Encore Archive

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The Jewish Family: So What Else Is New?

Bernard Farber (Sh'ma, 10/183, December 14, 1979)

Just how badly is the Jewish family faring? Compared with the past, terribly: intermarriage rates are high, and increasingly the rates for women are approaching those for men; divorces are becoming more and more prevalant; birth rates are below replacement levels; and the few children there are, tend to be spoiled, neurotic, and ignorant about Judaism. But these trends are not restricted to Jews. They reflect changes in family life which are occurring in all of American society.

As part of a larger study of families in Phoenix, Arizona, I had a supplementary sample of Jews-- not many, about 60 young families. (My respondents were all under 46 and either were married or had been married.) Despite the small sample, my results were quite consistent with those of other researchers: Educational level was high, the birthrate of Jewish families was the lowest of all religious groups, and yes, views of Jewish respondents on abortion and premarital cohabitation were the most liberal.

Jews Still Show Strong Family Orientation

But even in a Southwestern outpost like Phoenix, young Jewish families differ in significant ways from those of non-Jews with similar occupational and educational backgrounds. More Jewish couples are in their first marriages - and so are their parents. When intermarriages occur, almost universally (unlike Catholic-Protestant mixtures) all the children are raised in the same religion - more often than not Jewish. Beyond that, contact with the mishpocheh (family) is more frequent than in Protestant and Catholic families -- not only with parents, but also with brothers and sisters - and in-laws as well. And this occurs whether these relatives live in the same community or in distant places. Moreover, Jewish couples are more likely than others to believe that one has a greater duty to a relative than to a non-relative. Thus, despite the weakening of family ties in America, "familiam" is still more firmly imbedded in the current Jewish family than it is among others.

The persistence of a "familistic" orientation among Jews have implications for understanding the degree to which "the Jewish family" is transportable to different social contexts. In my study I have been able to identify separate models of family ties among Jews, Catholics, and Protestants. For Jews, incorporation into the American middle class has not meant the Protestantization of outlook on family ties as it seems to have done among upwardly bound Catholics. The Jewish kinship model is fairly strong even among younger Reform Jews with American born parents. Perhaps where such Protestantization has occurred, Jewish identity has also waned. In the past, Jewish women who rebelled against the traditional roles accorded to women in Orthodox homes frequently regarded the connection between their roles and Judaic codes as fixed, and they would disavow any identity as Jews. It is significant that women today are seeking new solutions to the problem of maintaining "a Jewish home" while simultaneously redefining their position in secular society.

Jewish Life Makes Many Demands of Family

Compared with the Pre-Holocaust past, the social environment of the Jewish family places more competing demands upon its members. The Jewish neighborhood with its distinctive communal institutions - the kosher butcher shop, the deli, the shochet (butcher), the shul, and the close by mishpocheh - have given way to more indirect and associational means of cohesion - the state of Israel, telephone and mail, visiting with relatives, the temple, the complex of Jewish organizations. In this kind of environment, having a Jewish family life requires hard decisions and an extra effort.

Optimism: A Life Sign of the Jews

It is true that the mishpocheh is dwindling in size. Whereas each Catholic in our sample could claim 7.2 nieces and nephews, and each Protestant slightly over 6, the Jews could point to an average of only 2.3 children from their siblings. Yet family size does not reveal the whole story - the Jewish respondents are optimistic over the future. More than others, they disagree with the statement that "it is unfair to bring children into the world as it is." They show less general disillusionment with the world than do Christian respondents with similar socioeconomic characteristics. So, while Jewish kinship groups are indeed becoming more and more attenuated, the end product does not appear to be geno-suicide. Instead, it looks as though Jewish couples are trimming down the mishpocheh to manageable proportions in order to balance the high intensity of familiar commitments with other important concerns in their lives.

In these days of the ideal of low cost - high profit social relationships, we tend to forget that the traditional Jewish family has always extracted high personal costs. It has always demanded dedication and sacrifice, just as donning "the yoke of Jewishness" has ever required firm commitment and self-disciplie. It did so in times of wandering and poverty. Why should affluence and the post-industrial world make a difference? The old saw still stands: Es iz shver tsu zein a Yid (it is hard to be a Jew).