Leonard Saxe

We relied on polls to help us understand the election and they seemingly failed us. Although pre-election polls came within 1-2% of predicting the national popular vote, state polls that were the basis for Electoral College predictions were far less accurate. Whether and how to use polls is important not only in general but also for the Jewish community, which has relied on survey research to aid decision-making about communal programming, planning and resource allocation.

Intermarriage is changing the face of the American Jewish community. National estimates suggest that about half of recently married Jews have partnered with non-Jews. If that rate is sustained through the next generation, two-thirds of American Jewish families will include non-Jewish members. Intermarriage is a sociological fact, not a value statement and, as social scientists, we try to understand this trend. Our findings regarding intermarriage in the recently completed 2005 Boston Jewish community study add a new dimension to this debate.

This article is based on data from our multi-stage study of the Jewish sector workforce. Among American ethnic groups, Jewish-Americans are notable for the degree to which they have created an elaborate organizational infrastructure. In recent years, there has been a growing concern over the ability to maintain this infrastructure into the future, particularly given the perception that Jewish organizations are struggling to recruit and retain professional staff. We surveyed more than 1,400 employees of nearly 200 synagogues, day schools, federations and agencies in six communities in an attempt to understand whether Jewish organizations are doing well in their efforts to recruit, empower and retain talented personnel. This article originally appeared in the Forward, the national Jewish newspaper, June 3, 2005 (http://www.forward.com).