American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
citizens who are
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
, whether by
religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
,
ethnicity
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
,
culture
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
, or
nationality
Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...
. Today the Jewish community in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
consists primarily of
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known as ...
and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russ ...
and comprise about 90–95% of the American Jewish population.
During the colonial era, prior to the mass immigration of
Ashkenazi
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
Jews, Sephardic Jews who arrived via
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
represented the bulk of America's then-small Jewish population, and while their descendants are a minority today, they, along with an array of other Jewish communities, represent the remainder of American Jews, including other more recent
Sephardi Jews
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefar ...
,
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...
converts to Judaism
Conversion to Judaism ( he, גיור, ''giyur'') is the process by which non-Jews adopt the Jewish religion and become members of the Jewish ethnoreligious community. It thus resembles both conversion to other religions and naturalization. "Th ...
. The American Jewish community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, encompassing the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance.
Depending on religious definitions and varying population data, the United States has the largest or second largest Jewish community in the world, after
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. As of 2020, the core American Jewish population is estimated at 7.6 million people, accounting for 2.4% of the total US population. This includes 4.9 million adults who identify their religion as Jewish, 1.2 million Jewish adults who identify with no religion, and 1.6 million Jewish children. It is estimated that up to 15,000,000 Americans are part of the ''"enlarged"'' American Jewish population, accounting for 4.5% of the total US population, consisting of those who have at least one Jewish grandparent and would be eligible for
Israeli citizenship
Israeli citizenship law details the conditions by which a person holds citizenship of Israel. The two primary pieces of legislation governing these requirements are the 1950 Law of Return and 1952 Citizenship Law.
Every Jew in the world has ...
under the
Law of Return
The Law of Return ( he, חֹוק הַשְׁבוּת, ''ḥok ha-shvūt'') is an Israeli law, passed on 5 July 1950, which gives Jews, people with one or more Jewish grandparent, and their spouses the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Isra ...
.
History
Jews were present in the
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of Kingdom of Great Britain, British Colony, colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Fo ...
since the mid-17th century. However, they were small in number, with at most 200 to 300 having arrived by 1700. Those early arrivals were mostly
Sephardi Jewish
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...
from
diaspora
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...
communities in Central and Eastern Europe predominated.
For the first time, the English
Plantation Act 1740
The Plantation Act 1740 ( referring to colonies) or the Naturalization Act 1740 are common namesMichael Lemay, Elliott Robert BarkanU.S. Immigration and Naturalization Laws and Issues: A Documentary History, pp 6-9. (1999) used for an act of the ...
permitted Jews to become British citizens and emigrate to the colonies. Despite the fact that some of them were denied the right to vote or hold office in local jurisdictions, Sephardi Jews became active in community affairs in the 1790s, after they were granted political equality in the five states where they were most numerous.Alexander DeConde, Ethnicity, Race, and American Foreign Policy: A History '', p. 52 Until about 1830, Charleston, South Carolina had more Jews than anywhere else in North America. Large-scale Jewish immigration commenced in the 19th century, when, by mid-century, many
German Jews
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
had arrived, migrating to the United States in large numbers due to antisemitic laws and restrictions in their countries of birth. They primarily became merchants and shop-owners. Gradually early Jewish arrivals from the east coast would travel westward, and in the fall of 1819 the first Jewish religious services west of the Appalachian Range were conducted during the
High Holidays
The High Holidays also known as the High Holy Days, or Days of Awe in Judaism, more properly known as the Yamim Noraim ( he, יָמִים נוֹרָאִים, ''Yāmīm Nōrāʾīm''; "Days of Awe")
#strictly, the holidays of Rosh HaShanah ("Jew ...
in
Cincinnati
Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...
, the oldest Jewish community in the Midwest. Gradually the Cincinnati Jewish community would adopt novel practices under the leadership Rabbi
Isaac Meyer Wise
Isaac Mayer Wise (29 March 1819, Lomnička – 26 March 1900, Cincinnati) was an American Reform rabbi, editor, and author. At his death he was called "the foremost rabbi in America".
Early life
Wise was born on 29 March 1819 in Steingrub in ...
, the father of Reform Judaism in the United States, such as the inclusion of women in ''
minyan
In Judaism, a ''minyan'' ( he, מניין \ מִנְיָן ''mīnyān'' , lit. (noun) ''count, number''; pl. ''mīnyānīm'' ) is the quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain religious obligations. In more traditional streams of Jud ...
''. Jewish Encyclopedia bibliography:
* I. M. Wise, ''Reminiscences'', transl. from the German and ed. by David Philipson, Cincinnati, 1901;
* ''Selected Writings of Isaac M. Wise'', with a biography by David Philipson and Louis Grossmann, ib. 1900;
* ''
The American Israelite
''The American Israelite'' is an English-language Jewish newspaper published weekly in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1854 as ''The Israelite'' and assuming its present name in 1874, it is the longest-running English-language Jewish newspaper stil ...
'', 1854–1900, passim, and the Jubilee number, 30 June 1904. A large community grew in the region with the arrival of
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
and
Lithuanian Jews
Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent areas ...
in the latter half of the 1800s, leading to the establishment of
Manischewitz
Manischewitz (; he, מנישביץ) is a brand of kosher products based in the United States, best known for its matzo and kosher wine. Founded in 1888, it became a public corporation in 1923 and remained under family control until January 199 ...
, one of the largest producers of American Kosher products and now based in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
, and the oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper in the United States, and second-oldest continuous published in the world, ''
The American Israelite
''The American Israelite'' is an English-language Jewish newspaper published weekly in Cincinnati, Ohio. Founded in 1854 as ''The Israelite'' and assuming its present name in 1874, it is the longest-running English-language Jewish newspaper stil ...
'', established in 1854 and still extant in Cincinnati. By 1880 there were approximately 250,000 Jews in the United States, many of them being the educated, and largely secular, German Jews, although a minority population of the older
Sephardi Jewish
Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), ...
families remained influential.
Jewish migration to the United States increased dramatically in the early 1880s, as a result of persecution and economic difficulties in parts of Eastern Europe. Most of these new immigrants were
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
-speaking Ashkenazi Jews, most of whom arrived from poor diaspora communities of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
and the
Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...
, located in modern-day
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
,
Lithuania
Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...
,
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by R ...
,
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
and
Moldova
Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a Landlocked country, landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The List of states ...
. During the same period, great numbers of Ashkenazic Jews also arrived from Galicia, at that time the most impoverished region of the
Austro-Hungarian empire
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
with a heavy Jewish urban population, driven out mainly by economic reasons. Many Jews also emigrated from
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...
. Over 2,000,000 Jews landed between the late 19th century and 1924, when the
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...
restricted immigration. Most settled in the
New York metropolitan area
The New York metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the Tri-State area, is the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass, at , and one of the list of most populous metropolitan areas, most populous urban agg ...
, establishing the world's major concentrations of Jewish population. In 1915, the circulation of the daily
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
newspapers was half a million in New York City alone, and 600,000 nationally. In addition thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly papers and the many magazines in Yiddish.
At the beginning of the 20th century, these newly arrived Jews built support networks consisting of many small
synagogue
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
s and ''
Landsmanshaft
A landsmanshaft ( yi, לאַנדסמאַנשאַפט, also landsmanschaft; plural: landsmanshaftn) is a mutual aid society, benefit society, or hometown society of Jewish immigrants from the same European town or region.
History
The Landsmanshaf ...
en'' (German and Yiddish for "Countryman Associations") for Jews from the same town or village. American Jewish writers of the time urged assimilation and integration into the wider
American culture
The culture of the United States of America is primarily of Western, and European origin, yet its influences includes the cultures of Asian American, African American, Latin American, and Native American peoples and their cultures. The U ...
, and Jews quickly became part of American life. Approximately 500,000 American Jews (or half of all Jewish males between 18 and 50) fought in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and after the war younger families joined the new trend of
suburbanization
Suburbanization is a population shift from central urban areas into suburbs, resulting in the formation of (sub)urban sprawl. As a consequence of the movement of households and businesses out of the city centers, low-density, peripheral urba ...
. There, Jews became increasingly assimilated and demonstrated rising intermarriage. The suburbs facilitated the formation of new centers, as Jewish school enrollment more than doubled between the end of World War II and the mid-1950s, while synagogue affiliation jumped from 20% in 1930 to 60% in 1960; the fastest growth came in Reform and, especially, Conservative congregations. More recent waves of Jewish emigration from Russia and other regions have largely joined the mainstream American Jewish community.
Americans of Jewish descent have been successful in many fields and aspects over the years. The Jewish community in America has gone from being part of the lower class of society, with numerous employments barred to them, to being a group with a high concentrations in members of the academia and a per capita income higher than the average in the United States.
Self-identity
Scholars debate whether the historical experience of Jews in the United States has been such a unique experience as to validate
American exceptionalism
American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States is inherently different from other nations.racial definition of Jewishness in favor of one that embraced ethnicity. The key to understanding this transition from a racial self-definition to a cultural or ethnic one can be found in the ''
Menorah Journal
''The Menorah Journal'' (1915–1962) was a Jewish-American magazine, founded in New York City. Some have called it "the leading English-language Jewish intellectual and literary journal of its era."
