Claims that large percentages of American Jews may be feeling alienated from Judaism, other Jews, and Israel, may be very exaggerated — at least when it comes to the Jews of the Milwaukee area.
The name of the winter Jewish holiday, Chanukah, means “dedication.” The word refers to the anniversary of the rededication of the Second Temple to Jewish worship in 164 B.C.E., after Seleucid empire officials had used it for the worship of pagan gods.
But “dedication” also can mean personal commitment to something. In that sense, the 2011 Jewish Community Study of Greater Milwaukee has found plenty of dedication to being Jewish and doing Jewish things in this area’s community.
For example, the survey found that some 70 percent of area Jews always performs the primary ritual of Chanukah, lighting candles in a Chanukah menorah. An additional approximately 20 percent does so most or some of the time.
In addition, more than 80 percent have a mezuzah on the front door of their dwelling; at least three-quarters always participates in a Passover seder; and about 70 percent always or most of the time attends High Holidays services.
Perhaps above all, nearly 80 percent of respondents told the surveyors that being Jewish is “very important” to them, with another 16 percent saying it is “somewhat important.”
“I think there are a lot of [Jewish] people [in the Milwaukee area] who feel connected to being Jewish, who feel it’s important to be Jewish, and who feel it’s important for their children to be Jewish,” said Stephen L. Percy in a telephone interview on Nov. 22.
Percy is dean of the College of Public Affairs at the University of Baltimore. However, when the 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 are partners in carrying out this study; and Percy remains the person who has the raw data, is analyzing it, and is creating the report on it.
As was explained in the article on other preliminary findings in the October Chronicle, this study is one of the pioneers in using a new methodology.
The data were collected in two ways. One was through a random telephone survey, which is usual in such studies. But in addition, a survey form was made available on the Internet and advertised for people to fill out if they wished.
“We wanted to do an Internet survey because we wanted to see if it works as a methodology,” said Percy in the Nov. 22 interview. “If it proved to be useful, it could be done more cheaply and on a more regular basis, if the community wanted to do that.”
“We weren’t sure [it would be of value],” Percy added, because Milwaukee is “one of the first communities in the country to do something like that.” Moreover, “we knew from the start that you can’t really get a random sample” from an Internet survey, and therefore the results it yields have “a slight bias toward people who are already more connected to the Jewish community.”
Remarkably, data from both surveys come close to matching on many of the survey questions. For example, 70 percent of the telephone-surveyed Jews said they always light Chanukah candles, while 73 percent of the Internet-surveyed group said they did.
The more striking discrepancies in Jewish practice between the two groups are visible in what could be considered some of the more demanding Jewish practices. For example, 12 percent of the telephone-surveyed group said they kept the dietary laws, but almost 24 percent of the Internet-surveyed group said they did.
In fact, 82 percent of the telephone-surveyed group said they did not keep kosher, but 60 percent of the Internet-surveyed group said they did not.
Similarly, when it comes to lighting Sabbath candles, 17.7 percent of the telephone-surveyed group do so always, 8.8 percent do so most of the time, and 30 percent never do; but 25 percent of the Internet group does so always, 16 percent does so most of the time, and only 17 percent never do.
Another close finding has to do with how important Israel is to survey respondents. News media have carried a number of recent reports claiming that U.S. Jews are increasingly feeling alienated from Israel. (See Rabbi David Cohen’s D’var Torah column in the November Chronicle.)
But that doesn’t seem to be happening in the Milwaukee area, according to the study. In the telephone-survey group, 65.5 percent said Israel is very important to them, and 28 percent said it is somewhat important; while in the Internet-survey group, 68 percent said Israel is very important and 25.7 percent said somewhat important.
Percy is not yet releasing overall demographic data on the number of Jews in the area. “We’re still refining the analysis,” a “complex process” which includes correlating with recently released data from the national U.S. census of 2010, he said.
The 2011 survey covers a larger area than did the previous Milwaukee community study of 1996. That study covered all of Milwaukee County, plus parts of Ozaukee, Waukesha, and Washington Counties. The 2011 study covers all of Milwaukee and all of Waukesha and the whole southern half of Ozaukee Counties.
The Chronicle will be reporting on the demographic findings when they become available.
The study was funded by the Helen Bader Foundation and the Daniel F. Soref Charitable Fund. It is co-chaired by Marlene Lauwasser and Michael Lappin.
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