Dividing The
Numbers

Now that the raw NJPS data is out,
how will population study be used?

JOE BERKOFSKY
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

New York
ewish Intermarriage Still
Rising" the Washington Post
headline declared. "Where have
all the Jewish people gone?" -
one news release read.
A year after being pulled amid contro-
versy over its methodology, the National
Jewish Population Survey 2000-01 hit
the Jewish community on Sept. 9, gen-
erating national headlines and fueling a
flurry of proclamations from Jewish
organizations offering dueling spin on
the results.
Groups alternately decried the loss of
Jews and bemoaned the steady rise of
intermarriage while urging more out-
reach, or welcomed the popularity of
Jewish education and the wide embrace
of some Jewish rituals as proof that pro-
moting Jewish identity works.
Analysis of what NJPS means will
endure, but now comes the real test fac-
ing the United Jewish Communities fed-
eration umbrella group, which spon-
sored the $6 million study:
To what extent will the NJPS live up
to its mission of giving the Jewish feder-
ation system and other Jewish organiza-
tions a planning tool unprecedented in
depth and scope for years to come?
Like so much in Jewish life, it depends
on whom you ask.
Rabbi Hayim Herring, who chaired
the NJPS data utilization committee,
which plans how to disseminate the
study, said its chief importance lies in its
ability to unearth major Jewish trends.
"Where it can be useful is in helping lay
out an agenda for the American Jewish
community," he said.
Many local federation leaders say they
consider the NJPS useful largely for pro-
viding a benchmark against which they
measure their own community studies.
"For anyone who works in the vine-
yards, there's a keen interest in having a
bird's eye view of the overall picture,"
said Jacob Solomon, executive vice presi-
dent of the Greater Miami Jewish

Federation.
However, Solomon added, local com-
munity studies are "much, much more
applicable. We would always rather see
data that's applied directly to our demo-
graphic" territory than more general sta-
tistics.
Miami last conducted its own study in
1994, and it will begin its next survey
this February before making any major
policy shifts, he said.

Local Studies

Many of these local studies reveal wide
statistical gaps between the local and
national scenes, says the figure behind
the Miami study and 49 other local
surveys. Ira Sheskin, a University of
Miami sociologist who was among
several consultants to NJPS and who
generally lauded it, found variations in
such hot-button issues as intermar-
riage.
While the latest NJPS found a
national intermarriage rate among all
married couples involving a Jew at 31
percent, Sheskin said he found 39
communities showing rates lower than
26 percent. NJPS found that among
marriages in the past five years, 47
percent were intermarriages.
Federation leaders in the West say
they do not rely heavily on NJPS
because it does not contain enough
data about a region in flux. Heath
Blumstein, a senior campaign associate
at the Jewish Federation of Greater
Phoenix, called the NJPS "somewhat
helpful" for its "universal" data.
But Phoenix just finished its own
survey, by another leading Jewish com-
munity social scientist, Jack Ukeles.
(Ukeles was co-director of Detroit's
last Jewish population study, in 1989.)
The recent Phoenix survey found dra-
matic Jewish growth in the Sun Belt
city — up 138 percent in a decade.
The Jewish Federation of
Metropolitan Detroit has been waiting
for the latest national study to deter-
mine what its next step might be, but
DIVIDING THE NUMBERS on page 26

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