Exploration of Jewish Ethnic Identity

Despite a growing amount of research on the topic of ethnic identity, Jews, and the important aspects of a Jewish identity, have not been included in the multicultural and psychological literature. Using consensual qualitative research (C. E. Hill et al., 2005), the authors sought to gain an understanding of Jewish ethnic identity in 10 American young adults, ages 20–27, who identified as Conservative Jews. Six themes were identified: (a) perception of Jewish identity based in multiple influences, (b) personalization of a Jewish identity, (c) reinforcers of a Jewish identity, (d) challenges in holding on to Jewish identity, (e) critical incidents necessitating the expression of one's Jewishness, and (f) critical incidents necessitating the denial of one's Jewishness.     

Ethnic Identity in Jewish Families

Forty-eight Jewish families living in Central New York were interviewed about the development of their ethnic identity. Within each family, parents and children were asked about how they developed their ethnic identity to explore qualitatively how Jewish identity shapes and influences family dynamics. The semi-structured family interviews were coded using a constant comparison methodology. Seven qualitative categories emerged (gendered decisions, negotiating continuity, family of origin, survivors, active learning, traditions, and cultural religion). Jewish identity formation in families and the implications for clinical practice are explored.     

Jewish Identity and the Secular Achievements of American Jewish Men and Women

Three questions are addressed concerning the relationship of Jewish identity to secular achievements. Are the secular achievements of American Jews related at all to the strength of their Jewish identity? Which has a stronger relationship to secular achievement, a religious or an ethnic Jewish identity? Do communal aspects or private, personal aspects of Jewish identity have the stronger relationship to secular achievements? Using the 2000–2001 National Jewish Population Survey, we find that educational attainment, labor force participation, and occupational achievements are related to several expressions of Jewish identity, even after controlling for the traditional sources of variation (age, gender, education, family status). Jewish identity, as expressed in terms of religion, ethnicity, communal commitment, and private attitudes and practices, is related to contemporary Jewish secular achievement, albeit differently for men and women.     

Hidden in Plain Sight: Freud's Jewish Identity Revisited

Using a contextualizing, integrative approach, the author looks at aspects of Freud's life and the multiple levels of influence in terms of his theories. While keeping a broad overview of the historical and cultural life for Jews in 19th-century Europe, including the effects of anti-Semitism, emancipation, and the enlightenment movement, the author intertwines Freud's parents' lives and personalities as they played out in Freud's own development and in his theories. The author believes that Freud formed a particular repression linking Jewishness, passivity, femininity, and religion while elevating in his theories masculinity, activity, science, and atheism. The author specifically focuses on Freud's theories of the Unconscious and the oedipal complex as particularly representative of a split between his own Jewish home and the German high culture he was educated within. Drawing on literature within psychoanalysis and the disciplines of Jewish studies and broad cultural history, the author concludes that Freud's rejection of certain parts of his own life are embedded within his theory when considered from a multiply-layered point of view.     

Surrogate Motherhood Revisited: Maternal Identity from a Jewish Perspective

A new bill regulating ovum donation in Israel is set to pass its second and third readings in the Israel Parliament in the upcoming months. The new law will expand the number of locally donated ova available, as previously Israeli women were prohibited from donating eggs unless they were undergoing fertility treatment. Parallel to this legislative initiative, there has been a change in rabbinical thinking over who is considered the mother in a case of surrogacy. Previously, the consensus has been that the birth mother is to be considered the mother, but over the last few years there has been a change in thinking and the genetic mother is now considered the mother. The purpose of this paper is to present the ethical and legal issues from a Jewish perspective in determining maternal identity. The dilemma also demonstrates some of the difficulties in applying Talmudic law to modern problems and the various methodologies used to overcome these issues.     