The journal lasted from 1915 until 1 ...
'' between 1915 and 1925. During this time contributors to the Menorah promoted a
cultural
Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human Society, societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, and habits of the ...
, rather than a racial, religious, or other view of Jewishness as a means to define Jews in a world that threatened to overwhelm and absorb Jewish uniqueness. The journal represented the ideals of the menorah movement established by
Horace M. Kallen
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his '' ...
and others to promote a revival in Jewish cultural identity and combat the idea of race as a means to define or identify peoples.
Siporin (1990) uses the family
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
of
ethnic Jews
"Who is a Jew?" ( he, מיהו יהודי ) is a basic question about Jewish identity and considerations of Jewish self-identification. The question pertains to ideas about Jewish personhood, which have cultural, ethnic, religious, political, ...
to their collective history and its transformation into an historical art form. They tell us how Jews have survived being uprooted and transformed. Many immigrant narratives bear a theme of the arbitrary nature of fate and the reduced state of immigrants in a new culture. By contrast, ethnic family narratives tend to show the ethnic more in charge of his life, and perhaps in danger of losing his Jewishness altogether. Some stories show how a family member successfully negotiated the conflict between ethnic and American identities.
After 1960, memories of
the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
, together with the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
in 1967 had major impacts on fashioning Jewish
ethnic identity
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
. Some have argued that the Holocaust highlighted for Jews the importance of their ethnic identity at a time when other minorities were asserting their own.
Politics
In New York City, while the German-Jewish community was well established 'uptown', the more numerous Jews who migrated from Eastern Europe faced tension 'downtown' with Irish and German Catholic neighbors, especially the Irish Catholics who controlled Democratic Party Politics at the time. Jews successfully established themselves in the garment trades and in the needle unions in New York. By the 1930s they were a major political factor in New York, with strong support for the most liberal programs of the
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...
. They continued as a major element of the New Deal Coalition, giving special support to the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
. By the mid-1960s, however, the Black Power movement caused a growing separation between blacks and Jews, though both groups remained solidly in the Democratic camp.
While earlier Jewish immigrants from Germany tended to be politically
conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
, the wave of Jews from Eastern Europe starting in the early 1880s were generally more liberal or
left-wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
and became the political majority.
Hasia Diner
Hasia Diner
Hasia R. Diner is an American historian. Diner is the Paul S. and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History; Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, History; Director of the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish Hist ...
, ''The Jews of the United States. 1654 to 2000'' (2004), ch 5 Many came to America with experience in the socialist,
anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
and communist movements as well as the Labor Bund, emanating from Eastern Europe. Many Jews rose to leadership positions in the early 20th century
American labor movement
The labor history of the United States describes the history of organized labor, US labor law, and more general history of working people, in the United States. Beginning in the 1930s, unions became important allies of the Democratic Party.
T ...
and helped to found unions that played a major role in left-wing politics and, after 1936, in
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
politics.
Although American Jews generally leaned Republican in the second half of the 19th century, the majority has voted Democratic since at least 1916, when they voted 55% for
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
.
With the election of
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
, American Jews voted more solidly Democratic. They voted 90% for Roosevelt in the elections of 1940, and 1944, representing the highest of support, equaled only once since. In the election of 1948, Jewish support for Democrat
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin ...
dropped to 75%, with 15% supporting the new
Progressive Party Progressive Party may refer to:
Active parties
* Progressive Party, Brazil
* Progressive Party (Chile)
* Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus
* Dominica Progressive Party
* Progressive Party (Iceland)
* Progressive Party (Sardinia), Italy
...
. As a result of lobbying, and hoping to better compete for the Jewish vote, both major party platforms had included a pro-Zionist plank since 1944, and supported the creation of a Jewish state; it had little apparent effect however, with 90% still voting other-than-Republican. In every election since, except for 1980, no Democratic presidential candidate has won with less than 67% of the Jewish vote. (In 1980, Carter obtained 45% of the Jewish vote. See below.)
During the 1952 and 1956 elections, Jewish voters cast 60% or more of their votes for Democrat Adlai Stevenson, while
General Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
garnered 40% of the Jewish vote for his reelection, the best showing to date for the Republicans since
Warren G. Harding
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents. A ...
's 43% in 1920. In 1960, 83% voted for Democrat
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...
against
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
, and in 1964, 90% of American Jews voted for
Lyndon Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
, over his Republican opponent, arch-conservative
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater (January 2, 1909 – May 29, 1998) was an American politician and United States Air Force officer who was a five-term U.S. Senator from Arizona (1953–1965, 1969–1987) and the Republican Party nominee for presiden ...
.
Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American pharmacist and politician who served as the 38th vice president of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He twice served in the United States Senate, representing Mi ...
garnered 81% of the Jewish vote in the 1968 elections in his losing bid for president against
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
.
During the Nixon re-election campaign of 1972, Jewish voters were apprehensive about
George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern (July 19, 1922 – October 21, 2012) was an American historian and South Dakota politician who was a U.S. representative and three-term U.S. senator, and the Democratic Party presidential nominee in the 1972 pres ...
and only favored the Democrat by 65%, while Nixon more than doubled Republican Jewish support to 35%. In the election of 1976, Jewish voters supported Democrat
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...
by 71% over incumbent president
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
's 27%, but during the Carter re-election campaign of 1980, Jewish voters greatly abandoned the Democrat, with only 45% support, while Republican winner
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
garnered 39%, and 14% went to independent (former Republican)
John Anderson John Anderson may refer to:
Business
*John Anderson (Scottish businessman) (1747–1820), Scottish merchant and founder of Fermoy, Ireland
* John Byers Anderson (1817–1897), American educator, military officer and railroad executive, mentor of ...
.
During the Reagan re-election campaign of 1984, the Republican retained 31% of the Jewish vote, while 67% voted for Democrat Walter Mondale. The 1988 election saw Jewish voters favor Democrat Michael Dukakis by 64%, while George H. W. Bush polled a respectable 35%, but during Bush's re-election attempt in 1992, his Jewish support dropped to just 11%, with 80% voting for Bill Clinton and 9% going to independent Ross Perot. Clinton's re-election campaign in 1996 maintained high Jewish support at 78%, with 16% supporting Bob Dole and 3% for Perot.
In the 2000 United States presidential election, 2000 presidential election, Joe Lieberman became the first American Jew to run for national office on a major-party ticket when he was chosen as Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore's vice-presidential nominee. The elections of 2000 and 2004 saw continued Jewish support for Democrats Al Gore and John Kerry, a Catholic, remain in the high- to mid-70% range, while Republican George W. Bush's re-election in 2004 saw Jewish support rise from 19% to 24%.
In the 2008 United States presidential election, 2008 presidential election, 78% of Jews voted for Barack Obama, who became the first African Americans, African American to be elected president. Additionally, 83% of white Jews voted for Obama compared to just 34% of white Protestants and 47% of white Catholics, though 67% of those identifying with another religion and 71% identifying with no religion also voted Obama.
In the February Democratic Party presidential primaries, 2016, 2016 New Hampshire Democratic Primary, Bernie Sanders became the first Jewish candidate to win a state's presidential primary election.
For congressional and senate races, since 1968, American Jews have voted about 70–80% for Democrats; this support increased to 87% for Democratic House candidates during the 2006 elections.
The first American Jew to serve in the Senate was David Levy Yulee, who was Florida's first Senator, serving 1845–1851 and again 1855–1861.
There were 19 Jews among the 435 U.S. Representatives at the start of the 112th United States Congress, 112th Congress; 26 Democrats and one (Eric Cantor) Republican. While many of these Members represented coastal cities and suburbs with significant Jewish populations, others did not (for instance, Kim Schrier of Seattle, Washington; John Yarmuth of Louisville, Kentucky; and David Kustoff and Steve Cohen (politician), Steve Cohen of Memphis, Tennessee). The total number of Jews serving in the House of Representatives declined from 31 in the 111th United States Congress, 111th Congress. John Adler of New Jersey, Steve Kagan of Wisconsin, Alan Grayson of Florida, and Ron Klein of Florida all lost their re-election bids, Rahm Emanuel resigned to become the President's Chief of Staff; and Paul Hodes of New Hampshire did not run for re-election but instead (unsuccessfully) sought his state's open Senate seat. David Cicilline of Rhode Island was the only Jewish American who was newly elected to the 112th Congress; he had been the Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence. The number declined when Jane Harman, Anthony Weiner, and Gabby Giffords resigned during the 112th Congress.
, there were five openly gay men serving in Congress and two are Jewish: Jared Polis of Colorado and David Cicilline of Rhode Island.
In November 2008, Cantor was elected as the Party whips of the United States House of Representatives, House Minority Whip, the first Jewish Republican to be selected for the position. In 2011, he became the first Jewish House Majority Leader. He served as Majority Leader until 2014, when he resigned shortly after his loss in the Republican primary election for his House seat.
