<p>"you’re not a “marginal Jew” (compared to those with two Jewish parents) if you only have one Jewish parent and self-identify as being Jewish. Your Jewish orientation and affiliation will come from how seriously your family took it, not on the # of parents who were halachically Jewish. "</p>
<p>i did not say that such people were marginal or not.</p>
<p>I believe there are members of both groups (with 2 j parents and with 1 j parent) who are “marginal” (itself a complex mix of religious and ethnic elements). I am just saying that in the case of the former (2 J parents) there is a STRONGER consensus that such individuals are Marginal JEWS whereas with the latter (1 J parent) the question of whether they are Marginal JEWS, or not Jews at all, is something about which there is less consensus among ordinary Jews (not necessarily R or C or O rabbis) and thus there is likely to be less agreement on whom should be counted (in the latter case) when someone asks “how many Jews are there on this campus?”</p>
<p>^^^interesting discussion of what defines a Jewish person! </p>
<p>I dunno but my children did not go to synagogue, never went to Hebrew/religious school, did not belong to Hillel, did not attend Zionist camps (though went to overnight camps where many Jews also attended but had absolutely no Jewish affiliations), did not get Bat Mitzvahed, and so on. My husband and I are Jewish. My kids consider themselves Jewish and I don’t see why you have to do those other things to be considered Jewish. Unless they adopt another religion, or atheism, they were born Jews and are Jews, no matter what things they observe or get involved in. I never heard of “marginal Jews” before.</p>
<p>That’s remarkable, and very smart, marketing for a Lutheran college. And to embed that niche even further into the campus mission and culture, I find on their website:</p>
<p>Right. The strength of soozievt’s kids of self-identifying as “I’m Jewish” really has very little to do with whether both parents were Jewish, or one parent was Jewish and the other parent was just sort of “eh, I’ll go along for the ride” religiously. I think it comes down to self-identity and my personal observation is that the self-identity as Jewish is based on things far more complex than whether both parents are Jewish or not. IOW, it’s always been my observation that some of the most committed Jewishly Jews are those from a one-J-parent family, and that two-J-parents aren’t a guarantee of much.</p>
<p>and, sigh, I am NOT discussing this to question anyones identity or the value of how they live their lives (if I were to do so, I would do that where its more on topic, eh?)</p>
<p>All I was trying to do, I swear it, was to hypothesize about why the STATISTICS seem so hard to get a handle on. </p>
<p>I am no expert on the matter, but I have read enough about Jewish demography in the US, to know that these questions introduce a huge amount of complexity.</p>
<p>Well, folks- are we talking about an ethnic group or a religious one? Ask someone with Jewish ancestry and the atheist may reply with a yes indicating ethnic genome or no because s/he rejects the religion. Hopefully being Jewish is of no more importance than being of any other ethnic group. And, not being in favor of any mythologies, hopefully most schools would ignore religious differences on a daily basis. I understand how the importance of being Jewish or not came about- if the majority of the American population would realize how much Christianity permeates our culture/society and then would correct the imbalances it would be easier to ignore. Part of the problem occurs because Christianity requires Judaism for its existence. Real cultural outsiders such as Hindus are too accepting of others’ ways to make a fuss when theirs are stepped on. Felt like stirring up more controversy.</p>
<p>“I think it comes down to self-identity and my personal observation is that the self-identity as Jewish is based on things far more complex than whether both parents are Jewish or not. IOW, it’s always been my observation that some of the most committed Jewishly Jews are those from a one-J-parent family, and that two-J-parents aren’t a guarantee of much”</p>
<p>I am not talking about self identity. Again, I am trying to hypothesize why there are different judgements of the number of Jews on campus. If all the folks counting agree that self identification is the criterion, and they all KNOW the self identification of each student, then of course they should all come up with the same number, right?</p>
<p>If they are coming up with different numbers, than either they dont all use self identification as the criterion, OR they dont know the self identification of all students. In which case the issues I have discussed MAY have relevance, to the issue of understanding the variety of counts.</p>
<p>Ah, I see your point. I would be surprised if the counters-that-be were using anything other than self-identification, though. </p>
<p>After all, if you come across Rachel Gonzalez on campus who doesn’t identify as Jewish, go to Hillel, etc. – how are you going to “know” that her mother was no-longer-practicing Rebecca Goldstein and therefore count her in the Jewish camp matrilineally? (And for all you know Rebecca Goldstein was the daughter of Mary Margaret O’Hara and Shmuley Goldstein herself and doesn’t count as Jewish either, LOL.)</p>
<p>That’s for the entire university, including grad schools and professional schools. The undergrad only ethnic breakdown is in the Common Data Set.</p>
<p>PG…#68, coincidentally, my younger daughter was in Paris recently and went to a French synagogue for services with an American family who is Jewish and the kids’ last names are Gonzalez (I know their mom is Jewish). But I digress.</p>