Cultural Aid and Jewish Identity in Post-Communist Hungary

This paper is based on current research which is concerned with the revival of religious and ethnic identity among Jews in Hungary after the collapse of communism. Several non-governmental institutions, groups and individuals from various countries, but especially Israel, the UK and the USA, are involved in the revitalization and transformation of Jewish life in the areas of education, ethnicity, religion and social welfare. I examine the complex relationship between emigre donors, often from an Hungarian background, and local Hungarian Jews, to show how cultural aid is accepted, transformed and sometimes resisted. Such aid is not uni-directional from donor to recipient. Rather, it may require the donors to modify their goals; to realize that their assessment of Hungarian needs may be based on anachronistic attitudes. The impact of the recipients on the donors is such that reciprocal change occurs between the two parties.     

Gender Differences in American Jewish Identity: Testing the Power Control Theory Explanation

This paper addresses discrepancies in previous research about whether there are gender differences in Jewish identity. Four factors of Jewish identity are examined: multifaceted Jewish engagement, social Jewish identity, communal religious identity, and cultural Jewish identity. Using the 2011 New York Jewish Community Survey, gender differences in Jewish identity in seven denominational groups of American Jews are examined. The power control theory (PCT) is tested as an explanation for the gender differences, and found to be lacking. Measures of power imbalance in current family situations are used, in addition to measures related to socialization; the rationale for this variation is discussed. According to PCT, the Orthodox would exhibit greater gender differences in Jewish identity, but the opposite is true: significant gender differences are found for non-Orthodox denominations more than are found for the Orthodox. Being raised Orthodox does not contribute to the gender differences. Measures of power imbalance within families do not contribute to the explanation of variance in any of the Jewish identity factors. Possible generalization of the findings is discussed, as well as directions for further research.     

Escape From Traumas: Emigration And Hungarian Jewish Identity After The Holocaust

Unlike other European countries, at the turn of the 20th century, Hungary ensured complete legal and religious equality for Jews living in the country. As a result, they became strongly assimilated and identified themselves as Hungarian. Leading up to and during WWII, there was a gradual and steady deterioration of those legal and religious conditions, and the “betrayal” and persecution of Jews caused unspeakable trauma all over the world. After the defeat of the Nazis, only a small number of Holocaust survivors returned to their home country; the majority emigrated. This study provides a psychoanalytical analysis of the changes in Hungarian survivors’ psychic realities and the construction of their new identities, depending on the survival strategy they chose. The hypothesis is that the rebuilding of the demolished identity and the level of trauma elaboration depend on whether this process was done at the place of the trauma or in a different society. The study uses psychoanalytic and social psychology literature to follow the impacts of the emigration process, to draw conclusions and apply them to trauma elaboration after the Holocaust.

     

March of the Living, a Holocaust Educational Tour: Effect on Adolescent Jewish Identity

March of the Living (MOTL) is a worldwide two-week trip for high school seniors to learn about the Holocaust by traveling to sites of concentration/death camps and Jewish historical sites in Poland and Israel. The mission statement of MOTL International states that participants will be able to “bolster their Jewish identity by acquainting them with the rich Jewish heritage in pre-war Eastern Europe.” However, this claim has never been studied quantitatively. Therefore, 152 adolescents who participated in MOTL voluntarily completed an initial background questionnaire, a Jewish Identity Survey and a Global Domains Survey pre-MOTL, end-Poland and end-Israel. Results suggest that Jewish identity did not substantially increase overall or from one time period to the next.     

The Complexity of Ethnic Identity Among Jewish American Emerging Adults

Jewish Americans may grapple with issues of ethnic identity differently than the larger White American group. Drawn from a large multisite sample (N = 8,501), 280 Jewish American (207 female, 73 male) emerging adults were compared with White American and ethnic minority samples on ethnic and U.S. identity. Jewish Americans rated themselves as significantly higher on measures of ethnic and U.S. identity compared with White Americans but not as highly as ethnic minorities. Ethnic identity search, affirmation, and resolution also predicted higher self-esteem for Jewish Americans, similar to the pattern for other ethnic groups. In addition, ethnic identity search and affirmation moderated the link between perceived discrimination and depressive symptoms among Jewish Americans.     