In 2013, Pew found that 70% of American Jews identified with or leaned toward the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
, with just 22% identifying with or leaning toward the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party.
The 114th United States Congress, 114th Congress included 9 Jews among 100 United States Senate, U.S. Senators: eight Democrats (Michael Bennet, Richard Blumenthal, Brian Schatz, Benjamin Cardin, Dianne Feinstein, Jacky Rosen, Charles Schumer, Ron Wyden), and Bernie Sanders, who became a Democrat to Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign, run for President but returned to the Senate as an Independent.
In the 116th United States Congress, 116th Congress, there were 28 Jewish U.S. Representatives. 26 are Democrats and 2 are Republicans. All 8 Jewish Senators are Democrats.
Keeping the tradition of former presidents, Jews are well represented in 46th president Joe Biden's cabinet. In 2021, Democrat Jon Ossoff became the first Jewish member of the Senate to represent Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and the first Jewish senator from the Deep South since Benjamin F. Jonas of Louisiana, who was elected in 1879.
Participation in civil rights movements
Members of the American Jewish community have included prominent participants in civil rights movements. In the mid-20th century, there were American Jews who were among the most active participants in the
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
and feminist movements. A number of American Jews have also been active figures in the struggle for LGBT rights in the United States, gay rights in America.
Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress, stated the following when he spoke from the podium at the Lincoln Memorial during the famous March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, March on Washington on August 28, 1963: "As Jews we bring to this great demonstration, in which thousands of us proudly participate, a twofold experience—one of the spirit and one of our history.... From our Jewish historic experience of three and a half thousand years we say: Our ancient history began with slavery and the yearning for freedom. During the Middle Ages my people lived for a thousand years in the ghettos of Europe.... It is for these reasons that it is not merely sympathy and compassion for the black people of America that motivates us. It is, above all and beyond all such sympathies and emotions, a sense of complete identification and solidarity born of our own painful historic experience."
The Holocaust
During the
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
period, the American Jewish community was bitterly and deeply divided and as a result, it was unable to form a united front. Most Jews who had previously emigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe supported Zionism, because they believed that a return to their ancestral homeland was the only solution to the Persecution of Jews, persecution and the The Holocaust, genocide which were then occurring across Europe. One important development was the sudden conversion of many American Jewish leaders to Zionism late in the war. The Holocaust was largely ignored by American media as it was happening. Reporters and editors largely did not believe the stories of atrocities which were coming out of Europe.
The Holocaust had a profound impact on the Jewish community in the United States, especially after 1960 as Holocaust education improved, as Jews tried to comprehend what had happened during it, and especially as they tried to commemorate it and grapple with it when they looked to the future. Abraham Joshua Heschel summarized this dilemma when he attempted to understand Auschwitz concentration camp, Auschwitz: "To try to answer is to commit a supreme blasphemy. Israel enables us to bear the agony of Auschwitz without radical despair, to sense a ray [of] God's radiance in the jungles of history."
International affairs
Zionism became a well-organized movement in the U.S. with the involvement of leaders such as Louis Brandeis and the promise of a reconstituted homeland in the Balfour Declaration. Jewish Americans organized large-scale boycotts of German merchandise during the 1930s to protest Nazi Germany.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
's leftist domestic policies received strong Jewish support in the 1930s and 1940s, as did his anti-Nazi foreign policy and his promotion of the United Nations. Support for political Zionism in this period, although growing in influence, remained a distinctly minority opinion among Jews in the United States until about 1944–45, when the early rumors and reports of the systematic mass murder of the Jews in Nazi-occupied countries became publicly known with the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps. The founding of the modern State of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
in 1948 and recognition thereof by the American government (following objections by American isolationists) was an indication of both its intrinsic support and its response to learning the horrors of the Holocaust.
This attention was based on a natural affinity toward and support for Israel in the Jewish community. The attention is also because of the ensuing and unresolved conflicts regarding the founding of Israel and the role for the Zionist movement going forward. A lively internal debate commenced, following the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
. The American Jewish community was divided over whether or not they agreed with the Israeli response; the great majority came to accept the war as necessary. Similar tensions were aroused by the 1977 election of Menachem Begin and the rise of Revisionist Zionism, Revisionist policies, the 1982 Lebanon War and the continuing administrative governance of portions of the West Bank territory. Disagreement over Israel's 1993 acceptance of the Oslo Accords caused a further split among American Jews; this mirrored a similar split among Israelis and led to a parallel rift within the Israel lobby in the United States, pro-Israel lobby, and even ultimately to the United States for its "blind" support of Israel. Abandoning any pretense of unity, both segments began to develop separate advocacy and lobbying organizations. The liberal supporters of the Oslo Accord worked through Americans for Peace Now (APN), Israel Policy Forum (IPF) and other groups friendly to the Labour government in Israel. They tried to assure Congress that American Jewry was behind the Accord and defended the efforts of the administration to help the fledgling Palestinian Authority (PA), including promises of financial aid. In a battle for public opinion, IPF commissioned a number of polls showing widespread support for Oslo among the community.
In opposition to Oslo, an alliance of conservative groups, such as the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI), and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) tried to counterbalance the power of the liberal Jews. On October 10, 1993, the opponents of the Palestinian-Israeli accord organized at the American Leadership Conference for a Safe Israel, where they warned that Israel was prostrating itself before "an armed thug", and predicted and that the "thirteenth of September is a date that will live in infamy". Some Zionists also criticized, often in harsh language, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, his foreign minister and chief architect of the peace accord. With the community so strongly divided, AIPAC and the Presidents Conference, which was tasked with representing the national Jewish consensus, struggled to keep the increasingly antagonistic discourse civil. Reflecting these tensions, Abraham Foxman from the Anti-Defamation League was asked by the conference to apologize for criticizing ZOA's Morton Klein. The conference, which under its organizational guidelines was in charge of moderating communal discourse, reluctantly censured some Orthodox spokespeople for attacking Colette Avital, the Labor-appointed Israeli Consul General in New York and an ardent supporter of that version of a peace process.
Demographics
As of 2020, the American Jewish population is, Jewish population by country, depending on the method of identification, either the largest in the world, or the second-largest in the world (after
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
).
Precise population figures vary depending on whether Jews are accounted for based on halakha, halakhic considerations, or secular, Law of return, political and Who is a Jew?#Non-religious definitions, ancestral identification factors. There were about four million adherents of Judaism in the U.S. as of 2001, approximately 1.4% of the US population. According to the Jewish Agency, for the year 2017 Israel was home to 6.5 million Jews (49.3% of the world's Jewish population), while the United States contained 5.3 million (40.2%).
According to Gallup and Pew Research Center findings, "at maximum 2.2% of the U.S. adult population has some basis for Jewish self-identification."
In 2020, it was estimated by demographers Arnold Dashefsky & Ira M. Sheskin in the American Jewish Yearbook that the American Jewish population totaled 7.15 million, making up 2.17% of the country's 329.5 million inhabitants.
In 2012, demographers estimated the core American Jewish population (including religious and non-religious) to be 5,425,000 (or 1.73% of the US population in 2012), citing methodological failures in the previous higher estimates.Sergio DellaPergola. "World Jewish Population, 2012." The American Jewish Year Book (2012) (Dordrecht: Springer) pp. 212–283 Other sources say the number is around 6.5 million.
The ''American Jewish Yearbook population survey'' had placed the number of American Jews at 6.4 million, or approximately 2.1% of the total population. This figure is significantly higher than the previous large scale survey estimate, conducted by the 2000–2001 National Jewish Population estimates, which estimated 5.2 million Jews. A 2007 study released by the Steinhardt Social Research Institute (SSRI) at Brandeis University presents evidence to suggest that both these figures may be underestimations with a potential 7.0–7.4 million Americans of Jewish descent. Those higher estimates were however arrived at by including all non-Jewish family members and household members, rather than surveyed individuals. In a 2019 study by Jews of Color Initiative it was found that approximately 12-15% of Jews in the United States, about 1,000,000 of 7,200,000 identify as multiracial and Jews of color.
The population of Americans of Jewish descent is demographically characterized by an aging population composition and low fertility rates significantly below generational replacement.
The National Jewish Population Survey of 1990 asked 4.5 million adult Jews to identify their denomination. The national total showed 38% were affiliated with the Reform Judaism, Reform tradition, 35% were Conservative Judaism, Conservative, 6% were Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox, 1% were Reconstructionist Judaism, Reconstructionists, 10% linked themselves to some other tradition, and 10% said they are "just Jewish." In 2013, Pew Research's Jewish population survey found that 35% of American Jews identified as Reform, 18% as Conservative, 10% as Orthodox, 6% who identified with other sects, and 30% did not identify with a denomination.
A follow up survey in 2013 showed that 14% of all Jews were actually affiliated with Reform communities, 11% with Conservative, 10% with orthodox communities and 3% with other communities.
The Ashkenazi Jews, who are 90-95% of American Jews, settled first in and around New York City; in recent decades many have moved to South Florida, Los Angeles and other large metropolitan areas in the South and West. The metropolitan areas of New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami contain nearly one quarter of the world's Jews.
