The Social Scientific Study of Jewry
Sources, Approaches, Debates
Published on 15. May 2014
Book
Hardback
400 pages
978-0-19-936349-0 (ISBN)
Description
Continuing its distinguished tradition of focusing on central political, sociological, and cultural issues of Jewish life in the last century, this latest volume in the annual Studies in Contemporary Jewry series focuses on how Jewry has been studied in the social science disciplines. Its symposium consists of essays that discuss sources, approaches, and debates in the complementary fields of demography, sociology, economics, and geography.
The social sciences are central for the understanding of contemporary Jewish life and have engendered much controversy over the past few decades. To a large extent, the multitude of approaches toward Jewish social science research reflects the nature of population studies in general, and that of religions and ethnic groups in particular. Yet the variation in methodology, definitions, and measures of demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural patterns is even more salient in the study of Jews. Different data sets have different definitions for what is "Jewish" or "who is a Jew." In addition, Jews as a group are characterized by high rates of migration, including repeated migration, which makes it difficult to track any given Jewish population. Finally, the question of identification is complicated by the fact that in most places, especially outside of Israel, it is not clear whether "being Jewish" is primarily a religious or an ethnic matter - or both, or neither.
This volume also features an essay on American Jewry and North African Jewry; review essays on rebuilding after the Holocaust, Nazi war crimes trials, and Jewish historiography; and reviews of new titles in Jewish studies.
The social sciences are central for the understanding of contemporary Jewish life and have engendered much controversy over the past few decades. To a large extent, the multitude of approaches toward Jewish social science research reflects the nature of population studies in general, and that of religions and ethnic groups in particular. Yet the variation in methodology, definitions, and measures of demographic, socioeconomic, and cultural patterns is even more salient in the study of Jews. Different data sets have different definitions for what is "Jewish" or "who is a Jew." In addition, Jews as a group are characterized by high rates of migration, including repeated migration, which makes it difficult to track any given Jewish population. Finally, the question of identification is complicated by the fact that in most places, especially outside of Israel, it is not clear whether "being Jewish" is primarily a religious or an ethnic matter - or both, or neither.
This volume also features an essay on American Jewry and North African Jewry; review essays on rebuilding after the Holocaust, Nazi war crimes trials, and Jewish historiography; and reviews of new titles in Jewish studies.
Reviews / Votes
tudies in Contemporary Jewry is the definitive journal in the field of contemporary Jewry. Its consistently high standards, innovative thematic issues, and comprehensive coverage of recent scholarship make it required reading for anyone interested in the past century of Jewish life * Jonathan D. Sarna, Brandeis University and National Museum of American Jewish History *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
15 illus.
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
817 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-936349-0 (9780199363490)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
03/2014
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€39.49
Available for download
Person
Uzi Rebhun is Associate Professor and head of the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The author of The Wandering Jew in America and co-author of American Israelis: Migration, Transnationalism, and Diasporic Identity, he specializes in the demography of world Jewry, Jewish migration, Jewish identification, and the Jewish family.
Content
Symposium ; The Social Scientific Study of Jewry: Sources, Approaches, Debates ; Jewish Demography: Fundamentals of the Research Field, Sergio DellaPergola ; Measuring the Size and Characteristics of American Jewry: A New Paradigm to Understand an Ancient People, Leonard Saxe, Elizabeth Tighe, and Matthew Boxer ; U.S. Jewish Population Studies: Opportunities and Challenges, David Dutwin, Eran Ben Porath, and Ron Miller ; Studies of Jewish Identity and Continuity: Competing, Complementary, and Comparative Perspectives, Harriet Hartman ; Defining and Measuring the Socioeconomic Status of Jews, Esther Isabelle Wilder ; The Professional Dilemma of Jewish Social Scientists: The Case of the ASSJ, Chaim I. Waxman ; Contradictory Constructions of "Jewish" in Britain's Political and Legal Systems, David J. Graham ; Sources for the Demographic Study of the Jews in the Former Soviet Union, Mark Tolts ; Latin American Jewish Social Studies: The Evolution of a Cross-disciplinary Field, Judit Bokser Liwerant ; Jews in Israel: Effects of Categorization Practice on Research Findings and Research Frameworks, Aziza Khazzoom ; Jewish Majority and Jewish Minority in Israel: The Demographic Debate, Arnon Soffer ; Essay ; Avi Picard, Funding Aliyah: American Jewry and North African Jews, 1952-1956 ; Review Essays ; The Postwar Era: Repatriation, Resettlement, and Justice ; Gabriel