The Centrality of the Family in Defining Jewish Identity and Identification

Publication Date: June 1979

Publisher: Jewish Communal Service Association of North America)

Author(s): Chaim I. Waxman

Research Area: Culture and religion; Social conditions

Keywords: Identity formation; Demography; Social Patterns

Type: Report

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

The author discusses sociologial studies about how family status affects Jewish identity. He concludes that traditional structures of Jewish family life is of great importance to Jewish survival, and suggests that the organized American Jewish community must assert the priority of marriage and family life without simultaneously stigmatizing and alienating those who do not conform with those values.

In Journal of Jewish Communal Service, v.55 no.4, Summer 1979.