Closer to Nothing: Review of Double or Nothing

Publication Date: October 2005

Publisher: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Author(s): Shalom Freedman

Research Area: Culture and religion

Keywords: Publications; Demography; Assimilation; Intermarriage

Type: Book review

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

The author review's Sylvia Barack Fishman's "Double or Nothing: Jewish Families and Mixed Marriage", a study of intermarried (Jewish-Gentile) couples and their children in the United States. The author outlines the book's major conclusions, including the diagnosis that intermarriage does not cause declining Jewish identity -- rather, the reverse is true. The author also criticizes the book, claiming that it appears to base its conclusions on some premises which are themselves assimilationist.