American Jewish Year Book 2012

609 Pages·4.698 MB·English

by  Barry A. Kosmin, Ariela Keysar (auth.), Arnold Dashefsky, Ira Sheskin (eds.)

American Jewish Year Book 2012
American Jewish Year Book
VOLUME 109-112
SeriesEditors:
Arnold Dashefsky
Ira Sheskin
For furthervolumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/11193
Arnold Dashefsky (cid:129) Ira Sheskin
Editors
American Jewish
Year Book 2012
The Annual Record of the North
American Jewish Communities
Editors
ArnoldDashefsky IraSheskin
SociologyandJudaicStudies GeographyandRegionalStudies
UniversityofConnecticut UniversityofMiami
Storrs,CT CoralGables,FL
USA USA
Director Director
BermanInstitute- TheJewishDemographyProjectof
NorthAmericanJewishDataBank TheSueandLeonardMillerCenter
UniversityofConnecticut forContemporaryJudaicStudies
UniversityofMiami
Academic Auspices:
The JewishDemography Project
TheSueandLeonardMillerCenterforContemporaryJudaicStudies,UniversityofMiami
Center forJudaic Studies and ContemporaryJewish Life attheUniversityof Connecticut
ISSN2213-9575 ISSN2213-9583(electronic)
ISBN978-94-007-5203-0 ISBN978-94-007-5204-7(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-94-007-5204-7
SpringerDordrechtHeidelbergNewYorkLondon
#SpringerScience+BusinessMediaDordrecht2013
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SpringerispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www.springer.com)
Thepublicationofthisvolumewasmadepossible
bythegeneroussupportof:
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Connecticut (Dean
JeremyTeitelbaum)
CenterforJudaicStudiesandContemporaryJewish
LifeattheUniversityofConnecticut(ArnoldDashefsky,Director)
The Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies (Haim
Shaked,Director)anditsJewishDemographyProject(IraSheskin,Director)
College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami (Dean Leonidas Bachas
andSeniorAssociateDeanAngelKaifer)
Weacknowledgethecooperationof:
The Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (Harriet Hartman,
President)
The Berman Institute-North American Jewish Data Bank (Mandell L. Berman,
FoundingChair)
Incollaborationwith:
SergioDellaPergola
TheHebrewUniversityofJerusalem

