Measuring the Size of the U.S. Jewish Population: New Estimates from a Pew Research Center Survey of Jewish Americans

This paper presents new estimates of the U.S. Jewish population based on a 2019–2020 Pew Research Center survey, which used a stratified address-based sample of all Americans to screen more than 68,000 respondents and complete full interviews with more than 5,800 adults who are Jewish or have some kind of connection to Judaism. We estimate there are about 5.8 million adult Jews living in the United States, including 4.2 million who identify as Jewish by religion and 1.5 million who are Jews of no religion. In addition, 1.8 million children live with at least one adult Jew and are being raised Jewish in some way. Altogether, about 7.5 million people, or 2.4% of the total U.S. population, are Jewish. We present population estimates for additional detailed categories of Jewish adults and children in Jewish households that not available in any other recent source.

Analyzing Zoombombing as a new communication tool of cyberhate in the COVID-19 era

PurposeThe aims of this paper are to explore the rise of cyberhate on the Zoom video conferencing platform at the outset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and to examine victimized cases of Zoombombing where it was used as a cyberhate tool. The COVID-19 pandemic has not only impacted our lives and modes of working and studying, but also created new environments for cybercriminals to engage in cybercrime, cyberhate and hacking by exploiting tools such as Zoom. This new phenomenon called “Zoombombing” was first reported in mid-March 2020, when the social distancing and stay-at-home policies in the United States were nationally introduced.Design/methodology/approachThis research conducted a news media content analysis on cases of Zoombombing. To conduct this analysis empirically, a dataset with all of the reported Zoombombing cases from March to April 2020 was created. Google Trends, news media and tweets were used to analyze Zoombombing as a form of cyberhate, particularly digital racism.FindingsThe results reveal prevalent Zoom-mediated racism toward Asian Americans, African Americans and Jewish Americans. This study understands Zoombombing from a sociopolitical/cultural perspective through news reporting of victimized cases and explores various ways that Zoombombing shapes, mediates, transforms and escalates racism.Originality/valueThis study is one of the very first studies to analyze Zoombombing in a way that builds upon an emerging body of literature on cyberhate. This paper considers Zoom as a space where curious young people, cybercriminals, extremists and hackers impose their ideologies and beliefs upon newly established online learning and working environments and engage in a struggle for identity recognition in the midst of increasingly accessible vulnerable software and cyberspace.

Some Democrats want Biden to do more for Palestinians

Significance Although the Democratic Party remains broadly supportive, Israel can no longer assume unconditional support from Democratic politicians amid growing disagreements between traditional party stalwarts and younger, more liberal elements. Impacts Arms sales and military aid to Israel will continue but face increasing scrutiny from some Democrats in Congress. Democrats keen to apply principles of human rights and social justice to foreign policy will not exempt traditional allies. Polls suggest that younger Jewish Americans are less likely to feel deeply connected to Israel or supportive of its government. Democrats who have criticised Israel also have condemned violence by Hamas and recent attacks on Jews in the United States.

Naomi B. Sokoloff and Nancy E. Berg (eds.), What We Talk About When We Talk about Hebrew (And What It Means to Americans). Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2018. x + 238 pp.

This chapter discusses What We Talk About When We Talk about Hebrew (And What It Means to Americans) (2018). The essays in this collection address the diminishing role of Hebrew in American Jewish communal identity and practice. On the one hand, each writer demonstrates passionate commitment to the Hebrew-language, in many cases offering moving testimony of Hebrew's role in their personal and communal lives. Consequently, they propose diverse strategies for boosting the presence of Hebrew among Jewish Americans. On the other hand, they all resist romantic concepts of Hebrew drawn from Johann Gottfried Herder's conflation of language, nation, and folk, which inevitably leads to a valorization of authenticity. To put it another way, modern Israeli Hebrew poses particular challenges to Hebraists elsewhere, despite the longstanding role of Hebrew in Jewish civilization. The great strength of this volume lies in its successful severing of devotion to Hebrew (whether intellectual, emotional, or cultural) from allegiance to “authenticity” in its diverse meanings.

Painted Pomegranates and Needlepoint Rabbis

Exploring a contemporary Judaism rich with the textures of family, memory, and fellowship, Jodi Eichler-Levine takes readers inside a flourishing American Jewish crafting movement. As she travelled across the country to homes, craft conventions, synagogue knitting circles, and craftivist actions, she joined in the making, asked questions, and contemplated her own family stories. Jewish Americans, many of them women, are creating ritual challah covers and prayer shawls, ink, clay, or wood pieces, and other articles for family, friends, or Jewish charities. But they are doing much more: armed with perhaps only a needle and thread, they are reckoning with Jewish identity in a fragile and dangerous world. The work of these crafters embodies a vital Judaism that may lie outside traditional notions of Jewishness, but, Eichler-Levine argues, these crafters are as much engaged as any Jews in honoring and nurturing the fortitude, memory, and community of the Jewish people. Craftmaking is nothing less than an act of generative resilience that fosters survival. Whether taking place in such groups as the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework or the Jewish Hearts for Pittsburgh, or in a home studio, these everyday acts of creativity—yielding a needlepoint rabbi, say, or a handkerchief embroidered with the Hebrew words tikkun olam—are a crucial part what makes a religious life.

Representations of Identity in Jewish Jazz Autobiography

This chapter examines the autobiographies of Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Mezz Mezzrow, and Max Kaminsky, focusing on their multifaceted identities as second-generation Jewish Americans whose lives and careers brought them into close contact with African American music and society. While these autobiographers recount childhoods in which their identities as ethnic Jews leave them at a distance—both geographically and psychologically—from Protestant white America, their identities prove to be far from fixed; over time their focus on themselves as ethnic outsiders is complimented—or even replaced—by a more general self-identification as “white” and a longing to be Black, or at least to experience immersion in African American culture. This process is facilitated by their experiences of city life and their attraction to jazz music and nightlife—all of which exposes them to the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity of American life.

Turning Congress

This chapter follows the Ford administration’s efforts throughout 1975 to lobby Congress to lift the embargo and embargo supporters’ response to this pressure, highlighting the successes and failures of each. It examines the lobbying efforts of Greek, Armenian, and Jewish Americans to maintain the sanctions on Turkey. It discusses the reasons for the initial failure to pass the Scott bill in the summer of 1975, followed by the administration’s more successful campaign in the fall of that year. It focuses on the critical role of John Rhodes and the minority Republicans in this controversy. Finally, it discusses the elimination of the opium issue as a factor in US-Turkish relations by the end of 1975.