By state
According to a study published by demographers and sociologists Ira M. Sheskin and Arnold Dashefsky in the American Jewish Yearbook, the distribution of the Jewish population in 2020 was as follows:
Significant Jewish population centers
Although the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area is the second-largest Jewish population center in the world (after the Tel Aviv metropolitan area in Israel), the Miami metropolitan area has a slightly greater Jewish population on a per-capita basis (9.9% compared to metropolitan New York's 9.3%). Several other major cities have large Jewish communities, including Los Angeles, History of the Jews in Baltimore, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco and Philadelphia. In many metropolitan areas, the majority of Jewish families live in suburban areas. The Greater Phoenix area was home to about 83,000 Jews in 2002, and has been rapidly growing. The greatest Jewish population on a per-capita basis for incorporated areas in the U.S. are Kiryas Joel Village, New York (greater than 93% based on language spoken in home), City of Beverly Hills, California (61%), and Lakewood Township, New Jersey, Lakewood Township, New Jersey (59%), with two of the incorporated areas, Kiryas Joel and Lakewood, having a high concentration of Haredi Jews, and one incorporated area, Beverly Hills, having a high concentration of non-Orthodox Jews.
The phenomenon of Israeli migration to the U.S. is often termed ''Yerida''. The Israeli American, Israeli immigrant community in America is less widespread. The significant Israeli immigrant communities in the United States are in the New York City metropolitan area, Los Angeles, Miami, and Chicago.
* The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development calculated an 'expatriate rate' of 2.9 persons per thousand, putting Israel in the mid-range of expatriate rates among the 175 OECD countries examined in 2005.
According to the 2001 undertaking of the National Jewish Population Survey, 4.3 million American Jews have some sort of strong connection to the Jewish community, whether religious or cultural.
Distribution of Jewish Americans
According to the North American Jewish Data Bank the 104 counties and Independent city (United States), independent cities with the largest Jewish communities, as a percentage of population, were:
Assimilation and population changes
These parallel themes have facilitated the extraordinary economic, political, and social success of the American Jewish community, but also have contributed to widespread cultural assimilation. More recently however, the propriety and degree of assimilation has also become a significant and controversial issue within the modern American Jewish community, with both Zionism, political and religious skeptics.
While not all Jews disapprove of Interreligious marriage, intermarriage, many members of the Jewish community have become concerned that the high rate of Interfaith marriage in Judaism, interfaith marriage will result in the eventual disappearance of the American Jewish community. Intermarriage rates have risen from roughly 6% in 1950 and 25% in 1974, to approximately 40–50% in the year 2000. By 2013, the intermarriage rate had risen to 71% for non-Orthodox Jews. This, in combination with the comparatively low birthrate in the Jewish community, has led to a 5% decline in the Jewish population of the United States in the 1990s. In addition to this, when compared with the general American population, the American Jewish community is slightly older.
A third of intermarried couples provide their children with a Jewish upbringing, and doing so is more common among intermarried families raising their children in areas with high Jewish populations. The Boston area, for example, is exceptional in that an estimated 60% of children of intermarriages are being raised Jewish, meaning that intermarriage would actually be contributing to a net ''increase'' in the number of Jews. As well, some children raised through intermarriage Baal teshuva movement, rediscover and embrace their Jewish roots when they themselves marry and have children.
In contrast to the ongoing trends of assimilation, some communities within American Jewry, such as Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jews, have significantly higher birth rates and lower intermarriage rates, and are growing rapidly. The proportion of Jewish synagogue members who were Orthodox rose from 11% in 1971 to 21% in 2000, while the overall Jewish community declined in number. In 2000, there were 360,000 so-called "ultra-orthodox" (Haredi) Jews in USA (7.2%). The figure for 2006 is estimated at 468,000 (9.4%). Data from the Pew Center shows that, as of 2013, 27% of American Jews under the age of 18 live in Orthodox households, a dramatic increase from Jews aged 18 to 29, only 11% of whom are Orthodox. The UJA-Federation of New York reports that 60% of Jewish children in the New York City area live in Orthodox homes. In addition to economizing and sharing, many Haredi communities depend on government aid to support their high birth rate and large families. The Hasidic village of New Square, New York receives Section8 housing subsidies at a higher rate than the rest of the region, and half of the population in the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel, New York receive food stamps, while a third receive Medicaid.
About half of the American Jews are considered to be religious. Out of this 2,831,000 religious Jewish population, 92% are Non-Hispanic whites, non-Hispanic white, 5% Hispanic (Most commonly from Argentina, Venezuela, or Cuba), 1% Asian people, Asian, 1% Black people, black and 1% Other races (U.S. Census), Other (mixed race etc.). Almost this many non-religious Jews exist in the United States.
Subgroups
Race and ethnicity
In 2013, the Pew Research Center's ''Portrait of Jewish Americans'' found that more than 90% of Jews who responded to its survey described themselves as being non-Hispanic whites, 2% described themselves as being African Americans, black, 3% described themselves as being Hispanic and Latino Americans, Hispanic, and 2% described themselves as having other racial or ethnic backgrounds.
Jews of European descent
Jews of European descent, often referred to as white Jews, are classified as white by the US census and have generally been classified as legally white throughout American history. Some American Jews of History of the Jews in Europe, European descent identify themselves as being both Jewish and White people, white, while others solely identify themselves as being Jews, Jewish or identify as both Jewish and non-white. However, Jews of European descent rarely identify as Jews of color and are rarely considered people of color in American society. According to the Pew Research Center, the majority of American Jews are non-Hispanic white Ashkenazi Jews. Law professor David Bernstein (law professor), David Bernstein has questioned the idea that American Jews were once non-white, writing that American Jews were "indeed considered white by law and by custom" despite the fact that they experienced "discrimination, hostility, assertions of inferiority and occasionally even violence." Bernstein notes that Jews were not targeted by laws against interracial marriage, were allowed to attend whites-only schools, and were classified as white in the Jim Crow South. The sociologists Philip Q. Yang and Kavitha Koshy have also questioned what they call the "becoming white thesis", noting that most Jews of European descent have been legally classified as white since the first US census in 1790 United States census, 1790, were legally white for the purposes of the Naturalization Act of 1790 that limited citizenship to "free White person(s)", and that they could find no legislative or judicial evidence that American Jews had ever been considered non-white.
Several commentators have observed that "many American Jews retain a feeling of ambivalence about White Americans, whiteness". Karen Brodkin explains this ambivalence as rooted in anxieties about the potential loss of Jewish identity, especially outside of intellectual elites. Similarly, Kenneth Marcus observes a number of ambivalent cultural phenomena which have also been noted by other scholars, and he concludes that "the veneer of whiteness has not established conclusively the racial construction of American Jews". The relationship between American Jews and white majority identity continues to be described as "complicated". Many American White nationalism, white nationalists view Jews as non-white.
Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent
Jews of Middle Eastern and North African descent (often referred to as
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...
) are classified as white by the US census. Mizrahi Jews sometimes identify as Jews of color, but often do not, and they may or may not be considered people of color by society. Syrian Jews rarely identify as Jews of color and are generally not considered Jews of color by society. Many Syrian Jews identify as white, Middle Eastern, or otherwise non-white rather than as Jews of color.
African American Jews
The American Jewish community includes African American Jews and other American Jewish African-Americans, Jews who are also of African descent, a definition which excludes North African Jews, North African Jewish Americans, who are currently classified by the U.S. Census as being White American, white (although a new category was recommended by the Census Bureau for the 2020 census). Estimates of the number of American Jews of African descent in the United States range from 20,000 to 200,000. Jews of African descent belong to all American Jewish denominations. Like their other Jewish counterparts, some black Jews are Jewish atheist, atheists.
Notable African-American Jews include Drake (musician), Drake, Lenny Kravitz, Lisa Bonet, Sammy Davis Jr., Rashida Jones, Yaphet Kotto, Jordan Farmar, Taylor Mays, Daveed Diggs, Alicia Garza, Tiffany Haddish and rabbis Capers Funnye and Alysa Stanton.
Relations between American Jews of African descent and other Jewish Americans are generally cordial. There are, however, disagreements with a specific minority of Black Hebrew Israelites community from among African-Americans who consider themselves, but not other Jews, to be the true descendants of the ancient Israelites. Black Hebrew Israelites are generally not considered members of the mainstream Jewish community, because they have not formally Conversion to Judaism, converted to Judaism, and they are not ethnically related to other Jews. One such group, the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, emigrated to Israel and was granted permanent residency status there.
Hispanic and Latino American Jews
Hispanic Jews have lived in what is now the United States since colonial times. The earliest Hispanic Jewish settlers were Sephardi Jews from Spain and Portugal. Beginning in the 1500s, some of the Spanish settlers in what is now New Mexico and Texas were Crypto-Jews, but there was no organized Jewish presence. Later waves of Sephardi immigration brought Judeo-Spanish speaking Jews from the Ottoman Empire, in what is now Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Syria. These Spanish-speaking Sephardi Jews are sometimes considered "Hispanic", but are not Latino. Sephardi Jews of European descent, such as the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, are not considered Jews of color and may or may not be considered to be Hispanic or Latino.