Preface1
“Everything must have a beginning; and the beginning is necessarily imperfect.
Errors, nodoubt,aboundinthisvolume andomissionsarenumerous.Itisnatural
that these findings will at once attract attention. Future ones can be made more
accurate,andhencemoreserviceable,ifreaderswillbegoodenoughtosendtothe
Editornoticeofanyomissionsorerrorswhichmaycometotheirattention.”2Thus
wrote Cyrus Adler, the first editor of the American Jewish Year Book, which
appeared at the end of the nineteenth century in 1899, as the preface to this new
undertaking.
These words are just as appropriate in the second decade of the twenty-first
centuryaswelaunchtheneweditionoftheAmericanJewishYearBook.Over108
years, “the Year Book came to be regarded as the standard, authoritative record
of events and trends in American and world Jewish life by scholars as well as
professionals and lay leaders in the Jewish community (www.ajcarchives.org).”
Itistowardachieving amorelimitedgoaloffocusinglargelyonNorthAmerican
Jewish life that we editors humbly approach the task of bringing this venerable
volumebacktolife.
TheYearBookwasfoundedbytheJewishPublicationSociety(JPS)in1899to
provide “a continuous record of developments in the U.S. and world Jewish
communities.”In1908,theAmericanJewishCommitteebeganthetaskofediting
the Year Book, while JPS remained the publisher until 1949. The Committee and
JPS were co-publishers from 1950 to 1993. Beginning in 1994, the Committee
alonepublishedtheYearBookuntil2008whenitceasedpublication.
EvenasAdlernoted“thespreadofJewsalloverourvastcountry,”weobserve
this phenomenon even more so today. Basic research and policy planning require
1AdaptedfromIraSheskinandArnoldDashefsky(2010).“JewishPopulationintheUnitedStates,
2010.” Current Jewish Population Reports, Number 1. Storrs, CT: Berman Institute—North
AmericanJewishDataBank.
2CyrusAdler(1899).“Preface,”AmericanJewishYearBook,Volume1(Philadelphia:TheJewish
PublicationSocietyofAmerica):IX.
vii
viii Preface
thatthepopulationstatistics,whichhavebeenastandardfeatureoftheYearBook
since 1899, be continued. Therefore, we are pleased to include articles on
the U.S. Jewish population by Ira Sheskin and Arnold Dashefsky as well as the
WorldJewishpopulationbySergioDellaPergola.Followinginthetraditionofthe
Year Book, special articles were commissioned to review topics of broad concern
and to provide readers with contemporary insights to various aspects of Jewish
life. In this issue, we feature an examination of secularism among Jews by Barry
Kosmin and Ariela Keysar. In addition, we sought to broaden our conception of
American Jewish life and have provided a review essay on Canadian Jewry by
MortonWeinfeld,RandalSchnoor,andDavidKoffman.
To round out the standard features of the Year Book on which readers have
relied, we are pleased that Lawrence Grossman reprises his role as author of the
review of Jewish communal affairs as does Ethan Felson for national affairs.
Finally, we have continued the practice of previous editors of the Year Book of
publishing a variety of directories, lists, and obituaries. This section has been
expanded to include a directory of programs of Jewish Studies as well as lists of
recent Jewish book awards and scholarly journal articles related to the Jewish
experience,amongmanyothers.
Weofferthisvolumeasatributetoourpredecessorswhoservedaseditorsand
provided an indispensable reference book for understanding and interpreting the
contemporarytrendsinJewishlife.Inthismanner,wehopetogo“fromstrengthto
strength.”
TheEditors
Acknowledgments
During the first half of 2009, the editors inquired of the American Jewish
Committeeastothedeadlineforthesubmissionofourarticlesonthepopulations
ofU.S.andWorldJewryintheAmericanJewishYearBook.Weweresaddenedto
learn that no volume was planned for 2009. Consequently, we sought a way to
continuepublicationofthesearticlesinanelectronicformat.Ourconnectiontothe
Berman Institute–North American Jewish Data Bank allowed us to post these
reportsin2010onlineat:www.jewishdatabank.org.Theresultledtoanunexpected
volumeofinterestasdemonstratedbyatotalofalmost14,000(13,898)downloads
ofthesetwoarticlesduringtheperiodJuly1,2011toDecember31,2011.
Consequentlyduring2011,giventhisresponse,webegantowonderwhetheran
academic publisher would be interested in resuming publication of the American
Jewish Year Book. Our inquiries led us to Springer, a publishing firm with head-
quartersintheNetherlands,whichofferedusacontract.Wejokedwiththeeditor
thatjustastheDutchcolonyinNewAmsterdam(laterNewYork)providedahaven
in 1654 for Jewish refugees from the Portuguese province ofBrazil,so the Dutch
publisher,Springer,wasofferinganewleaseonlifefortheAmericanJewishYear
Book.Therefore,wewishfirsttoexpressourthankstooureditors,SashaGoldstein-
Sabbah and Anita Fei van der Linden, and their associates at Springer, who have
sharedourenthusiasmforthepublicationoftheYearBookonceagain.
WealsowouldliketoexpressoursincereappreciationtoLawrenceGrossman,
theFormerassociateeditoroftheAmericanJewishYearBook,forhisencourage-
ment and support of our initiative and for the continuation of his review of
communal affairs in the American Jewish community. Our gratitude is extended
to the other authors, including Ethan Felson for returning with his article on US
national affairs, as well as Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar on secularism, and
Morton Weinfeld, Randal Schnoor, and David Koffman, on Canadian Jewry. In
addition, we would like to express our appreciation to the several reviewers who
providedhelpfuladviceonthechaptersinPartI,including:GilbertKahn,Jonathan
Sarna,JimSchwartz,andHaroldTroper.
For Part II, we wish to thank Ami Eden, Ben Harris, and the JTA staff
(www.jta.org)fortheirassistancewiththeobituariesandtheeventssections.
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