New Book: Contemporary American Judaism
While looking for something else, I stumbled across an interview with Dana Kaplan, author of Contemporary American Judaism: Transformation and Renewal
I argue that American Jews, like other Americans, have become much more interested in personal spirituality, and this has transformed American Judaism. Until the end of World War II, religion was seen as an ascribed part of identity rather than an achieved status. It was ascribed because, like one’s race, it was seen as being immutable. In 1955 a Gallup poll found that only one in twenty five Americans had switched religions. But, by the mid-1980s, American society had changed dramatically. There are many reasons for this shift, including changing social mores, geographic mobility, globalization, and so forth. As American Jews began to search for existential meaning, the organizations and institutions began to feel more and more pressure to respond to that need.