Pew Survey About Jewish America Got It All Wrong

[Mosby]

If you’ve been following the news about that new survey of American Jews from the folks at the Pew Research Center, you’ve probably heard the basics. The New York Times summed it up nicely: “a significant rise in those who are not religious, marry outside the faith and are not raising their children Jewish.”

There’s one more thing you need to know: It’s not true. None of it.

A “rise in those who are not religious”? Wrong. More Jews marrying “outside the faith”? Wrong. More Jews “not raising their children Jewish”? Wrong.

No, not wrong as in “I think there’s a better way to interpret those numbers.” Wrong as in “incorrect.” Erroneous. Whoops.

http://forward.com/articles/185461/pew-survey-about-jewish-america-got-it-all-wrong/?p=all#ixzz2hcc5Wxu7

[King_David]

1. Yep

"America’s most respected social research organizations depicts a Jewish community that is growing more robustly than even the optimists expected."

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/185461/pew-survey-about-jewish-america-got-it-all-wrong/?p=all#ixzz2hcmEXyM2

[ColesCountyDem]

2. If so, I see no evidence to support their conclusion.

Last edited Sun Oct 13, 2013, 08:42 PM - Edit history (1)

I live in a small (pop. 6800) town in southern Illinois. For various reasons, we have a fairly large (5-6%) Jewish population AND a synagogue. I know virtually all of the families who are members (actually, I'm old enough that I knew most of their grandparents), and the congregation is both large and vibrant.

If what Pew says is true, it must be happening elsewhere, because it's certainly NOT happening here.

[Scootaloo]

3. Well, someone's probably getting a stiff reprimand for that one

Unfortunately, they picked the so-called National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01, best remembered as a multimillion-dollar botch job. Its release had been delayed two years to allow two separate reviews by outside experts. The confidential reviews were devastating. This was not a useful data point.

A critical misstep in 2000 was a decision to set aside interviewees with “weak Jewish connections” and not bother asking them detailed questions about Jewish identity. One result was a falsely upbeat picture of Jewish commitment and practice. Another was the disappearance of most Jews who claimed “no religion.” You can guess the rest.

Looking up the survey, they do indeed explain this "methodology" in an appendix. Explanation or no, that's just painfully bad.

I suppose I can't blame Pew too much - I mean here we've got an expansive and seemingly authoratative survey conducted by a respectable Jewish federation, right? And for what it's worth, even with that flaw, seems that a lot of people and organizations still take the NJPS as a go-to source, including the Jewish Virtual Library. Similarly the research by Pew is still being taken as solid enough to merit keeping on hand, apparently. So far, this article on Forward is really the only instance of someone publicly claiming it's all wrong, wrong, wrong.

Is it just a case of lack of alternate sources of data, perhaps?

[azurnoir]

4. so apparently according to Forward Pew did not actually survey anyone and calcxulat the numbers from

that survey? Here is Pews survey and each category explains where the numbrs came from

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/10/01/jewish-american-beliefs-attitudes-culture-survey/

[King_David]

5. It is back to the drawing board for Pew,

The survey has now been shown to be majorly flawed.

[bemildred]

6. As I understood it, the argument was that:

because they excluded persons with "weak Jewish connections" from deeper scrutiny, their result is inferred to be biased Jewish-positive, so to speak, which makes the current numbers look worse than they really are.

You can still look at the current numbers, which are not contradicted, and see if you think the situation is good or not, but you can't really say anything hard about trends based on the two studies.

[Miranda4peace]

7. Sorry this is a highly biased peice.

Actually I find it rather bigoted, but countering that requires too much energy before my coffee.

This isn't a bad thing!!! Embrace it!
Quite frankly the only ones who aren't significantly a part of this trend are the orthodox, not surprisingly.