used as a data source for the analysis.
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Kotler-Berkowitz, L., Sheskin, I.M. Social Class and Social Cohesion Among American Jews. Rev Relig Res 64, 497–520 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-022-00492-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13644-022-00492-3