Milwaukee’s Jewish community is helping to pioneer a new approach to studying local Jewish populations with its 2011 Jewish Community Study of Greater Milwaukee, according to the scholar working on it.
The survey workers gathered two different kinds of information:
• Random telephone survey, as is usually done, similar to what was done in the 1996 Jewish Community Study of Greater Milwaukee.
• Electronic surveys that people learned about from various media, including The Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, and that they could fill out and return at their leisure.
Collecting and comparing these kinds of data “hadn’t been done in many Jewish community studies before,” said Stephen Percy in a telephone interview on Sept. 22. “This proved to be very valuable addition.”
Percy is the new dean of the College of Public Affairs at the University of Baltimore. However, when the Milwaukee survey data was being collected, he was professor of political science and director of the Center for Urban Initiatives and Research at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee Jewish Federation and the center were “research partners” in creating and carrying out this study, said Marlene Lauwasser, co-chair of the study with Michael Lappin.
The two types of data provide “two interesting lenses to use to look at the greater Milwaukee Jewish community,” said Percy. Moreover, the electronic survey helped the study “outreach as deeply into the Jewish community as we could” and allowed people “to express their ideas and perspectives,” he said.
Percy presented some preliminary findings from the study at the MJF’s annual meeting, held Sept. 26 at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center. These included:
• About 2.7 percent of all households in the target area have one person or more living there who is born or raised Jewish or who considers himself or herself to be Jewish. The asking of a similar question in 1996 found 2 percent of such households.
• About 23.2 percent of Jewish households have children living there, compared to 28.1 percent in the 1996 study and 31.6 among the general population according to the 2010 U.S. census.
Greater connection
A striking finding was that a larger percentage of the more than 1,100 people who participated in the online survey “tended to be more connected to the community” than the percentage of the 534 people interviewed by telephone from April through July, said Percy.
For example, when members of the sample were asked about the extent to which they felt connected to other Jews, about 60 percent of the telephone sample said they felt “very connected” while 70 percent of the electronic survey sample said they felt that way.
Perhaps even more striking in that table was the other extreme. While 2.4 percent of the telephone sample said they felt “not at all connected,” only 0.4 percent of the electronic survey group said they felt that way.
Nevertheless, for most of the other questions, the answers of the two groups were “very similar to each other,” said Percy. In fact, “it is amazing how many times they are similar,” he said.
For example, people in the samples were asked how important Israel is to them.
Those who replied “very important” comprised 65.5 percent of the telephone survey group and 68.2 percent of the electronic survey group; those who replied “somewhat important” were 27.9 percent and 25.7 percent, respectively; those who said “not very important” were 5.3 and 5.6 percent; and those who said “not at all important” were 1.3 and 0.5 percent.
The last such study was performed in 1996; but more than merely changing times made MJF leaders feel a new one was needed now. They wanted to ask some different questions and cover different geographical areas than did the earlier study.
The 1996 effort included all Milwaukee County, southern Ozaukee County, and eastern Waukesha County. The new one included the first two plus all of Waukesha County, in recognition of reported growth of the Jewish population there.
“There are pockets of Jews all over,” said Lauwasser. “We wanted to make sure we included them and could identify their needs.”
The MJF also sought suggestions from community “stakeholders” — leaders of synagogues and other Jewish organizations as well as of the MJF — in designing the survey’s questions, said Percy.
Some questions were kept from the 1996 study, both for their intrinsic interest and to facilitate comparisons between the two studies. Others came from surveys in other communities, said Percy.
All this new data is “vital to future planning of services for the Jewish community, including for religious institutions and programs, Jewish schools, and our social service organizations,” said Lauwasser, who is also MJF president-elect and will take office in summer 2012.
In other findings:
• Religious affiliation: Of the telephone and electronic survey groups, 45 and 44 percent respectively say they identify with the Reform movement; 21 and 11 percent with the Conservative movement; 4 and 6 percent with Modern Orthodoxy; 2 and 8 percent with Orthodoxy; 2 and 3 percent with Reconstructionism.
Some 17 and 11 percent call themselves “just Jewish” or cultural or secular Jews. The 2011 study also has a category not used in the 1996 study, “Other,” which was the term preferred by 9 and 6 percent of the samples.
• Synagogue membership: 61 percent of the telephone group and 71.3 percent of the electronic survey group reported belonging to one synagogue, 10.1 and 11.4 percent to more than one, and 28.8 percent and 17.3 percent to none.
• Feeling included: 36 percent of the telephone survey group and 51 percent of the electronic survey group feel “very included” in the Jewish community; 37.6 percent and 33 percent feel “somewhat included”; 15.2 and 13 percent feel “not very included”; and 11.2 and 3 percent feel “not at all included.”
• Jewish practices: 80.9 percent of the telephone survey group and 87.3 percent of the electronic survey group have a mezuzah on the front door; 17.7 and 24.9 percent always light Sabbath candles on Friday night, while 29.2 and 16.8 percent never do; 74.4 and 85.4 percent always participate in a Passover seder; and 70.2 and 73 percent always light Chanukah candles.
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