Finder, Toward a Broader View of Jewish Rebuilding after the Holocaust ; Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz, The Holocaust and Its Aftermath in the Yishuv ; and the State of Israel ; Laura Jockusch, Beyond Nuremberg: New Scholarship on Nazi War Crimes Trials ; in Germany ; Olga Litvak, The God of History ; Book Reviews ; Antisemitism, Holocaust, and Genocide ; David Bankier and Dan Michman (eds.), Holocaust and Justice: Representation ; and Historiography of the Holocaust in Post-war Trials, Laura Jockusch ; Shlomo Bar-Gil and Ada Schein, Viyshavtem betah: nitzolei hashoah bahityashvut ; ha'ovedet (Dwell in safety: Holocaust survivors in the rural cooperative ; settlement), Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz ; Yehuda Bauer, The Death of the Shtetl, Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz ; John Cramer, Belsen Trial 1945: Der Luneburger Prozess gegen Wachpersonal der ; Konzentrationslager Auschwitz und Bergen-Belsen, Laura Jockusch ; Margarete Myers Feinstein, Holocaust Survivors in Postwar Germany, 1945-1957, ; Gabriel N. Finder ; Jonathan C. Friedman (ed.), The Routledge History of the Holocaust, Dan ; Michman ; Atina Grossmann, Jews, Germans, and Allies: Close Encounters in Occupied ; Germany, Gabriel N. Finder ; Patricia Heberer and Jurgen Matthaus (eds.), Atrocities on Trial: Historical ; Perspectives on the Politics of Prosecuting War Crimes, Laura Jockusch ; Ariel Hurwitz, Jews without Power: American Jewry during the Holocaust, Rafael ; Medoff ; Tomaz Jardim, The Mauthausen Trial: American Military Justice in Germany, ; Laura Jockusch ; Laura Jockusch, Collect and Record! Jewish Holocaust Documentation in Early ; Postwar Europe, Gabriel N. Finder ; Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jackel (eds.), The Jews in the Secret Nazi Reports ; on Popular Opinion in Germany, 1933-1945, trans. William Templer, ; Marion Kaplan ; Tamar Lewinsky, Displaced Poets: Jiddische Schriftsteller im ; Nachkriegsdeutschland, 1945-1951, Gabriel N. Finder ; Anna Lipphardt, Vilne: Die Juden aus Vilnius nach dem Holocaust. Ein ; transnationale Beziehungsgeschichte, Tobias Brinkmann ; Dalia Ofer, Francoise S. Ouzan, and Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz (eds.), ; Holocaust Survivors: Resettlement, Memories, Identities, Gabriel N. ; Finder ; Avinoam J. Patt and Michael Berkowitz (eds.), "We Are Here": New Approaches ; to Jewish Displaced Persons in Germany, Gabriel N. Finder ; Dina Porat, Israeli Society: The Holocaust and Its Survivors, Judith Tydor ; Baumel-Schwartz ; Kim C. Priemel and Alexa Stiller (eds.), Reassessing the Nuremberg Military ; Tribunals: Transitional Justice, Trial Narratives, and Historiography, ; Laura Jockusch ; Shimon Redlich, Life in Transit: Jews in Postwar Lodz, 1945-1950, Gabriel N. ; Finder ; Alan Rosen, The Wonder of Their Voices: The 1946 Holocaust Interviews of David ; Broder, Gabriel N. Finder ; Cultural Studies, Literature and Thought ; Leora Batnitzky, How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to Modern ; Jewish Thought, Hanoch Ben-Pazi ; David Biale, Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought, Robert ; M. Seltzer ; Leonid Livak, The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian ; Literature, Rafi Tsirkin-Sadan ; Shachar Pinsker, Literary Passports: The Making of Modernist Hebrew Fiction in ; Europe, Jordan Finkin ; Art Spiegelman, The Complete Maus, Jeffrey Shandler ; Art Spiegelman, MetaMaus, Jeffrey Shandler ; Michael Weingrad, American Hebrew Literature: Writing Jewish National Identity ; in the United States, Jordan Finkin ; History, Social Sciences, and Biography ; Rebecca T. Alpert, Out of Left Field: Jews and Black Baseball, Ezra Mendelsohn ; Gur Alroey, Bread to Eat and Clothes to Wear: Letters from Jewish Migrants in the ; Early 20th Century, Frank Wolff ; Yaakov (Jacob) Barnai, Shmuel Ettinger: Historiyon, moreh veish tzibur (Shmuel ; Ettinger: Historian, teacher and public figure), Olga Litvak ; Albert I. Baumgarten, Elias Bickerman as a Historian of the Jews, Olga Litvak ; Michael Brenner, Prophets of the Past: Interpreters of Jewish History, trans. Steven ; Rendall, Olga Litvak ; David Cesarani, Tony Kushner, and Milton Shain (eds.), Place and ; Displacement in Jewish History and Memory: Zakor V'makor, Natasha ; Gordinsky ; Jonathan Dekel-Chen, David Gaunt, Natan M. Meir, and Israel Bartal (eds.), ; Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in East European History, Brian ; Horowitz ; Marion A. Kaplan and Deborah Dash Moore (eds.), Gender and Jewish History, ; Vicki Caron ; John Doyle Klier, Russians, Jews and the Pogroms of 1881-1882, Brian Horowitz ; Rebecca Kobrin, Jewish Bialystok and Its Diaspora, Gur Alroey ; Zionist, Israel, and the Middle East ; Shaul Kelner, Tours that Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage, and Israeli Birthright ; Tourism, Jackie Feldman ; Henry Near, Where Community Happens: The Kibbutz and the Philosophy of ; Communalism, Eliezer Ben-Rafael ; Noam Pianko, Zionism and the Roads Not Taken: Rawidowicz, Kaplan, Cohen, ; Allan M. Arkush ; Leonard Saxe and Barry Chazan, Ten Days of Birthright Israel: A Journey in ; Young Adult Identity, Jackie Feldman ; Matthew Silver, Our Exodus: Leon Uris and the Americanization of Israel's ; Founding Story, Ariel Feldestein ; Gadi Taub, The Settlers and the Struggle over the Meaning of Zionism, Michael ; Feige ; Contents for Volume XXVIII ; Note on Editorial Policy