Hispanic and Latino American Jews, particularly Hispanic and Latino Ashkenazi Jews, often identify as white rather than as Jews of color. Some Jews with roots in Latin America may not identify as "Hispanic" or "Latino" at all, usually due to their recent European immigrant origins. American Jews of Argentine, Brazilian, and Mexican descent are often Ashkenazi, but some are Sephardi.
Socioeconomics
Jewish education, Education plays a major role as a part of Jewish identity; as Jewish culture puts a special premium on it and stresses the importance of cultivation of intellectual pursuits, scholarship and learning, American Jews as a group tend to be better educated and earn more than Americans as a whole. Jewish Americans also have an average of 14.7 years of schooling making them the most highly educated of all major religious groups in the United States.
Forty-four percent (55% of Reform Jews) report family incomes of over $100,000 compared to 19% of all Americans, with the next highest group being Hindus at 43%. And while 27% of Americans have a four-year university or postgraduate education, fifty-nine percent (66% of Reform Jews) of American Jews have, the second highest of any ethnic groups after Indian-Americans . 75% of American Jews have achieved some form of Tertiary education, post-secondary education if two-year vocational and community college diplomas and certificates are also included.
31% of American Jews hold a Postgraduate education, graduate degree; this figure is compared with the general American population where 11% of Americans hold a graduate degree. White collar professional jobs have been attractive to Jews and much of the community tend to take up professional white collar careers requiring tertiary education involving formal credentials where the respectability and reputability of professional jobs is highly prized within Jewish culture. While 46% of Americans work in White-collar worker, professional and managerial jobs, 61% of American Jews work as professionals, many of whom are highly educated, salaried professionals whose work is largely self-directed in Profession, management, professional, and related occupations such as engineering, science, medicine, investment banking, finance, law, and academia.
Much of the Jewish American community lead middle class lifestyles. While the median household net worth of the typical American family is $99,500, among American Jews the figure is $443,000. In addition, the median Jewish American income is estimated to be in the range of $97,000 to $98,000, nearly twice as high the American national median. Either of these two statistics may be Confounding, confounded by the fact that the Jewish population is on average older than other religious groups in the country, with 51% of polled adults over the age of 50 compared to 41% nationally. Older people tend to both Personal income in the United States#Income distribution, have higher income and be more highly educated. By 2016, Modern Orthodox Jews had a median household income of $158,000, while Open Orthodoxy, Open Orthodox Jews had a median household income at $185,000 (compared to the American median household income of $59,000 for 2016).5 key takeaways, some surprising, from new survey of US Modern Orthodox Jews By BEN SALES 30 September 2017, JTA
As a whole, American and Canadian Jews donate more than $9billion a year to Charitable organization, charity. This reflects Jewish traditions of supporting social services as a way of living out the dictates of Jewish law. Most of the charities that benefit are not specifically Jewish organizations.
While the median income of Jewish Americans is high, there are still small pockets of poverty. In the New York area, there are approximately 560,000 Jews living in poor or near-poor households, representing about 20% of the New York metropolitan Jewish community. Most affected are children, the elderly, immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Orthodox families.
According to analysis by The Gallup Organization, Gallup, American Jews have the highest quality of life, well-being of any ethnic or religious group in America.
The great majority of school-age Jewish students attend public schools, although Jewish day schools and yeshivas are to be found throughout the country. Jewish culture, Jewish cultural studies and Hebrew language instruction is also commonly offered at synagogues in the form of supplementary Hebrew schools or Sunday schools.
From the early 1900s until the 1950s, Numerus clausus, quota systems were imposed at elite colleges and universities particularly in the Northeast, as a response to the growing number of children of recent Jewish immigrants; these limited the number of Jewish students accepted, and greatly reduced their previous attendance. Jewish enrollment at Cornell's School of Medicine fell from 40% to 4% between the world wars, and Harvard's fell from 30% to 4%. Before 1945, only a few Jewish professors were permitted as instructors at elite universities. In 1941, for example, antisemitism drove Milton Friedman from a non-tenured assistant professorship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.Milton Friedman and Rose D. Friedman, ''Two Lucky People: Memoirs'' (1998) p. 5 online Harry Levin became the first Jewish full professor in the Harvard University, Harvard English department in 1943, but the Economics department decided not to hire Paul Samuelson in 1948. Harvard hired its first Jewish biochemists in 1954.
According to Clark Kerr, Martin Meyerson in 1965 became the first Jew to serve, albeit temporarily, as the leader of a major American research university. That year, Meyerson served as acting chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, but was unable to obtain a permanent appointment as a result of a combination of tactical errors on his part and antisemitism on the Regents of the University of California, UC Board of Regents. Meyerson served as the president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1970 to 1981.
By 1986, a third of the presidents of the elite undergraduate final clubs at Harvard were Jewish. Rick Levin was president of Yale University from 1993 to 2013, Judith Rodin was president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2004 (and is currently president of the Rockefeller Foundation), Paul Samuelson's nephew, Lawrence Summers, was president of Harvard University from 2001 until 2006, and Harold Tafler Shapiro, Harold Shapiro was president of Princeton University from 1992 until 2000.
American Jews at American higher education institutions
Religion
Jewishness in the United States is considered an ethnic Jew, ethnic identity as well as a religious one. See ethnoreligious group.
Observances and engagement
Jewish religious practice in America is quite varied. Among the 4.3 million American Jews described as "strongly connected" to Judaism, over 80% report some sort of active engagement with Judaism, ranging from attending at daily prayer services on one end of the spectrum, to as little as attending only Passover Seders or lighting Hanukkah candles on the other.
A 2003 Harris Poll found that 16% of American Jews go to the synagogue at least once a month, 42% go less frequently but at least once a year, and 42% go less frequently than once a year.
The survey found that of the 4.3 million strongly connected Jews, 46% belong to a synagogue. Among those households who belong to a synagogue, 38% are members of Reform Judaism, Reform synagogues, 33% Conservative Judaism, Conservative, 22% Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox, 2% Reconstructionist Judaism, Reconstructionist, and 5% other types. Traditionally, Sephardi Jews, Sephardi and
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...
do not have different branches (Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, etc.) but usually remain observant and religious. The survey discovered that Jews in the Northeastern United States, Northeast and Midwest are generally more observant than Jews in the South or West. Reflecting a trend also observed among other religious groups, Jews in the Northwestern United States are typically the least observant.
In recent years, there has been a noticeable trend of secular American Jews returning to a more observant, in most cases, Orthodox, lifestyle. Such Jews are called Baal teshuva movement, baalei teshuva ("returners", see also Repentance in Judaism).
The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey found that around 3.4 million American Jews call themselves Religious Jews, religious—out of a general Jewish population of about 5.4 million. The number of Jews who identify themselves as only culturally Jewish has risen from 20% in 1990 to 37% in 2008, according to the study. In the same period, the number of all US adults who said they had no religion rose from 8% to 15%. Jews are more likely to be secular than Americans in general, the researchers said. About half of all US Jews—including those who consider themselves religiously observant—claim in the survey that they have a secular worldview and see no contradiction between that outlook and their faith, according to the study's authors. Researchers attribute the trends among American Jews to the high rate of intermarriage and "disaffection from Judaism" in the United States.
Religious beliefs
American Jews are more likely to be Atheism, atheists or Agnosticism, agnostics than most Americans, especially when they are compared with American Protestantism, Protestants or Catholic Church, Catholics. A 2003 poll found that while 79% of Americans Belief in God, believe in God, only 48% of American Jews do, compared to 79% and 90% of American Catholics and Protestants respectively. While 66% of Americans said that they were "absolutely certain" of God's existence, 24% of American Jews said the same. And though 9% of Americans believe that there is Atheism, no God (8% of American Catholic Church, Catholics and 4% of American Protestantism, Protestants), 19% of American Jews believe that God does not exist.
A 2009 Harris Poll showed that American Jews constitute the one religious group which is most accepting of the science of evolution, with 80% accepting evolution, compared to 51% for Catholics, 32% for Protestants, and 16% of born-again Christians. They were also less likely to believe in supernatural phenomena such as miracles, angels, or heaven.
A 2013 Pew Research Center report found that 1.7 million American Jewish adults, 1.6 million of whom were raised in Jewish homes or had Jewish ancestry, identified as Christians or Messianic Judaism, Messianic Jews but also consider themselves ethnically Jewish. Another 700,000 American Christian adults considered themselves "Judaizers, Jews by affinity" or "grafted-in" Jews.
