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American Jews: Still a Distinctive Group
- Abstract
“AS does the Christian so does the Jew.” This insight into the social behavior of modern Jews, which we owe to the poet Heinrich Heine, has become something of a sociological axiom, in particular for students of American Jewry. Thus, Seymour Martin Lipset, in an important and frequently cited article,* speaks of the propensity of Jews to accommodate “to the dominant behavior patterns within the Gentile community,” to the extent that Jews constitute “the most American of all groups in the nation [and] exhibit the predominant American traits in a more integrated fashion than any other group.” The thesis that American Jewish behavior is best understood as the conscious or unconscious adjustment of institutions and behavior patterns to those of American culture at large has been reiterated frequently in recent years; and a new book by Joseph Blau, Judaism in America, enshrines it as almost a matter of sociological law.
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