| Conspicuously absent from the growing psychology literature on multiculturalism are theory and research related to the Jewish people. The present study examined the phenomenological experiences of a sample of Jewish adults in a northeastern, suburban community in the U.S. in order elucidate relationships between Jewish identity and attitudes, behaviors, values, religious observance, and participants self-definitions. Semi-structured interview data were analyzed qualitatively using open coding. Although several authors (Dershowitz, 1997; Freedman, 2000) fear a "fractious fate" for American Jews, the narratives yielded considerable similarities among 10 male and female participants with varying levels of religious affiliation. Six universal themes included the dynamic nature of self-identification, the importance of early formative experiences, the desire to increase religious practice, generativity in practice and culture, feeling marginalized and an awareness of discrimination either personally or to other Jews. Eight typical themes (in 5--9 narratives) included experiencing prejudice or discrimination, cultural identity is environment-sensitive, sense of pride, cultural identity and religious practice are congruent, search for meaning, connection to Israel, valuing interpersonal connections with Jews and Gentiles, and importance of Jewish marriage. The 10 variant themes (in 1--4 narratives) included clarity about the meaning of being Jewish, Jewish identity predominates regardless of context, Jewish identification stronger than in the family of origin, shame or embarrassment, cultural identity and religious practice are incongruent, relation to God defined by Jewish teachings and heritage, spouse's identity (as Jewish or Gentile) not important, living Jewish values, work inspired by Judaism, and isolation from Gentiles.;Results of this study underscore the complexity of Jewish identity, it is a multidimensional construct with national, ethnic, and religious dimensions.;Interestingly, some but not all of the themes reflected the interdependence of Jewish cultural identity and religious observance. Although results from this ethnographic study should not be generalized, the themes that emerged underscore the complexity of Jewish identity; the Jewish people are a unique minority group within mainstream U.S. culture by virtue of the multidimensional aspects-ethnic, national and religious, of Jewish identity.;Results of the study are discussed with respect to their contributions to multicultural theory and directions for continued research on this topic are suggested. |
