Jew Within: Self, Family and Community in America »

Steven M. Cohen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Melton Center for Jewish Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is author of American Assimilation or Jewish Revival? (Indiana University Press) and co-author (with Charles Liebman) of Two Worlds of Judaism: The Israeli and American Experiences.

Arnold M. Eisen is Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, a frequent speaker on issues related to contemporary Jewish life before lay and scholarly audiences throughout North America, and an active participant in communal discussions concerning the future of American Judaism. He is the author ofThe Chosen People in America (Indiana University Press), Galut: Modern Jewish Reflection on Homelessness and Homecoming, Taking Hold of Torah: Jewish Commitment and Community in America (Indiana University Press), and winner of a Koret Jewish Book Award.

Rocked by reports of soaring intermarriage rates, rampant assimilation, and diminishing population, the American Jewish community has been concerned with issues of Jewish identification and continuity. What factors shape, nourish, and sustain Jewish commitment? What leads some Jews to place Jewish commitment at the center of their lives, while others consign it to the margins? What matters most to American Jews and why? Through in-depth interviews with Jews across the country, Arnold M. Eisen and Steven M. Cohen, two of the keenest observers and analysts of American Jewish life, probe beneath the surface to explore the foundations of belief and behavior among moderately affiliated American Jews. Among their thought-provoking conclusions are that the construction of Jewish meaning in America is personal and private and that communal loyalties and norms no longer shape Jewish identity as they did several decades ago. The rich and moving personal narratives presented by the authors, accompanied by insightful analysis, raise important questions for all those concerned with the meaning and future of Judaism in American life.

About the Authors:
Arnold M. Eisen is Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, a frequent speaker on issues related to contemporary Jewish life before lay and scholarly audiences throughout North America, and an active participant in communal discussions concerning the future of American Judaism. He is author of The Chosen People in America; Galut: Modern Jewish Reflection on Homelessness and Homecoming; Taking Hold of Torah: Jewish Commitment and Community in America (all published by Indiana University Press), and Rethinking Modern Judaism: Ritual, Commandment, Community, winner of a Koret Jewish Book Award.

About the Author:
Steven M. Cohen is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Melton Center for Jewish Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is author of American Assimilation or Jewish Revival? (Indiana University Press) and coauthor (with Charles Liebman) of Two Worlds of Judaism: The Israeli and American Experiences. He is coeditor (with Deborah Dash Moore and Ronald Dotterer) of Jewish Settlement and Community in the Modern Western World and coeditor (with Paula E. Hyman) of The Jewish Family: Myths and Reality.

Publishers Weekly

Two outstanding scholars with well-established and extensively demonstrated expertise on the American Jewish community present this important study of the baby boomers who constitute a majority of contemporary American Jewry. Eisen (a religion professor at Stanford) and Cohen (a sociology professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem) conducted 60 in-depth interviews and 1,005 mail surveys with individual American Jews, producing a picture of the "moderate affiliated Jews who make up the bulk of American Jewry." Their findings have significant implications for the future: the Jews they studied have turned inward, demonstrating decreasing attachment to Israel and minimal participation in the extensive panoply of Jewish organizations. This preoccupation with self and family has made observance of the Jewish holidays the primary expression of Jewish identification, with synagogue affiliation a rather distant second. The authors express apprehension about the future of the American Jewish community, placing the burden for its survival on the capacity of communal functionaries to be adroitly sensitive to the community's changing needs and concerns. Cohen and Eisen's work offers valuable confirmation that the trend toward religious individualism, as observed by Robert Bellah in Habits of the Heart and Wade Clark Roof in A Generation of Seekers, has also taken root in the Jewish community. Unfortunately, this study's excessive academic jargon will prevent it from gaining the wide general readership of Bellah or Roof. (Nov.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.