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Emerging Culture Patterns in American Jewish Life

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Emerging Culture Patterns in American Jewish Life EMERGING CULTURE PATTERNS IN AMERICAN JEWISH LIFE ABRAHAM G. DUKER Reprinted from PUBLICATIONS OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY No. XXXIX. Parti (June, 1950) AnwieM 0#r14n LtBftAtY <173j J) EMERGING CULTURE PATTERNS IN AMERICAN JEWISH LIFE The Psycho-Cultural Approach to the Study of Jewish Life in America1 ,) !r By ABRAHAM G. DUKER "The Cultural Approach to History" was the topic of dis- cussion at a number of sessions at the 1939 meeting of the American Historical Association.2 Culture contacts have been the subject of intensive study by anthropologists, originally in application to primitive cultures. This field, in turn, gradually developed into "historical" anthropology, "functional" anthro- pology and finally into the "new" anthropology of today, termed by some spokesmen as "socio-psychology" or the 1 This essay is an extension of a paper read at the forty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society in a symposium on the study of American Jew- ish history [see the Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society (=PAJHS), no. XXXIX, part 3 (March, 1950), pp. 207-317] under the title, "The Psycho-Cultural Approach to the Study of Jewish Life in America." Much of the material on which this essay is based has been accumulated by the author in connection with the prepara- tion of a syllabus on culture patterns, in the course on "Socio-Psychological Aspects of American Jewish Life," at the Training Bureau for Jewish Communal Service. Some of the material appeared in mimeographed form in September, 1948, as part of a larger mimeographed syllabus on Intellectual Aspects [of the American Jewish community], which was separated from it in the following year and appeared as a mimeographed syllabus on Culture Patterns. The author hereby acknowledges his debt to the faculty- staff, lecturers, fellows and students at the Training Bureau for Jewish Communal Service for the benefits of stimulation and discussion in the process of preparing the material and teaching the subject, and to Miss Helen Frankel for technical assistance. Some aspects of the subject were discussed by the author in a paper read before the Annual Meeting of the Yiddish Scientific Institute (Yivo) in January, 1949. This material is also largely incorporated in the present paper. 2 Cf. The Cultural Approach to History, edited for the American Historical Asso- ciation by Caroline P. Ware (New York, 1940). See in particular the essays in "Part Two: Cultural Groups," pp. 61-89. 351 352 AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY "psycho-cultural approach," an attempt to integrate the con- cepts of psychology, psychiatry and anthropology as a tool in the study of individual and group behavior. Of late, emphasis has increasingly been placed on the study of the cultural characteristics of different national groups.3 Without embarking into a discussion of the techniques in- volved in this methodological approach, and after stressing due caution as to the danger of oversimplified generalizations based on psychiatric interpretations, we suggest that applica- tions of these approaches to the study of Jewish culture patterns in America would help to extend our knowledge of history.4 We view culture trends as a legitimate branch of the a A good introductory summary on the methodology of the anthropological ap- proaches is contained in Raphael Patai, On Culture Contact and its Working in Modern Palestine, no. 67 of the titles in the Memoir Series of the Anthropological Association, reprinted from the American Anthropologist, vol. XLIX, no. 4, part 2 (Oct., 1947). A propagandistic popular application of the "new" anthropology not without anti-Semitic aspects is Geoffrey Gorer's The American People: A Study in National Character (New York, 1948). See particularly the parts dealing with American Jewry, pp. 202 ff. Cf. book reviews by Abraham G. Duker on the English Page of The Day, April 18, 1948, and by Professor Horace M. Kallen in The American Journal of Sociol- ogy, vol. LIV, no. 5 (March, 1949), pp. 474-476. For a critical review of publications dealing with this approach, see Robert Endelman, "The New Anthropology and Its Ambitions," in Commentary, vol. VIII, no. 3 (Sept., 1949), pp. 284-291, which, how- ever, fails to mention Gorer's view of the American Jew. A most important publication dealing with the adjustment of the Jews in Minne- apolis is Rabbi Albert I. Gordon's Jews in Transition (Minneapolis, 1949), where the reader will find many parallels to developments indicated in this paper. Since we had well-nigh completed this paper before the appearance of Gordon's volume, we did not document all the parallels.. 