Buddhism
Jews are overrepresented among Buddhism in the United States, American Buddhists; this is specifically the case among those Jews whose parents are not Buddhism, Buddhist, and those Jews who are without a Buddhist heritage, with between one fifth and 30% of all American Buddhists identifying as Jewish though only Religion in the United States#Judaism, 2% of Americans are Jewish. Nicknamed ''Jubu''s, an increasing number of American Jews have started to adopt Buddhist spiritual practices, while at the same time, they are continuing to identify with and practice Judaism. Notable American Jewish Buddhists include: Robert Downey Jr. Allen Ginsberg, Linda Pritzker,Forbes: The World's Billionaires - Linda Pritzker July 2018 Jonathan F.P. Rose,IN PERSON; Developer With Eye To Profits For Society" By TINA KELLEY April 11, 2004 Goldie Hawn and daughter Kate Hudson, Steven Seagal, Adam Yauch of the rap group The Beastie Boys, and Garry Shandling. Film makers the Coen Brothers have been influenced by Buddhism as well for a time.
Contemporary politics
Today, American Jews are a distinctive and influential group in the nation's politics. Jeffrey S. Helmreich writes that the ability of American Jews to effect this through political or financial clout is overestimated, that the primary influence lies in the group's voting patterns.
"Jews have devoted themselves to politics with almost religious fervor," writes Mitchell Bard, who adds that Jews have the highest percentage voter turnout of any ethnic group (84% reported being registered to vote).
Though the majority (60–70%) of the country's Jews identify as Democratic, Jews span the political spectrum, with those at higher levels of observance being far more likely to vote Republican than their less observant and secular counterparts.
Owing to high Democratic identification in the 2008 United States Presidential Election, 78% of Jews voted for Democrat Barack Obama versus 21% for Republican John McCain, despite Republican attempts to connect Obama to Muslim and pro-Palestinian causes. It has been suggested that running mate Sarah Palin's conservative views on social issues may have nudged Jews away from the McCain–Palin ticket. In the 2012 United States presidential election, 69% of Jews voted for the Democratic incumbent President Obama.
In 2019, after the 2016 election of Donald Trump, poll data from the Jewish Electorate Institute showed that 73% of Jewish voters felt less secure as Jews than before, 71% disapproved of Trump's handling of anti-Semitism (54% strongly disapprove), 59% felt that he bears "at least some responsibility" for the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and Poway synagogue shooting, and 38% were concerned that Trump was encouraging right-wing extremism. Views of the Democratic and Republican parties were milder: 28% were concerned that Republicans were making alliances with white nationalists and tolerating anti-Semitism within their ranks, while 27% were concerned that Democrats were tolerating Antisemitism, anti-Semitism within their ranks.
In the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, 77% of American Jews voted for Joe Biden, while 22% voted for Donald Trump.
Foreign policy
American Jews have displayed a very strong interest in Foreign policy, foreign affairs, especially regarding Germany in the 1930s, and
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
since 1945. Both major parties have made strong commitments in support of Israel. Dr. Eric Uslaner of the University of Maryland argues, with regard to the 2004 election: "Only 15% of Jews said that Israel was a key voting issue. Among those voters, 55% voted for Kerry (compared to 83% of Jewish voters not concerned with Israel)." Uslander goes on to point out that negative views of Evangelicalism, Evangelical Christians had a distinctly negative impact for Republicans among Jewish voters, while Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jews, traditionally more conservative in outlook as to social issues, favored the Republican Party. A ''New York Times'' article suggests that the Jewish movement to the Republican party is focused heavily on faith-based issues, similar to the Catholic vote, which is credited for helping George W. Bush, President Bush taking Florida in 2004. However, Natan Guttman, ''The Forward''s Washington bureau chief, dismisses this notion, writing in ''Moment (magazine), Moment'' that while "[i]t is true that Republicans are making small and steady strides into the Jewish community... a look at the past three decades of exit polls, which are more reliable than pre-election polls, and the numbers are clear: Jews vote overwhelmingly Democratic," an assertion confirmed by the most recent presidential election results.
Though some racist claim charged that Jewish interests were partially responsible for the push to Iraq War, war with Iraq, Jewish Americans were actually more strongly opposed to the Iraq War from its onset than any other ethnic group, or even most Americans. The greater opposition to the war was not simply a result of high Democratic identification among Jewish Americans, as Jewish Americans of all political persuasions were more likely to oppose the war than non-Jews who shared the same political leanings.
Domestic issues
A 2013 Pew Research Center survey suggests that American Jews' views on domestic politics are intertwined with the community's self-definition as a persecuted minority who benefited from the liberties and societal shifts in the United States and feel obligated to help other minorities enjoy the same benefits. American Jews across age and gender lines tend to vote for and support politicians and policies which are supported by the
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
. On the other hand, Orthodox American Jews have domestic political views which are more similar to those of their religious Christian neighbors.
American Jews are largely supportive of LGBT rights with 79% responding in a 2011 Pew poll that homosexuality should be "accepted by society", while the overall average in the same 2011 poll among Americans of all demographic groups was that 50%. A split on homosexuality exists by level of observance. Reform Judaism, Reform rabbis in America perform same-sex marriages as a matter of routine, and there are fifteen LGBT Jewish congregations in North America. Reform, Reconstructionist Judaism, Reconstructionist and, increasingly, Conservative Judaism, Conservative, Jews are far more supportive on issues like gay marriage than Orthodox Judaism, Orthodox Jews are. A 2007 survey of Conservative Jewish leaders and activists showed that an overwhelming majority supported gay rabbinical ordination and same-sex marriage. Accordingly, 78% of Jewish voters rejected California Proposition 8 (2008), Prop8, the bill that banned gay marriage in California. No other ethnic or religious group voted as strongly against it.
A 2014 Pew poll found that American Jews mostly support abortion rights, with 83% answering that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
In considering the trade-off between the economy and environmental protection, American Jews were significantly more likely than other religious groups (excepting Buddhism) to favor stronger environmental protection.
Jews in America also overwhelmingly oppose current United States marijuana policy. In 2009, eighty-six percent of Jewish Americans opposed arresting nonviolent marijuana smokers, compared to 61% for the population at large and 68% of all Democrats. Additionally, 85% of Jews in the United States opposed using federal law enforcement to close patient cooperatives for medical marijuana in states where medical marijuana is legal, compared to 67% of the population at large and 73% of Democrats.
A 2014 Pew Research survey titled "How Americans Feel About Religious Groups", found that Jews were viewed the most favorably of all other groups, with a rating of 63 out of 100. Jews were viewed most positively by fellow Jews, followed by white Evangelicals. Sixty percent of the 3,200 persons surveyed said they had ever met a Jew.
Jewish American culture
Since the time of the last major wave of Jewish immigration to America (over 2,000,000 Jews from Eastern Europe who arrived between 1890 and 1924), Jewish secular culture in the United States has become integrated in almost every important way with the broader American culture. Many aspects of Jewish American culture have, in turn, become part of the wider culture of the United States.
Language
Most American Jews today are native English language, English speakers. A variety of other languages are still spoken within some American Jewish communities that are representative of the various Jewish ethnic divisions from around the world that have come together to make up all of America's Jewish population.
Many of America's Hasidic Judaism, Hasidic Jews, being exclusively of Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi descent, are raised speaking
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
. Yiddish was once spoken as the primary language by most of the several million Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to the United States. It was, in fact, the original language in which ''The Forward'' was published. Yiddish has had an influence on American English, and words borrowed from it include ''chutzpah'' ("effrontery", "gall"), ''nosh'' ("snack"), ''schlep'' ("drag"), ''schmuck'' ("an obnoxious, contemptible person", euphemism for "penis"), and, depending on idiolect, hundreds of other terms. (See also Yinglish.)
Many
Mizrahi Jews
Mizrahi Jews ( he, יהודי המִזְרָח), also known as ''Mizrahim'' () or ''Mizrachi'' () and alternatively referred to as Oriental Jews or ''Edot HaMizrach'' (, ), are a grouping of Jewish communities comprising those who remained i ...
, including those from Arab countries such as Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, Libya, etc. speak Arabic. There are communities of Mizrahim in Brooklyn. The town of Deal, New Jersey, is notably mostly Syrian-Jewish, with many of them Orthodox.
The Persian Jews, Persian Jewish community in the United States, notably the large community in and around Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, California, primarily speak Persian language, Persian (see also Dzhidi language, Judeo-Persian) in the home and synagogue. They also support their own Persian language newspapers. Persian Jews also reside in eastern parts of New York such as Kew Gardens, Queens, Kew Gardens and Great Neck, New York, Great Neck, Long Island.
Many recent Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union speak primarily Russian at home, and there are several notable communities where public life and business are carried out mainly in Russian, such as in Brighton Beach in New York City and Sunny Isles Beach in Florida. 2010 estimates of the number of Jewish Russian-speaking households in the New York city area are around 92,000, and the number of individuals are somewhere between 223,000 and 350,000. Another high population of Russian Jews can be found in the Richmond District, San Francisco, California, Richmond District of San Francisco where Russian markets stand alongside the numerous Asian businesses.
American Bukharan Jews speak Bukhori, a dialect of Tajik Persian. They publish their own newspapers such as the ''Bukharian Times'' and a large portion live in Queens, New York. Forest Hills, Queens, New York, Forest Hills in the New York City borough of Queens is home to 108th Street, which is called by some "Bukharian Broadway", a reference to the many stores and restaurants found on and around the street that have Bukharian influences. Many Bukharians are also represented in parts of Arizona, Miami, Florida, and areas of Southern California such as San Diego.
