similar talk shows declined. TheJenny Jones Showwas
subsequently canceled in 2003. Schmitz’s trials be-
came the first in a series of cases probing the degree
to which a party can be found culpable when some-
one else pulls the trigger. In addition, talk-show pro-
ducers became leery of using gay, lesbian, bisexual,
and transgender (GLBT) themes in their reper-
toire, especially “secret crush” episodes. More im-
portant, the trials brought to public attention the
gay panic defense, which was thrown out by a judge
during the 1999 trial for the murder of gay college
student Matthew Shepard. Following theJenny Jones
Showmurder, talk shows became less salacious in
dealing with the GLBT community, and the gay
panic defense became less popular.
Further Reading
“Can Media Kill?”The Economist351 (May 15, 1999):
26-27.
Dahir, Mubarak. “Homosexual Panicking.”The Ad-
vocate, June 22, 1999, 27-28.
“An Unhappy Rerun.”The Advocate, October 13,
1998, 14.
Daniel-Raymond Nadon
See also Hate crimes; Homosexuality and gay
rights; Shepard, Matthew; Television; Transgender
community.
Jewish Americans
Definition Americans who are Jews by birth or
formal conversion
At the end of the 1990’s there were about 4.5 million people
who considered themselves Jews in the United States, mak-
ing it one of the largest Jewish populations in the world.
This group constituted close to 2.5 percent of the U.S. popu-
lation.
During the decade, Jews tended to live in urban cen-
ters, with the most significant populations in New
York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., South Florida,
Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. These
Jews were primarily people who emigrated from
Central and Eastern Europe and their American de-
scendants, called Ashkenazi Jews, and people of
Western European and North African descent,
called Sephardi Jews. There were also small num-
bers of Jews from Central Asia, called Mizrahi Jews,
as well as small populations from Ethiopia, India,
and Greece.
Many different cultural traditions are found
among the Jewish population in the United States, as
well as different religious practices, from Orthodox
to Reform. Many who consider themselves “cultural
Jews” are entirely secular and run the gamut from
agnosticism to atheism.
Jews in Government The 1990’s was a period of ex-
traordinary growth of the participation of American
Jews in government and politics. More Jews won
election to the Senate and the House of Representa-
tives than during any other era in U.S. history. In the
early years of the 1950’s, only one Jew served in the
Senate; in the 1990’s, eleven Jews served as senators.
Bill Clinton, president of the United States from
1993 to 2001, made history by appointing two Jews to
the U.S. Supreme Court: Ruth Bader Ginsburg in
1993 and Stephen G. Breyer in 1994. During the
Clinton presidency, Jews received many cabinet
posts and ambassadorial appointments, including
the appointment of the first Orthodox Jew to an
Arab country, Egypt. Shortly after Ambassador Dan-
iel Kurtzer assumed his duties in Cairo, a kosher
kitchen was established in the Cairo embassy. The
door had been opened for Senator Joe Lieberman
to become the first Orthodox Jewish candidate for
vice president of the United States in August, 2000.
Another distinctive legacy of the Clinton adminis-
tration was the large number of Jews that he ap-
pointed to significant policy-making and advisory
positions in the federal government’s executive
branch, more than any other president. American
Jews had unprecedented influence in political and
public life during the 1990’s, influence that would
have been impossible in previous decades.
Assimilation In the 1990’s, the rate at which Jews
intermarried was approximately 52 percent, which
was both a cause and an effect of assimilation. Finan-
cial pressures are another reason that some Ameri-
can Jews chose to become less affiliated or com-
pletely unaffiliated with their Jewish traditions. It is
estimated that the during the decade it required be-
tween $10,000 to $15,000 per year in discretionary
income to provide intensive Jewish experiences for a
family of four. Intensive Jewish experiences include
synagogue membership, day camp or residential
camp, Jewish day school, membership in a Jewish
community center, and a federation donation. AThe Nineties in America Jewish Americans 467