<p>Isn’t that why they double or triple the number? I think we are taking somewhat unscientific numbers to extreme scrutiny.</p>
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<p>I can’t see any better way. I think trying to guess by last names is fraught with problems both in over- and under-identification, and is potentially offensive as well.</p>
<p>If someone’s halachically Jewish but doesn’t / won’t identify as Jewish on a self-identified survey, then I for one see no point in tagging them as Jewish.</p>
<p>Similarly, if a self-identified Jew who wants nothing to do with Hillel gets missed, well, then, he gets missed. No point in counting people in your club who don’t want to be in your club.</p>
<p>“Back in the day”–I’m guessing 30 years ago, you could make a pretty good guess based on surnames, in most parts of the country (the Portuguese/Spanish Jewish surnames being an exception).</p>
<p>But with each passing generation, intermarriage and conversion produce ever more interesting combinations. Now there are rabbis with Irish/English/Chinese names, for heaven’s sake. </p>
<p>The Hillel numbers are certainly just guesses based on any hard figures they have, and extrapolated to the population. Not trying to count people who don’t self-identify, but certainly to include those who, with some effort, might be persuaded to do something Jewish during their college years.</p>
<p>"I can’t see any better way. I think trying to guess by last names is fraught with problems both in over- and under-identification, and is potentially offensive as well. "</p>
<p>I am not suggesting guessing by last name, and I doubt they do that. I am thinking that they guess based on personal acquantaince, and then generalize.</p>
<p>I knew who in my (small) dorm was Jewish (unless there was someone making an affirmative effort to hide a jewish background) in college, including my those with anglo saxon last names. </p>
<p>"If someone’s halachically Jewish but doesn’t / won’t identify as Jewish on a self-identified survey, then I for one see no point in tagging them as Jewish. "</p>
<p>because those surveys, IIUC, ask “what is your religion?” and there are lots of people who do consider themselves Jewish, who would not put down Jewish as their religion. Because they are atheists.</p>
<p>I confess I grew up in NYC, and while I had few friends with parents in mixed marriages, I had lots of friends who had nothing to do with God or religion, and wanted nothing to do with God or religion, who would have been profoundly insulted to be told they were not Jewish. Not because of halacha - (which, I think it should be evident, they did not care about) but because Jewish was what and who they were - whether they were zionists, from Workmens circle backgrounds, or whatever. </p>
<p>I do not for sure how many of those would put down “jewish” in response to what is explicitly a survey about religion. Some would see around the survey question, and answer Jewish as a realistic signal to other jews. Some would get hung up on the implication that they were theists, and answer “no religion”.</p>
<p>Well, I suppose you could put Jewish-practicing and Jewish- not practicing, but that is a whole 'nother discussion as to what practicing is. </p>
<p>Couldn’t they just ask “wouldja be interested in Hillel or other Jewish-related activities / organizations, or not?” Seems to be the goal at the end of the day!</p>
<p>My husband has one of those Germanic type names that Pizzagirl mentions that can go either way (consequently the children have that name as well). We are not Jewish but there have been some assumptions over the years by some that we are (have a nice holiday, invitations to JCC stuff, Hillel stuff,etc). So, as others have said, names can be deceiving . I agree it would be hard to get exact counts of things like this by going by names alone.</p>
<p>"Well, I suppose you could put Jewish-practicing and Jewish- not practicing, but that is a whole 'nother discussion as to what practicing is. </p>
<p>Couldn’t they just ask “wouldja be interested in Hillel or other Jewish-related activities / organizations, or not?” Seems to be the goal at the end of the day! "</p>
<p>Do most hillels do their own campus wide surveys? I thought religious preference was a survey done by the college usually.</p>
<p>sorry to digress back to interestedad posts re: Emory…</p>
<p>based on data from another thread: Emory class of 2014 is 40% white/caucasian (by elimination I imagine; eliminating minority declaration)</p>
<p>If the incoming class is 30% Jewish, and the incoming class is 1,250, that puts the approx # of Jewish students at 375.
