Director's Letter
March 10, 2021
Dear Friends,
This week’s Constructs highlights two issues that surfaced prominently in discussions related to the Jewish community and the 2020 election– Jewish political identification and antisemitism in the United States.
Our American Jewish Population Project has now successfully combined data from over 1.4 million US adults to provide, for each congressional district, estimates of the number of adults who self-identify as Jewish and a breakdown of those individuals by age, education, race/ethnicity, political party self-identification, and political ideology.
On behalf of the Jewish Electorate Institute, we used these data to develop topical reports on the Jewish electorate in eight “battleground” states during the November 2020 election. We found that Jews in the swing states of Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Georgia were split more evenly between the parties than their national counterparts and tracked more closely their in-state non-Jewish neighbors.
Our journal article “Trends in Jewish Young Adult Experiences and Perceptions of Antisemitism in America from 2017 to 2019” examines Jewish young adults' concerns about antisemitsm in the United States. Although there was no dramatic increase in experiences of antisemitic harassment among Jewish young adults between 2017 and 2019—either on or off campus —young Jews’ concerns about antisemitism in the United States increased substantially during that period. Those concerns may be linked to broader views about the climate for marginalized people in the United States.
Finally, we are also pleased to share Professor of the Practice Barry Shrage’s recent Times of Israel blog post on the myth of dying Jewish institutions in the United States. Shrage argues that well-led synagogues, day schools, federations and other Jewish institutions are in fact strong, growing, and essential for communal flourishing. CEO of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies in Boston for 30 years before he joined CMJS, Shrage brings an important perspective on what we can and should expect from our Jewish institutions in the years to come.
Stay tuned for the American Jewish Population Project’s release of 2020 US Jewish population estimates and the launch of its new website.
L’shalom,
Leonard Saxe, PhD
Klutznick Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies and Social Policy
Director, Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies and Steinhardt Social Research Institute at Brandeis University