Abstract:
This article reviews the conceptual frameworks that have underscored
the social scientific study of Jewish identity and experiments with a methodological and analytical approach that aims to respond to contemporary social
trends. Beginning with a historical account of the concept’s emergence in the
study of American Jews, we consider the ways in which scholars and their
research subjects have co-constructed the concept of Jewish identity. Based on
our analysis of qualitative interviews with fifty-eight post-boomer American
Jews, we propose that Jewish identity be understood primarily as a relational
phenomenon that is constructed through social ties, rather than as a product of
individual meaning-making or assessments of social impact. We set our
exploratory findings in conversation with some of the most influential and widely
cited qualitative studies of Jewish identity in the past to examine the implications
of that conceptual shift for scholars and scholarship on Jewish identity in the
21st century.