If 40% of the entire class is white (500 students), that translates to a 375/500 Jewish population or 75% of the white caucasian population as Jewish…to me, as a Jewish parent, that is considered a “ghetto”…what happened to all the white, Christian students at Emory?</p>
<p>From Emory’s website:</p>
<p>Self-Identified Racial/Ethnic Statistics
Caucasian 41%
Asian, Asian American, Pacific Islander 33%
Black/African American 9%
Latino, Hispanic 6%
Multiracial 3%
Native American <1%
Did not Identify 8%</p>
<p>Another interesting note is that 17% are international, though race could be evenly distributed across the countries represented</p>
<p>In the new USNews Best Colleges Premium Online Edition which just released its new edition…several schools reported the religious makeup of their student body. </p>
<p>InterestedDad had posted earlier on this thread:</p>
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<p>If you are interested, here is what USNews is reporting for Swarthmore’s enrollment in terms of religions:</p>
<p>Fall 2009 Religious Breakdown<br>
Percent of students who are Buddhist: 4%
Percent of students who are Catholic: 9%
Percent of students who are Hindu: 3%
Percent of students who are Jewish: 12%
Percent of students who are Muslim: 0%
Percent of students who are Protestant: 13%
Percent of students in all other religions: 6%
Percent of students who claim no religious preference: 51%
Percent of students whose religious preference is unknown: N/A</p>
<p>That’s the first time Swarthmore has reported their data. It may be a change in policy by new President Rebecca Chopp, who is ordained in the Methodist faith and is interested in the spiritual lives of college students.</p>
<p>Of course, 51% claiming no preference kind of throws a monkey wrench in the statistics!</p>
<p>BTW, Hillel says that 19% of Swarthmore students are Jewish. That may or may not bear any resemblence to reality depending on the definition of “Jewish” and what the 51% of the students stating “no preference” meant by that. If, for example, the non-religious half of the student body mirrored the religious half, then another 12% of the student body could be “Jewish” by heredity, but not by practice. I don’t know how you sort that out.</p>
<p>If they are Jewish by heredity, but not by practice, and they can’t be bothered or have so little affiliation / identity that they don’t check Jewish on a survey, then why should Hillel even care? They aren’t Hillel prospects, at least not short term. Let it go. Worry about capturing all those with Jewish identity who would be interested in programming first, even if (gasp) some of them wouldn’t pass muster with Orthodox Jews (patrilineal or maternal conversion re Reform). Fish where the hungry fish are.</p>
<p>Does hillel make those estimates only for its own marketing purposes? I thought they did so, at least in part, to give an answer to families asking “how many jews are there at this college” </p>
<p>I know when WE asked, we wanted to know about all the Jews on campus, including the secular ones who don’t go to hillel. </p>
<p>“If they are Jewish by heredity, but not by practice, and they can’t be bothered or have so little affiliation / identity that they don’t check Jewish on a survey,”</p>
<p>why do you keep assuming that heredity and jewish religious practice are the only markers of Jewishness? There is such a thing as a secular, humanist, cultural jewish identity. It can be as shallow as a taste for certain foods, or as deep as an intense commitment to Yiddish culture. As for the survey, again, IIUC its usually a survey of RELIGION, and some secular Jews will not respond affirmatively.</p>
<p>Agree with bbd that one doesn’t have to be actively practicing or involved in Judaic activities to think of themselves as Jewish and they would still check off Jewish on a survey. I think of my own kids as identifying as Jewish and as their religion and culture even though they are not that involved in Jewish practices. They surely would check off Jewish for their religion on a survey.</p>
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<p>I absolutely agree with you and BBD that one doesn’t have to be actively practicing or involved in Judaic activities to think of oneself as being Jewish / check off Jewish in a survey.</p>
<p>However, there seems to be a fear that some kids who might be Jewish halachically speaking but who don’t check themselves off as Jewish will be missed. To which my response is - if they don’t have enough self-identity to identify as Jewish in a survey, why should they be “counted” anyway? At one point, you gotta go with what people say about themselves.</p>
