Developments in Jewish Community Organization in the Second Postwar Generation

Publication Date: January 1990

Publisher: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Author(s): Daniel J. Elazar

Research Area: Culture and religion

Keywords: Jewish Identification; Jewish Organizations; Leadership; Communal Organization

Type: Report

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

This report focuses on the Jewish community and its polity as they are organized locally, countrywide, and increasingly on a statewide and regional basis. The author examines the transformations taking place in local community federations and in the countrywide federation movement, the decline of the mass based organizations and the exceptions to that decline, the shift in the forms and organization of Jewish education, and the changes taking place in the synagogue movements in response to the general stabilization of membership at a lower level than anticipated. As well, he looks at the impact of demographic shifts on Jewish community organization and the institutionalization of new relationships between the American Jewish community and Israel.