There is a sizeable Mountain Jewish population in Brooklyn, New York that speaks Judeo-Tat (Juhuri), a dialect of Persian.
Classical Hebrew is the language of most Jewish religious literature, such as the Tanakh (Bible) and Siddur (prayerbook). Modern Hebrew is also the primary official language of the modern State of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
, which further encourages many to learn it as a second language. Some recent Israeli immigrants to America speak Hebrew as their primary language.
There are a diversity of Hispanic Jews living in America. The oldest community is that of the Sephardi Jews of New Netherland. Their ancestors had fled Spain or Portugal during the Inquisition for the Netherlands, and then came to New Netherland. Though there is dispute over whether they should be considered Hispanic. Some Hispanic Jews, particularly in Miami and Los Angeles, immigrated from Latin America. The largest groups are those that fled Cuba after the communist revolution (known as Jewbans), Argentine Jews, and more recently, Venezuelan Jews. Argentina is the Latin American country with the largest Jewish population. There are a large number of synagogues in the Miami area that give services in Spanish. The last Hispanic Jewish community would be those that recently came from Portugal or Spain, after Spain and Portugal granted citizenship to the descendants of Jews who fled during the Inquisition. All the above listed Hispanic Jewish groups speak either Spanish or Ladino.
Jewish American literature
Although American Jews have contributed greatly to American arts in general, there still remains a distinctly Jewish American literature. Jewish American literature often explores the experience of being a Jew in America, and the conflicting pulls of secular society and history.
Popular culture
Yiddish theater was very well attended, and provided a training ground for performers and producers who moved to Hollywood in the 1920s. Many of the early Hollywood moguls and pioneers were Jewish. They played roles in the development of radio and television networks, typified by William S. Paley who ran CBS. Stephen J. Whitfield states that "The Sarnoff family was long dominant at NBC."
Many individual Jews have made significant contributions to American popular culture. There have been many Jewish American actors and performers, ranging from early 1900s actors, to classic Hollywood film stars, and culminating in many currently known actors. The field of American comedy includes many Jews. The legacy also includes songwriters and authors, for example the author of the song "Viva Las Vegas" Doc Pomus, or ''Billy the Kid (ballet), Billy the Kid'' composer Aaron Copland. Many Jews have been at the forefront of women's issues.
There were 110 Jewish players in Major League Baseball between 1870 and 1881. The first generation of Jewish Americans who immigrated during the 1880–1924 peak period were not interested in baseball, and in some cases tried to prevent their children from watching or participating in baseball-related activities. Most were focused on making sure they and their children took advantage of education and employment opportunities. Despite the efforts of parents, Jewish children became interested in baseball quickly since it was already embedded in the broader American culture. The second generation of immigrants saw baseball as a means to celebrate American culture without abandoning their broader religious community. After 1924, many Yiddish newspapers began covering baseball, which they had not done previously.
Government and military
Since 1845, a total of 34 Jews have served in the Senate, including the 14 present-day senators noted #Politics, above. Judah P. Benjamin was the first practicing Jewish Senator, and would later serve as Confederate States of America, Confederate Secretary of War and Secretary of State during the American Civil War, Civil War. Rahm Emanuel served as Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama. The number of Jews elected to the House rose to an all-time high of 30. List of Jewish United States Supreme Court justices, Eight Jews have been appointed to the United States Supreme Court, of which one (Elena Kagan) is currently serving. Had Merrick Garland's 2016 nomination been accepted, that number would have risen to four out of nine since Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer were also serving at that time.
The Civil War marked a transition for American Jews. It killed off the antisemitic canard, widespread in Europe, to the effect that Jews are cowardly, preferring to run from war rather than serve alongside their fellow citizens in battle.
At least twenty eight American Jews have been awarded the Medal of Honor.
World War II
More than 550,000 Jews served in the Military of the United States, U.S. military during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
; about 11,000 of them were killed and more than 40,000 of them were wounded. There were three recipients of the Medal of Honor; 157 recipients of the Army Distinguished Service Medal, Navy Distinguished Service Medal, Distinguished Service Cross (United States), Distinguished Service Cross, or Navy Cross (United States), Navy Cross; and about 1600 recipients of the Silver Star. About 50,000 other decorations and awards were given to Jewish military personnel, making a total of 52,000 decorations. During this period, Jews were approximately 3.3 percent of the total U.S. population but they constituted about 4.23 percent of the U.S. armed forces. About 60 percent of all Jewish physicians in the United States who were under 45 years of age were in service as military physicians and medics.
Many Jewish physicists, including J. Robert Oppenheimer, were involved in the Manhattan Project, the secret World War II effort to develop the Nuclear weapon, atomic bomb. Many of these physicists were refugees from Nazi Germany or they were refugees from Antisemitism, antisemitic persecution which was also occurring elsewhere in Europe.
American folk music
Jews have been involved in the American folk music scene since the late 19th century; these tended to be refugees from Central and Eastern Europe, and significantly more economically disadvantaged than their established Western European Sephardic coreligionists. Historians see it as a legacy of the secular Yiddish theater, cantorial traditions and a desire to assimilate. By the 1940s Jews had become established in the American folk music scene.
Examples of the major impact Jews have had in the American folk music arena include, but are not limited to: Moe Asch the first to record and release much of the music of Woody Guthrie, including "This Land is Your Land" (see The Asch Recordings) in response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America", and Guthrie wrote Woody Guthrie#Jewish songs, Jewish songs. Guthrie married a Marjorie Guthrie, Jew and their son Arlo Guthrie, Arlo became influential in his own right. Asch's one-man corporation Folkways Records also released much of the music of Leadbelly and Pete Seeger from the '40s and '50s. Asch's large music catalog was voluntarily donated to the Smithsonian.
Jews have also Jewish Americans in Jazz, thrived in Jazz music and contributed to its popularization.
Three of the four creators of the Newport Folk Festival, Wein, Bikel and Grossman (Seeger is not) were Jewish. Albert Grossman put together Peter, Paul and Mary, of which Yarrow is Jewish. Oscar Brand, from a Canadian Jewish family, has the longest running radio program "Oscar Brand's Folksong Festival" which has been on air consecutively since 1945 from New York City. And is the first American broadcast where the host himself will answer any personal correspondence.
The influential group The Weavers, successor to the Almanac Singers, led by Pete Seeger, had a Jewish manager, and two of the four members of the group were Jewish (Gilbert and Hellerman). The B-side of "Good Night Irene" had the Hebrew folk song personally chosen for the record by Pete Seeger "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena".
The influential folk music magazine ''Sing Out!'' was co-founded and edited by Irwin Silber in 1951, and edited by him until 1967, when the magazine stopped publication for decades. ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's first music critic Jon Landau is of German Jewish descent. Izzy Young who created the legendary Folklore Center in New York, and currently the Folklore Centrum near Mariatorget in Södermalm, Sweden, which relates to American and Swedish folk music.
Dave Van Ronk observed that the behind the scenes 1950s folk scene "was at the very least 50 percent Jewish, and they adopted the music as part of their assimilation into the Anglo-American tradition which itself was largely an artificial construct but none the less provided us with some common ground".
Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan is also Jewish.
Finance and law
Jews have been involved in financial services since the colonial era. They received rights to trade fur, from the Dutch and Swedish colonies. British governors honored these rights after taking over. During the Revolutionary War, Haym Solomon helped create America's first semi-central bank, and advised Alexander Hamilton on the building of America's financial system.
American Jews in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries played a major role in developing America's financial services industry, both at investment banks and with investment funds. German Jewish bankers began to assume a major role in American finance in the 1830s when government and private borrowing to pay for canals, railroads and other internal improvements increased rapidly and significantly. Men such as August Belmont (Rothschild's agent in New York and a leading Democrat), Philip Speyer, Jacob Schiff (at Kuhn, Loeb & Company), Joseph Seligman, Philip Lehman (of Lehman Brothers), Jules Bache, and Marcus Goldman (of Goldman Sachs) illustrate this financial elite. As was true of their non-Jewish counterparts, family, personal, and business connections, a reputation for honesty and integrity, ability, and a willingness to take calculated risks were essential to recruit capital from widely scattered sources. The families and the firms which they controlled were bound together by religious and social factors, and by the prevalence of intermarriage. These personal ties fulfilled real business functions before the advent of institutional organization in the 20th century. Antisemitic elements often falsely targeted them as key players in a supposed Jewish cabal conspiring to dominate the world.
Since the late 20th century, Jews have played a major role in the hedge fund industry, according to Zuckerman (2009). Thus SAC Capital Advisors, Soros Fund Management, Och-Ziff Capital Management, GLG Partners Renaissance Technologies and Elliott Management Corporation are large hedge funds cofounded by Jews. They have also played a pivotal role in the private equity industry, co-founding some of the largest firms in the United States, such as Blackstone Group, Blackstone, Cerberus Capital Management, TPG Capital,"TPG Sells Shares of Indian Company – Win-win for Everybody!" By Orna Taub , Jewish Business News, March 26, 2013 BlackRock, Carlyle Group, Warburg Pincus, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, KKR.
