The Fourth Generation Grows Up: The Contemporary American Jewish Community

Because there are no religious questions in the studies conducted by the United States Bureau of the Census, much of the data on the demographic patterns of Jewish- Americans comes from more limited studies of local com munities. An examination of the major studies conducted dur ing the 1950s and early 1960s might have led one to predict a gradual but steady process leading to the almost total assimila tion of America's Jews into the larger society. However, a number of major events occurred in the second half of the 1960s and early 1970s that may have altered that process. This article examines recent trends in anti-Semitism and a series of contemporary American Jewish social patterns, including size, geographic distribution, occupation, education, income, political attitudes and behavior, relationship to the state of Israel, intermarriage, and denominational life, from which several significant but divergent trends emerge.