<p>I guess part of my reaction to this is thinking about situations like what happened to my sister. Like me, she had a very, very Jewish maiden last name. But she didn’t self-identify as Jewish at all other than very vaguely at a cultural level. But when she started dating a guy who was Catholic (and she was absolutely fine getting married in a Catholic church, raising children as Catholic, etc.) – his family threw hissy fits because “she was Jewish” (“listen to that last name!”). It was ridiculous - she could out-Christmas and out-Easter them to the nth degree. We had never celebrated any Jewish holiday growing up. But no, it was so important that other people peg her as something she didn’t identify with. </p>
<p>Whether the “marker” is the non-Jews hearing a Jewish last name and erroneously concluding the person was raised / is Jewish, or the “marker” is knowing that someone who doesn’t identify in any way has a Jewish mother and is therefore halachically Jewish – I still find the “markers” potentially annoying and / or offensive compared to the marker of what the person says about him / herself.</p>
<p>Make sense?</p>
<p>I think there are students of ANY religion, not just Jews, who might not mark a religion off on a survey. It isn’t because they don’t identify with a certain religion, but they may decide that it is not anyone’s business. I mean on college apps, they ask your race and some leave that blank too.</p>
<p>“Whether the “marker” is the non-Jews hearing a Jewish last name and erroneously concluding the person was raised / is Jewish, or the “marker” is knowing that someone who doesn’t identify in any way has a Jewish mother and is therefore halachically Jewish – I still find the “markers” potentially annoying and / or offensive compared to the marker of what the person says about him / herself.”</p>
<p>You are discussing what is offensive. I am trying to discuss social reality on college campuses. I have not suggested that people use last name as a marker (I happen to have a last name that is not obviously Jewish BTW) nor am I discussing halacha. </p>
<p>When I was in college, if someone had asked me how many Jews there were on campus, I would certainly have included those who were not religious at all. To me you could not have understood the Jewish presence on campus, the reality of the social scene, if you ignored the large numbers of secular jews (both those with an affirmative secular identification with the jewish people, and those without). And you certainly couldnt have estimated the progress the school had made since its quota days without including them.</p>
<p>Now maybe surveys get the numbers exactly right. I have dealt enough with survey research, to doubt that people EVER exactly answer a survey the way the survey designer intended. Misunderstanding of apparently simple questions are not uncommon. The question of “jewish identity” is complex enough (as I think should be apparent from this thread) that any question shorter than a couple of pages (which busy people wont read) is going to be answered with some degree of inaccuracy. Given that, AFAICT, on most campuses, the survey is distributed by colleges, and just asks “what is your religious identification” I would not expect all secular Jews to identify as Jewish ON THAT SURVEY. </p>
<p>Which means that someone elses informed guess MIGHT be more accurate than the survey. Or it might not, because informed guesses have their own problems. But at least it tells us why there might be different estimates floating around, which was the original question, IIRC. </p>
<p>Why do YOU think there are different estimates out there? It seems you think that A. The hillel estimates are always based on a survey (I am not sure of that) and B. Any other estimates, not being based on a survey, are therefore valueless (and implicitly offensive) and should be ignored.</p>
<p>totally agree with what bbd is saying; I actually have spoken to a Hillel director regarding exactly what is being discussed here…for whatever reason, there are those that will not fill out a survey regarding identification…
around these parts, there was a time (and still is amongst certain schools that will remain nameless) when being Jewish was considered a ORM (over-represented minority)…
it was obvious based on admissions trends that certain schools were trying to reduce the % of Jewish students; in this case, it would be obvious why people would choose not to identify…</p>
<p>just one example…carry on…</p>
<p>I was raised “Jewish”, had a Bar Mitzvah, sent my kids to Hebrew school and had both of them Bar Mitzvah’ed, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t believe in ANY of the theology behind Judaism (or any religion for that matter, as there is most likely no God anyway).</p>
<p>However… when asked to identify my “religion” I put down “Jewish.”</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>This might sound silly but I feel a profound sense of duty to honor those that died in the holocaust and by identifying my self as Jewish I think I’m doing that in some small way. I also get “very Jewish” when encountering anti-semitism, for much the same reason.</p>
<p>What does that make me?
(besides the obvious response of “hypocrite”)</p>