American Jewish Year Book 2016: The Annual Record of North American Jewish Communities

828 Pages·12.942 MB·English

by  Arnold Dashefsky, Ira M. Sheskin (eds.)

American Jewish Year Book
Arnold Dashefsky
Ira M. Sheskin Editors
American
Jewish Year
Book 2016
The Annual Record of North
American Jewish Communities
American Jewish Year Book
Volume 116
Series Editors
Arnold Dashefsky, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
Ira M. Sheskin, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA
Produced under the Academic Auspices of:
The Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life,
University of Connecticut
and
The Jewish Demography Project at The Sue and Leonard Miller
Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, University of Miami
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11193
Arnold Dashefsky • Ira M. Sheskin
Editors
American Jewish Year Book
2016
The Annual Record of North American
Jewish Communities
Editors
Arnold Dashefsky Ira M. Sheskin
Department of Sociology and Center for Department of Geography and Jewish
Judaic Studies Demography Project, The Sue and
University of Connecticut Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary
Storrs, CT, USA Judaic Studies
University of Miami
Coral Gables, FL, USA
ISSN 2213-9575 ISSN 2213-9583 (electronic)
American Jewish Year Book
ISBN 978-3-319-46121-2 ISBN 978-3-319-46122-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-46122-9
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
or omissions that may have been made.
Printed on acid-free paper
This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
The Publication of This Volume Was Made
Possible by the Generous Support of
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Connecticut (Dean
Jeremy Teitelbaum)
Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of
Connecticut (Jeffrey Shoulson, director)
The Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies (Haim
Shaked, director) and its Jewish Demography Project (Ira M. Sheskin, director)
and the George Feldenkreis Program in Judaic Studies (Haim Shaked, director)
College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Miami (Dean Leonidas Bachas
and Senior Associate Dean Angel Kaifer)
The Department of Geography at the University of Miami (Ira M. Sheskin,
chair)
Mandell “Bill” Berman and the Mandell and Madeleine Berman Foundation
We acknowledge the cooperation of:
Berman Jewish DataBank, a project of The Jewish Federations of North America
(Mandell Berman, founding chair; Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz, director)
The Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (Steven M. Cohen,
president)
We acknowledge the contributions of the men and women who edited the
American Jewish Year Book from 1899 to 2008:
Cyrus Adler, Maurice Basseches, Herman Bernstein, Morris Fine, Herbert
Friedenwald, H. G. Friedman, Lawrence Grossman, Milton Himmelfarb, Joseph
Jacobs, Martha Jelenko, Julius B. Maller, Samson D. Oppenheim, Harry
Schneiderman, Ruth R. Seldin, David Singer, Jacob Sloan, Maurice Spector, and
Henrietta Szold
v
Academic Advisory Committee
Sidney and Alice Goldstein, Honorary Chairs
Carmel Chiswick, Research Professor of Economics at George Washington
University and Professor Emerita of Economics at the University of Illinois at
Chicago.
Steven M. Cohen, Research Professor of Jewish Social Policy at Hebrew Union
College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York and Director of the Berman
Jewish Policy Archive. Recipient of the 2010 Marshall Sklare Award. President of
the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (ASSJ).
Miriam Sanua Dalin, Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University.
Lynn Davidman, Robert M. Beren Distinguished Professor of Modern Jewish
Studies and Professor of Sociology at University of Kansas.
Sylvia Barack Fishman, Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Department, Joseph and
Esther Foster Professor of Contemporary Jewish Life, and Co-director of the
Hadassah-Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University. Recipient of the 2014 Marshall
Sklare Award.
Calvin Goldscheider, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Ungerleider Professor
Emeritus of Judaic Studies, and Faculty Associate of the Population Studies and
Training Center at Brown University. Recipient of the 2001 Marshall Sklare Award.
Alice Goldstein, Research Associate Emerita, Population Studies and Training
Center, Brown University.
Sidney Goldstein, G. H. Crooker University Professor Emeritus of Sociology,
Brown University. Recipient of the 1992 Marshall Sklare Award.
Harriet Hartman, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Rowan University
and Editor-in-Chief of Contemporary Jewry.
Samuel C. Heilman, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Harold Proshansky
Chair in Jewish Studies at the Graduate Center, and Distinguished Professor of
vii
viii Academic Advisory Committee
Sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York. Recipient of the
2003 Marshall Sklare Award. Former Editor of Contemporary Jewry.
Debra R. Kaufman, Professor Emerita of Sociology and Matthews Distinguished
University Professor at Northeastern University.
Shaul Kelner, Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies and former
Director of the Program in Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt University.
Barry Kosmin, Research Professor of Public Policy & Law and Director of the
Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College,
Hartford, Connecticut. Senior Associate, Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish
Studies, University of Oxford, England.
Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz, Senior Director of Research and Analysis and
Director of the Berman Jewish DataBank at The Jewish Federations of North
America.
Deborah Dash Moore, Professor of History and former Director of the Frankel
Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. Recipient of the 2006
Marshall Sklare Award.
Pamela S. Nadell, Professor and the Patrick Clendenen Chair in Women’s and
Gender History, and Director of the Jewish Studies Program at American University.
President of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS).
Bruce Phillips, Professor of Jewish Communal Service at Hebrew Union College-
Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. Recipient of the 2016 Marshall Sklare
Award.
Riv-Ellen Prell, Professor Emerita of American Studies and Past Director of the
Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Minnesota. Chair of the Academic
Council of the American Jewish Historical Society. Recipient of the 2011 Marshall
