Social Class and Social Cohesion among American Jews

Abstract

Background

Distinctions in social class and their implications for social cohesion have periodically emerged among American Jews, but they largely receded in the last quarter of the 20th century as most Jews reached middle and upper class status. The connections between them have received little attention since then.

Purpose

We revisit the relationship between social class and social cohesion among American Jews. Though American Jews have been disproportionately located in the middle and upper social classes for many decades, they are nonetheless still stratified internally by social class distinctions. Our research asks: are the social class distinctions that continue to stratify American Jews related to their social cohesion?

Methods

We use data from 27 local Jewish community studies pooled into one data file with 24,733 cases. We measure social class with a bi-directional index composed of income and education, and we measure social cohesion with a question on feeling part of the local Jewish community. We analyze these data using generalized linear mixed models that adjust for clustering by community and specify a cumulative logit link for ordinal outcomes. Our models include other predictors of social cohesion and interaction terms between social class and the other predictors. We also calculate model-based probabilities for dependent variable outcomes.

Results

Modest, positive relationships are found between social class and social cohesion. As social class status increases, so too do felt connections to the local Jewish community. Social class also variably interacts with every other predictor, strengthening the relationship between social class and social cohesion among certain subsegments of the population and reducing it among others.

Conclusions and implications

Even as American Jews are disproportionately located in the middle and upper social classes, social class continues to stratify them, to modestly reduce the group's overall social cohesion, and to concentrate social cohesion among those with higher social class status. The relationship between social class and social cohesion has implications for social class bias in the processes and dynamics of the organized Jewish community that warrant further research.