Driven to Orthodoxy: Jewish identity and narratives of exceptionalism, essentialism, and the family in American Jewish culture as motivations for 'conversion' to Orthodox Judaism

This dissertation uses mixed methods to investigate motivations for individuals from predominantly secular Jewish backgrounds becoming Ba'alei Teshuvah (BT), or newly Orthodox Jews. The dissertation argues that a set of three intertwined master narratives about social position, the family, and intelligence, in combination with group-held essentialist understandings of Jewishness, act to produce a highly pressured culture of achievement that is problematic for some. I argue that the these three mythologies or master narratives, and, most importantly, the implications and consequences of these essentialist understandings of the nature of Jewishness, have proven to be considerable factors in motivating some people to leave their families and communities of origin and pursue a life in Orthodox Judaism. For some BTs, Orthodox Judaism serves as a means to resolve their experiences of the intense pressures and tensions wrought by the demands of the mythologies of family, class, and achievement that they perceive as fundamental to being a Jew in America. Conversion to Orthodoxy works because it alters the BTs' relationships to the symbols and meanings of Judaism by transforming their experience and understanding of Judaism from primarily a cultural and ethnic one to fundamentally a religious one. Through becoming Orthodox, ethnic- (or biological/essentialist) based Jewish identities, and all that may go along with this type of self-understanding, are marginalized in favor of more strictly religious-based ones. Throughout the work I construct an argument regarding group-held theories of the nature of Jewishness and show how the employment of different paradigmatic frameworks for understanding Jewishness (ethnic / biological versus religious), and ethnicity more broadly, have distinct and profound implications, enabling various stakeholders to differentially claim or reject characteristics, behaviors, expectations and life views. My research provides insight into the ways in which ethnicity can shape individual development, identity, and the psycho-social dynamics of the family even several generations after assimilation is "complete.".