Data Quality

New institute aims to move Jewish demographics
way ahead.

RICHARD ASINOFF
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Boston

El:

ow many Jewish children are
enrolled in Jewish preschools?
How many Jewish preschools
are there in America? How many
Jewish families include newborns?
Surprisingly, according to Rabbi
David Gedzelman, executive director of
the Jewish Life Network in New York,
there are no accurate numbers that
measure these demographic trends.
For philanthropists, federations and
Jewish communal organizations, quan-
tifying these trends is not just an aca-
demic exercise. The ability to reverse
the decline in the American Jewish
population, many community leaders
believe, may hinge in large part on the
success of Jewish education programs
targeted at young children.
But which programs work? Which
reach their audience? And why?
To remedy what he sees as a lack of
good data, philanthropist Michael
Steinhardt and his Jewish Life
Network/Steinhardt Foundation have
joined forces with Brandeis University
in Waltham, Mass., to create the
Steinhardt Social Research Institute.
Under the direction of Leonard Saxe,
head of the Cohen Center for Modern
Jewish Studies at Brandeis and backed
by Steinhardt's initial $12 million gift,
organizers hope that the institute, which
will open officially in September, will
become the premier site for collection
and analysis of statistical date about
American Jews, cornering the market on
the country's Jewish demographics.
Steinhardt is chairman of Southfield-
based Jewish Renaissance Media, pub-
lisher of the Detroit Jewish News.
"The amount of data that doesn't
exist is astounding," Steinhardt told
JTA in an interview. "The Jewish
community is in the 19th century in
terms of data, and the quality of the
data that does exist is poor."
When the 2000-2001 National
Jewish Population Survey was released
more than a year late in September
2003, it was dogged by controversy
over both methodology and lost data.
The actual data sample was based on
telephone interviews with 4,523 peo-

ple, representing a 28 percent response
rate. According to the study's findings,
during the previous decade Jewish
population had declined from 5.5 mil-
lion to 5.2 million;
intermarriage was
on the rise, with
47 percent of Jews
choosing a non-
Jewish partner
since 1996; and
about 4.3 million
Jews were active
"Jewishly."
But some
Steinhardt
researchers ques-
tioned both the
numbers' reliability
and the assumptions made about those
numbers. Further, the methodology
used for the 2000-2001 study was dif-
ferent than the methodology used for
the 1990 study, creating problems in
data comparisons.
Saxe, the institute's director, who
began his career as a scientist with the
U.S. Congressional Office of
Technology Assessment, told JTA that
all the data will be accessible and all
the methodologies transparent.
At first, the focus will be on gather-
ing basic data about the size and char-
acteristics of the American Jewish com-
munity, but Saxe emphasized that the
new Steinhardt Institute at Brandeis
will be more than just a repository for
information. "We will be out there,
asking questions, and developing new
methodologies," he said. "We're going
to have the opportunity to synthesize,
analyze and collect our own data, to
try to understand better the American
Jewish community."
Saxe also firmly believes that the
methodologies must change. In the
past, he said, many studies often collect-
ed dozens and dozens of lists of people
who had some contact with Jewish phil-
anthropic and cultural organizations.
"What happens," he asked again, "if
you add lists from organizations, say,
that promote Jewish dating?"
The result, he said, is that you
might reach many more Jews. The
people answering the survey vehicle
from, say, JDate, may not be people
who donate to the local federation.
DATA QUALITY on page 34

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