Sklare Award.
Jonathan D. Sarna, University Professor and Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor
of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and Chief Historian of the
National Museum of American Jewish History. Recipient of the 2002 Marshall
Sklare Award. Past president of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS).
Leonard Saxe, Klutznick Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Brandeis
University and Director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies/Steinhardt
Social Research Institute at Brandeis. Recipient of the 2012 Marshall Sklare Award.
Morton Weinfeld, Professor of Sociology and Chair in Canadian Ethnic Studies at
McGill University. Recipient of the 2013 Marshall Sklare Award.
Preface
The American Jewish Year Book was a valuable resource for the Jewish community
from its inception in 1899 through 2008, when it ceased publication.1 We are grate-
ful for the support we received to revive the Year Book starting in 2012 as we felt an
obligation to preserve a contemporary record of Jewish life in North America for
future generations.
We can report updated figures and examples of the extent to which the Year Book
is being cited in the current period of time. As of March 2016, Google found about
115,000 references to the Year Book. Google Scholar found 6,350 references to the
Year Book in the scientific literature. Wikipedia had 239 references to the Year
Book. For the 2012 volume, 4,152 chapters were downloaded from the Springer
website; 4,909 chapters were downloaded from the 2013 volume; and 3,322 chap-
ters were downloaded from the 2014 volume. Data for the 2015 volume were not yet
available at the time of this writing.
In addition the “United States Jewish Population” and the “World Jewish
Population” chapters from the Year Book have been downloaded tens of thousands
of times from www.jewishdatabank.org and www.bjpa.org. Demographic data from
the Year Book are included in the US Statistical Abstract, The World Almanac,
Wikipedia, the Jewish Virtual Library, and many other places. Older issues of the
Year Book are available at www.ajcarchives.org.
Further evidence of the usefulness of the Year Book were citations in the media.
It was brought to our attention that prior to the New York State presidential primary,
the 2014 Year Book was cited by CNN (April 16, 2016), reporting on the size of the
Empire State’s Jewish population. Shortly thereafter, just a few days before
1 Wikipedia provides the following review of the publication history of the Year Book: “The
American Jewish Year Book (AJYB) has been published since 1899. Publication was initiated by
the Jewish Publication Society (JPS). In 1908, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) assumed
responsibility for compilation and editing while JPS remained the publisher. From 1950 through
1993 the two organizations were co-publishers, and from 1994 to 2008 AJC became the sole pub-
lisher. From 2012 to present, Springer has published the Year Book as an academic publication.
The book is published in cooperation with the Berman Jewish DataBank and the Association for
the Social Scientific Study of Jewry.”
ix
x Preface
Passover, an advertisement in the New York Times (April 21, 2016) cited the 2015
Year Book article on the world Jewish population by Sergio DellaPergola. We sur-
mise that the reason for the frequency of citations is the quality of the articles that
are included each year, and those in the current volume follow that tradition.
Following the “groundswell of interest” in the release by the Pew Research
Center in October 2013 of “A Portrait of Jewish Americans,” we published a forum
on the Pew Survey in the 2014 Year Book (see Dashefsky and Sheskin 2015). In the
current volume, we continue that model by presenting in Part I “A Portrait of
American Orthodox Jews: A Further Analysis of the 2013 Survey of U.S. Jews.”
This report is preceded by an introductory editorial comment followed by a number
of academic contributions and a response by three of the investigators, Alan
Cooperman, Gregory A. Smith, and Becka A. Alper.
Part II begins with a lead article by Harriet Hartman on the Jewish family in
Chapter 13. This chapter is followed by the four additional chapters that have
become regular features of the Year Book. Chapter 14, on the international arena by
Mitchell Bard, recontextualizes the previously titled chapter on national affairs that
was authored by Ethan Felson, who covered that topic from 2006 to 2015 (and with
Mark Silk in 2015). Chapters 15, 16, and 17 report on the Jewish populations of the
United States, Canada, and the world by Ira M. Sheskin (University of Miami) and
Arnold Dashefsky (University of Connecticut), Charles Shahar (the Jewish
Community Foundation of Montreal), and Sergio Dellapergola (The Hebrew
University of Jerusalem), respectively.
Frequent followers of the Year Book will note that the article on Jewish commu-
nal affairs, the long-standing contribution of Larry Grossman, who authored the
article from 1988 to 2015, is absent. Larry had requested that he be relieved of that
responsibility so that he could focus on other writing obligations. Based on ongoing
negotiations, it is our expectation that the 2017 edition will cover a two-year time
frame, going back to 2015. This coverage will include the US presidential primary
season as well as the presidential election. Part III consists of four chapters (18–21)
covering Jewish institutions, the Jewish press, academic resources, and transitions
(which reports on major events, honorees, and obituaries). The provision of a vari-
ety of Jewish lists harkens back to the earliest volume of the Year Book.
Each year the lists in Part III are checked to make certain that all contact informa-
tion is current. In addition, this year we added dozens of Jewish organizations and
Jewish publications to these lists that were either new or ones of which we were
unaware in the past.
While much of the information in Part III is available on the Internet (indeed we
obtain most of it from the Internet), we believe that collating this information in one
volume helps to present a full picture of the state of North American Jewry today. A
part of this picture is its demographics; a part is the extensive infrastructure of the
Jewish community (the organizations and the publications); and a part is the enor-
mous contributions made by the less than two percent of the population that is
Jewish to the culture and society of the United States and Canada.
In addition, while, for example, a list of Jewish Federations will probably always
appear on the Internet, a list current as of 2016 will not be there forever. A historian