Abstract
Three challenges to Jewish family formation—late marriage and non-marriage, unwanted low fertility and infertility, and mixed marriage—are produced, in part, by the larger society’s social norms and deeply influenced by American culture. Each of these challenges, in turn, has a profound effect on the transmission of Jewish culture to the next generations. Jewish population density and social circles, including the family, are critical predictors of Jewish identity in adulthood; since the majority of American Jews do not live in densely Jewish neighborhoods, the Jewish engagement of the family of origin and Jewish education are the primary socializing agents for Jewish adulthood. Jews in the past have frequently established Jewish connections when they married and became parents, but today’s younger Jewish adults often value “finding themselves” over establishing families. Adult Jewish engagements are often delayed in tandem with marital status. Demands of community seem less pressing than personal spiritual searches, and this preeminence of individualized spiritual searches is not limited to moderately involved Jews, but is also characteristic of some highly involved younger American Jews. These patterns among American Jews are part of broader American patterns of changing attitudes toward gender, sexuality, love, and marriage on family formation beginning in the 1960s. Like delayed marriage and parenthood, intermarriage is enthusiastically supported by the wider American culture. Thus, resisting these trends which undermine cultural transmission demands dynamic countercultural interventions.
