One of the first decisions that had to be made in conducting this study and analyzing its results was to answer the question, “Who is a Jew?” This is an ancient question with no single, timeless answer. On the one hand, being Jewish is a matter of religion – the traditional, matrilineal definition of Jewish […] »
American Jews overwhelmingly say they are proud to be Jewish and have a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people, but their identity is also changing: 22% of American Jews now say they have no religion. »
The survey suggests that intermarriage is common among Jews; 44% of all currently married Jewish respondents – and 58% of those who have married since 2005 – indicate they are married to a non-Jewish spouse. The survey also shows that in some important respects, U.S. Jews have a distinctive demographic profile: They are older than […] »
The Jewish community in the U.S. has a long tradition of conducting pioneering social scientific research on the size and characteristics of U.S. Jewry. The last major national survey effort undertaken by the U.S. Jewish community to enumerate and describe the Jewish population was the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS), sponsored by the United […] »