264 Lynn Davidman
incorporation of new questions that explore the meaning and nature of actions and rit-
uals and address individuals’ self-perception of Jewish identity. She argues against mod-
els that highlight continuity motifs, claiming that despite “Jewish communal expecta-
tions of ‘erosion,’” she has found “evidence of persistence and invention in American
Jewish identification” (1998: 17). Although the findings of her study affirm that affili-
ational connection is less meaningful than it used to be, many contemporary Jews are
discovering entry points into Judaism through approaches other than traditional insti-
tutions. For example, she describes a secular Jewish jazz musician whose identity was
strengthened through encountering klezmer music. Interestingly, a Jewish institution,
the Mandel foundation, funded her study. It, and others like it, may be beginning to
recognize the growing number of Jews for whom institutional affiliation is on the de-
cline (particularly through intermarriage) and thus these institutions’ policy concerns
include seeking ways to establish “outreach” to the unaffiliated.
Moderately affiliated Jews have recently been recognized as a separate category of
study that may provide important data about the nature of Jewish identity and chang-
ing attitudes toward Jewish practice in America. The first book focusing on the moder-
ately affiliated,The Jew Within(Cohen and Eisen 2000), defines its subject as those Jews
who are members of Jewish institutions such as synagogues, Jewish Federations, Jewish
community centers, and other Jewish agencies, but who are not activists within these
institutions. The authors argue that 50 percent of American Jews fall within this cate-
gory (ibid: 5). Their analysis, based on approximately fifty in-depth interviews with the
moderately affiliated as well as one thousand mail-back questionnaires from households
with at least one Jewish adult member, highlights the role of American individualism
in shaping the choices of their respondents. The members of this group see themselves
first and foremost as individuals who are free to use their own authority when deciding
about the ways they express their Jewishness. Many of their interviewees agreed that
being a Jew is not a choice but that what one does with that identity is a personal de-
cision; Cohen and Eisen refer to this perspective as “choosing chosenness” (2000: 22).
In other words, Jewish identity is simultaneously a given from birth – an ascribed
identity – as well as a choice one makes – an achieved status. Within the traditional and
historical confines of Jewish culture, then, there is actually great room for individual
autonomy.
For generations, Jews have struggled with their differences from the larger American
population and regarded Jewish distinctiveness with great ambivalence. Since their
arrival in the United States in great numbers in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, Jews have sought economic and social mobility as well as white racial iden-
tity (Brodkin 1998: 139–40). Some gave up the traditional observances that they saw
as hindrances to fitting in (possibly at the much-lamented cost of Jewish continuity),
while others went so far as to adopt popular Christian practices, such as having a
Christmas tree. Cohen and Eisen show that this is no longer true of most of the peo-
ple they studied, who seem to see no contradiction between being Jewish and being
American. Christmas is not celebrated by Jews nearly as much as it was a generation
ago – at least partially – because Jews are interested in declaring that being Jewish is
being not-“them” (Cohen and Eisen 2000: 82, 99). Thanksgiving is taken seriously
and “celebrated nearly universally” because one is made no less JewishorAmerican
by “the hyphen in one’s identity” (ibid.: 99). In some ways, this increased acceptance
of dual or multiple identities in America has given free reign to and validation of the