<p>I am assuming they ask the hillel director, who asks one or more students. They of course do not know every student on campus, but they know say, all the kids in their dorm, on their hallway, etc. For that small group, they know the folks who are “clearly Jewish” to an ordinary lay Jew, and are not confused by last name (you dont need intermarriage for that confusion btw, there are lots of Jews named Smith since Ellis Island, and any campus with many german americans will have lots of 100% gentiles with “jewish” names). Then they extrapolate to the campus, I guess. The problems with that are going to be where a. the population varies by residence and the folks Hillel asks dont adjust properly for that. “30% of the kids in the dorms are Jewish, but its probably different on Frat Hill - I will take a swag and say 5%” and b. Where problems of definition come up</p>
<p>“joe says 30% of the kids are Jewish, judy says 20%, but I know for a fact Joe says rebecca Goldstein is Jewish, and her dads a methodist minister, and she says she is post-religious - Joe keeps quoting halacha, but Judy would never call Rebecca Jewish”</p>
<p>You could use self reporting on surveys - EXCEPT A. I suspect lots of kids dont fill them out and B. They usually ask for RELIGION (following the categories of the mainstream culture) and lots of culturally Jewish folk will say “none” even as they identify as Jews in many contexts</p>
<p>You have outlined many of the pitfalls of trying to count Jews (or Baptists or Unitarians) on a college campus and why many of the top colleges have simply stopped asking the question on their surveys.</p>
<p>Because there is no real data for most of these schools, I think I’m correct in suggesting that the Hillel provided guesses may or many not bear any resemblence to reality. And, as you point out, it’s not even that easy to pin down what constitutes “being Jewish” these days.</p>
<p>Oh I definitely agree that one’s last name has a bearing, unintended or not, on how one is treated / perceived! I had a very Jewish maiden name (of the Goldenberg, Rosenblum variety) and was tagged Jewish even where I didn’t intend to or want to be tagged that way (I had very little religious upbringing). Now, my married last name is one of the more Germanic names that is more often Jewish than not, but could go either way (more like Weiss, Klein or Gross). Honestly, I never liked having my maiden name “announce” it so strongly.</p>
<p>i-dad - I agree that the Hillel data may be guesses, but I suppose it’s better than nothing. </p>
<p>One could also look at the presence / strength of historically Jewish fraternities and sororities for those campuses that have a Greek presence, though that could be fraught with peril too. In some locations, those serve to “siphon off” the Jewish students and in other locations, there isn’t a need for them since the Jewish students are well-integrated into other places. Just a thought, but on second reflection probably not a very good one.</p>
<p>Why are you assuming only “whites” can be Jews? I know African-American, Latino and Asian Jews. Growing up, two of my kid’s closest friends were Korean Jews. In one case, the kid’s mother was Korean and her dad was white and Jewish. She was raised as a Reform Jew and considered herself Jewish. The other was a Korean child who was adopted by a Jewish couple. She too was raised in the Jewish faith. </p>
<p>One of the guys in my office is a “modern Orthodox” Jew. He and his wife adopted a child born in Colombia. She was raised as and considers herself Jewish. My D had a firend who had a Jewish mom and Brazilain dad. Her parents split and her mom became much more religious after than. Child had a bat mitsvah, etc. Her suranme is one most people assume is Hispanic. </p>
<p>The African-American Jews I know came about through a variety of circumstances–some were adopted by Jewish families; some are the descendants of Ethiopian Jews; some are the result of interracial/interreligious marriages. </p>
<p>So, not all kids who self-identify as Jews are white.</p>
<p>No reason they couldn’t; for the sake of argument, they were being “discounted,” but that’s yet another reason that any identification HAS to be on self-identification, and not on someone trying to sort the Rosenblums over here and the Gonzalezes or the Lis over there. And CERTAINLY not on someone trying to suss out whether someone’s mother is Jewish.</p>
<p>I have one set of nephews with an old, old Basque/Spanish surname, and they have a Jewish mother, and another set with Irish names from their father’s family, ditto. None of them would self-identify as Jewish, and no one would be likely to ask. (Who would ask Ignacio Elizondo or Christopher O’Meara if he was Jewish?) A third set of nieces have very Jewish-sounding names from their Catholic father (e.g., Rebecca Isaacs); they probably wouldn’t self-identify as Jewish, but are so used to being assumed to be Jewish that they don’t correct it, either. All of the foregoing are halachically Jewish.</p>
<p>I also have first cousins who share my common Jewish surname, and they were raised as Episcopalians by their Episcopalian mother.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That evokes a favorite moment from my kids’ childhoods. I was taking the place of a sick religious school teacher and teaching my daughter’s first-grade class the story of Passover. One of the kids – mildly LD – kept asking “What about Harriet Tubman? What about the underground railway?” Finally, one of the other kids got exasperated and said, “Sophie! You’ve got the wrong holiday! This is about when ALL the Jews were slaves, not just the Black ones.” For context, fewer than half of the kids in this particular class would have registered as white if you saw them on the street.</p>