A Study of Jewish Identity Development and Its Relationship to Self-Esteem

Jewish college age students and adults completed measures of Jewish identity as well as self-esteem to determine whether Jews adhere to Atkinson et al. (1979) minority identity model, particularly as regards self-esteem. Participants were found to have diminished rather than enhanced self-esteem in the Resistance-Immersion stage. Diplomate in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and an Approved Supervisor in the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. He is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Clinical Psychology Program of the University of Connecticut.     

Education as ethics: Emmanuel Levinas on Jewish schooling

For Levinas, the moment of real meaning is in the relation sustained with alterity. This relation is difficult or impossible to characterize philosophically, however, because to render it in comprehensive or objective terms would reduce the relation to one of comprehension and make it commensurate with the ego. Thus philosophy has an ambivalent status with respect to transcendence and ethics; but Levinas is convinced of the essentially transcendent or ethical meaning of Judaic practice: Talmudic exegesis, but also Jewish ritual and the keeping of the sabbath; and these elements are included within a conception of Jewish educational practices. Thus to what extent transcendent meaning can be discussed in philosophical terms and evinced in philosophical work (theoretical and practical)—or rather, to what extent transcendent meaning is possible at all—may be clarified by a sketch of Levinas’ broad approach to Jewish practice, particularly in terms of education. This essay shows how Jewish education is essential for transcendence and ethics for Levinas. Reference is made to several untranslated texts that Levinas published for intellectual but nonacademic French-Jewish journals, in which he explains his own pedagogical vocation. This offers an invaluable perspective on his philosophical and Judaic writings; and above all it gives an indication of his vision of the quotidian and life-long educational practices through which ethics and the transcendent relation between human beings are possible. Finally it raises the question of whether a secular or philosophical education could offer this as well.     

Identity,Culture and Contestation: Social Identity as Cross-Cultural Theory

In this paper we explore the logic and implications of the social identity approach to group processes. The theory argues that the consequences of social identification for behaviour are not simple givens. Rather than making generalisations about the behaviour that flows from social identification, the theory makes the point that behaviour depends upon the way in which identities are defined. This emphasis upon the contents of social identities draws our attention to their construction and we pay particular attention to how group identities are made and remade in and through argument and social practice. We argue that attention to the dynamics of identity construction means that this perspective is respectful of culture and cultural difference and that the social identity approach therefore has considerable value in exploring the politics and practice of identity wherever group behaviour may be found. Moreover, we argue that the ubiquity of identity-related argument across cultures and contexts reflects the fact that group identity is a basis for social power.     

Suffering Injustice: Misrecognition as Moral Injury in Critical Theory

Abstract

It is the persistence of social suffering in a world in which it could be eliminated that for Adorno is the source of the need for critical reflection, for philosophy. Philosophy continues and gains its cultural place because an as yet unbridgeable abyss separates the social potential for the relief of unnecessary human suffering and its emphatic continuance. Philosophy now is the culturally bound repository for the systematic acknowledgement and articulation of the meaning of the expanse of human suffering within technologically advanced societies that are already committed to liberal ideals of freedom and equality.     

Labels and the Self: Identity Labels as Scaffold

This paper considers how labels may be used: “Neurodiverse,” “genderfluid,” “sex-positive,” “ADHD,” and “highly-sensitive” are just some of the labels that may be offered by patients in introducing themselves. Such labels can be thought of as shortcuts, a way to define identity and sum up a feeling state, attitude, or behaviour. While they may sometimes be “given” in the sense of a diagnosis, they are also “found” and self-adopted. Using scaffolding as a metaphor for allowing growth or development to take place (or compensate for its absence), the phenomenon of self-labelling is presented as fulfilling different functions, namely: Label as mirrored reflection; Label as creative defence; Label as something with which to play; Label as container for that which cannot yet be known; Label as calling something into being; and Label as collective dream image. The article starts with three brief composite clinical sketches, and goes on to explore some of the ways that labels may be used with reference to the presented clinical material.