Very few Jewish lawyers were hired by White Anglo-Saxon Protestant ("WASP") upscale White-shoe firm, white-shoe law firms, but they started their own. The WASP dominance in law ended when a number of major Jewish law firms attained elite status in dealing with top-ranked corporations. As late as 1950 there was not a single large Jewish law firm in New York City. However, by 1965 six of the 20 largest firms were Jewish; by 1980 four of the ten largest were Jewish.
Federal Reserve
Paul Warburg, one of the leading advocates of the establishment of a central bank in the United States and one of the first governors of the newly established Federal Reserve System, came from a prominent Jewish family in Germany. Since then, several Jews have served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, chairmen of the Fed, including Eugene Meyer (financier), Eugene Meyer, Arthur F. Burns, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen.
Science, business, and academia
With the Jewish penchant to be drawn to white collar professional jobs and having excelled at intellectual pursuits, many Jews have also become remarkably successful as an entrepreneurial and professional minority in the United States. Many Jewish family businesses that are passed down from one generation to the next serve as an financial asset, asset, source of income and layer a strong financial groundwork for the family's overall socioeconomic prosperity. Within the Jewish American cultural sphere, Jewish Americans have also developed a strong culture of entrepreneurship, for excellence in entrepreneurship and engagement in business and commerce is highly prized in Jewish culture. American Jews have also been drawn to various disciplines within academia such as physics, sociology, economics, psychology, mathematics, philosophy and linguistics (see Secular Jewish culture#Science and technology, Secular Jewish culture for some of the causes), and have played a disproportionate role in numerous academic domains. Jewish American intellectuals such as Saul Bellow, Ayn Rand, Noam Chomsky, Thomas Friedman, and Elie Wiesel have made a major impact within mainstream American public life. Of American Nobel Prize winners, 37 percent have been Jewish Americans (18 times the percentage of Jews in the population), as have been 61 percent of the John Bates Clark Medal in economics recipients (thirty-five times the Jewish percentage).
In the business world, it was found in 1995 that while Jewish Americans constituted less than 2.5 percent of the U.S. population, they occupied 7.7 percent of board seats at various U.S. corporations. American Jews also have a strong presence in National Basketball Association, NBA ownership. Of the 30 teams in the NBA, there are 14 Jewish principal owners. Several Jews have served as NBA commissioners including prior NBA commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver.
Since many careers in science, business, and academia generally pay well, Jewish Americans also tend to have a somewhat higher average income than most Americans. The 2000–2001 National Jewish Population Survey shows that the median income of a Jewish family is $54,000 a year ($5,000 more than the average family) and 34% of Jewish households report income over $75,000 a year.
Notable people
See also
* Jews in New York City
* American Jewish cuisine
* Israeli Americans
* Jewish War Veterans of the United States of America
* List of Jewish political milestones in the United States
* National Museum of American Jewish Military History
* Jews in Los Angeles
* History of the Jews in Maine, Jews in Maine
* History of the Jews in the United States, History of Jews in the United States
Notes
References
Bibliography
* American Jewish Committee. ''American Jewish Yearbook: The Annual Record of Jewish Civilization'' (annual, 1899–2012+ complete text online 1899–2007 long sophisticated essays on status of Jews in U.S. and worldwide; the standard primary source used by historians
* Norwood, Stephen H., and Eunice G. Pollack, eds. ''Encyclopedia of American Jewish history'' (2 vol 2007), 775pp; comprehenisive coverage by experts excerpt and text search vol 1 * Etengoff, C., (2011). An Exploration of religious gender differences amongst Jewish-American emerging adults of different socio-religious subgroups, Archive for the Psychology of Religion, 33, 371–391.
* ''The Jewish People in America'' 5 vol 1992
** Faber, Eli. ''A Time for Planting: The First Migration, 1654–1820'' (Volume 1) (1992 excerpt and text search ** Hasia Diner, Diner, Hasia R. ''A Time for Gathering: The Second Migration, 1820–1880'' (Volume 2) (1992 excerpt and text search ** Sorin, Gerald. ''A Time for Building: The Third Migration, 1880–1920'' (1992 excerpt and text search ** Feingold, Henry L. ''A Time for Searching: Entering the Mainstream, 1920–1945'' (Volume 4) (1992 excerpt and text search ** Shapiro, Edward S. ''A Time for Healing: American Jewry since World War II'', (Volume 5) (1992 excerpt and text search * Antler, Joyce., ed. ''Talking Back: Images of Jewish Women in American Popular Culture.'' 1998.
* Barnett, Michael N. 2016. The Star and the Stripes: A History of the Foreign Policies of American Jews '. Princeton University Press.
*Cohen, Naomi. ''Jews in Christian America: The Pursuit of Religious Equality.'' 1992.
* Cutler, Irving. ''The Jews of Chicago: From Shtetl to Suburb.'' 1995
* Hasia Diner, Diner, Hasia et al. ''Her works praise her: a history of Jewish women in America from colonial times to the present'' (2002)
* Hasia Diner, Diner, Hasia. ''The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000' (2004) online * Leonard Dinnerstein, Dinnerstein, Leonard. ''Antisemitism in America.'' 1994.
* Dollinger, Marc. ''Quest for Inclusion: Jews and Liberalism in Modern America.'' 2000.
* Arnold Eisen, Eisen, Arnold M. ''The Chosen People in America: A Study in Jewish Religious Ideology.'' 1983.
* Feingold, Henry L. ''American Jewish Political Culture and the Liberal Persuasion'' (Syracuse University Press; 2014) 384 pages; traces the history, dominance, and motivations of liberalism in the American Jewish political culture, and look at concerns about Israel and memories of the Holocaust.
* Nathan Glazer, Glazer, Nathan. ''American Judaism''. 2nd ed., 1989.
* Goren, Arthur. ''The Politics and Public Culture of American Jews.'' 1999.
* Howe, Irving. ''World of our Fathers: The journey of the East European Jews to America and the life they found and made'' (1976)
* Jeffrey S. Gurock, Gurock, Jeffrey S. ''From Fluidity to Rigidity: The Religious Worlds of Conservative and Orthodox Jews in Twentieth Century America.'' Jean and Samuel Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, 1998.
* Hyman, Paula, and Deborah Dash Moore, eds. ''Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia.'' 1997
* Kobrin, Rebecca, ed. ''Chosen Capital: The Jewish Encounter With American Capitalism'' (Rutgers University Press; 2012) 311 pages; scholarly essays on the liquor, real-estate, and scrap-metal industries, and Jews as union organizers.
* Lederhendler, Eli. ''American Jewry: A New History'' (Cambridge UP, 2017). 331 pp.
* Marcus, Jacob Rader. ''The American Jew, 1585–1990: a history'' (1995 online
* Marcus, Jacob Rader. ''The American Jewish woman, 1654–1980'' (1981 online * Deborah Dash Moore, Moore, Deborah Dash. ''To the Golden Cities: Pursuing the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L. A.'' 1994
* Deborah Dash Moore, Moore, Deborah Dash. ''GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation'' (2006)
* Peter Novick, Novick, Peter. ''The Holocaust in American Life.'' 1999.
* Raphael, Marc Lee. ''Judaism in America''. Columbia U. Press, 2003. 234 pp.
* Jonathan D. Sarna, Sarna, Jonathan D. ''American Judaism'' Yale University Press, 2004. . 512 pp * Sorin, Gerald. ''Tradition Transformed: The Jewish Experience in America.'' 1997.
* Svonkin, Stuart. ''Jews against Prejudice: American Jews and the Fight for Civil Liberties.'' 1997
* Waxman, Chaim I. "What We Don't Know about the Judaism of America's Jews." ''Contemporary Jewry'' (2002) 23: 72–95. Uses survey data to map the religious beliefs of American Jews, 1973–2002.
* Jack Wertheimer, Wertheimer, Jack, ed. ''The American Synagogue: A Sanctuary Transformed.'' 1987.
Historiography and memory
* Fried, Lewis, et al., eds. ''Handbook of American-Jewish literature: an analytical guide to topics, themes, and sources'' (Greenwood Press, 1988)
*
* Gurock, Jeffrey S. ''American Jewish orthodoxy in historical perspective'' (KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1996)
* Robinson, Ira. "The Invention of American Jewish History." ''American Jewish History'' (1994): 309–320 in JSTOR * Wenger, Beth S. ''History Lessons: The Creation of American Jewish Heritage'' (2012 excerpt * Whitfield, Stephen J. ''In Search of American Jewish Culture.'' 1999
* Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. ''Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory'' (University of Washington Press, 2012)
Primary sources
* Marcus, Jacob Rader, ed. ''The American Jewish Woman, A Documentary History'' (Ktav 1981).
* Schappes, Morris Urman, ed. ''A documentary history of the Jews in the United States, 1654–1875'' (Citadel Press, 1952).
* Staub, Michael E. ed. ''The Jewish 1960s: An American Sourcebook'' University Press of New England, 2004; 371 pp.  online review *