Abstract
The Sklare Award is given annually by the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (ASSJ) to a senior scholar who has made a significant academic contribution to the social scientific study of Jewry. The 2012 awardee, Leonard Saxe, is the current Klutznick Professor of Contemporary Jewish Studies at Brandeis University and director of the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, as well as the Steinhardt Social Research Institute. The present publication was the text for Saxe’s Sklare Award lecture given on December 16, 2012 at the 44th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies in Chicago.