4 Unfortunately, little attention has been paid to these aspects by the American Jewish historians, whose interests ought to include also the way of living of the people with the history of which they are concerned. American Jewish history has been de- voted almost exclusively to the study of events, incidents and famous personalities, often treated from the point of view of Jewish contributions to American life, and, except for communal history, rarely paying attention to its contents and culture patterns and mores. It is significant that the PAJHS contain practically no material dealing with mores, practices and adjustment. The only article of direct relevance of this subject is Jeremiah J. Berman's "The Trend in Jewish Religious Observance in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America," PAJHS, no. 37 (1947), pp. 31-53. Sociological studies deal largely with the adjustment of Jewish immigrants and their children. Of late, greater emphasis has been placed on research about the religious beliefs and EMERGING CULTURE PATTERNS 353 history of mores and religious belief, — in themselves branches of history. We also feel that the consideration of the historical background introduces an element of solidity into the approach, particularly so when it comes to evaluating group cultural developments and characteristics. It is necessary to concen- trate on the study of the process of transculturation, accultura- tion and deculturation, all too readily lumped together as "Americanization," as they have affected and affect the immi- grant generation and the native born Jew and his children.5 practices as well as 011 views on Judaism and Jewish adjustment with the use of the questionnaire and the intensive interview methods. See, for example, Abraham G. Duker, "On Religious Trends in American Jewish Life," Yivo Annual of Jewish Social Science, vol. IV (New York, 1949), pp. 51-63, which contain some references; Abraham N. Franzblau, Religious Belief and Character among Jewish Adolescents (New York, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1934); Henry Loeblowitz Lennard, "Jewish Youth Appraising Jews and Jewishness," Yivo Annual of Jewish Social Science, vol. II-III (New York, Yiddish Scientific Institute-Yivo, 1947-1948); Leibush Lehrer, "National Character," Yivo Bleter, vol. XXXI-XXXII (New York, Yiddish Scientific Institute, 1948), pp. 293-351 (see also, Moshe Kligsberg, "Amerikaner Yiddishe Zelner vegn zich un vegn Yidfi," [American Jewish Soldiers about Them- selves and about Jews], ibid., pp. 233-243; J. Steinbaum, "Yiddishkeit bei Tsvantsik Yiddishe Mishpoches in New York," [Jewishness among Twenty Jewish Families in New York], ibid., pp. 208-232); Philip Morton Kitay, Radicalism and Conservatism toward Conventional Religion (New York, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1947); Joseph Zeitlin, Disciples of the Wise (New York, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1945). Of the many works in the field, a basic one is Jews in a Gentile World, edited by Isacque Graeber and Steuart Henderson Britt (New York, 1942), which contains many studies. The volume generally reflects the theory that Jewish "self-segregation" is the chief cause of anti-Semitism. In a different category is the community study approach developed by W. Lloyd Warner and his associates in the study of Yankee City and other communities. This method has served to bring out significant data on the acculturation and deculturation of ethnic groups, including the Jews, in a small New England industrial community. Cf. W. Lloyd Warner and Leo Srole, The Social Systems of American Ethnic Groups [vol. Ill of the Yankee City Series] (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1945). This method of inquiry could be employed advantageously in studies of Jewish life in dif- ferent localities, should the Jewish community in this country acquire a more positive attitude towards research in contemporary history, sociology and adjustment prob- lems. Cf. Symposium on social research in the Yivo Annual of Jewish Social Science, vol. IV (1949). 6 The use of these terms is suggested in the Introduction by Bronislaw Malinowski to Fernando Ortiz, Cuban Counterpoint: Tobacco and Sugar (New York, 1947); and in Phyllis M. Kaberry's Introduction to Bronislaw Malinowski, The Dynamics of Culture 354 AMERICAN JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY The sources and materials for studies of this kind in the Jewish field range from labels on packages and cans to phono- graph records and newspaper advertisements. Naturally, the task of gathering information on the constantly evolving cul- ture patterns of a community of about five million is beyond the ken of an individual scholar. In the present paper, we shall attempt to apply some of our researches to certain manifesta- tions of culture patterns without at all pretending to enumerate in detail all of the problems or topics of research or, for that matter, to exhaust the data on any one of them. Our aim is primarily to call attention to research needs in this field. In studying the emerging culture patterns of the American Jew, cognizance must be taken of the profound effects of the period of closed immigration. It is unlikely that this country will see a new influx of Jewish immigrants, sufficiently large in size and rooted in Jewish tradition to appreciably influence the trends of American and Christian acculturation and Jewish Change: An Inquiry into Race Relations in Africa (New Haven, 1945).
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