Judaism and Assimilation

Drift.

Like Catholicism, Judaism in America was largely a religion of immigrants. By 1937 nearly 5 million Jews lived in the United States, nearly all of them recent immigrants or children of immigrants, with half of them living in New York City. Like Catholicism, therefore, Judaism in America was tied to the assimilation process. Jews who were determined to maintain a preexistent cultural identity clung to Judaism in its Old World, orthodox form. Many spoke Yiddish, a language unique to east European ghettos, and attempted a degree of isolation from American culture in tightly knit urban neighborhoods. By the 1930s, however, most Jews were drifting away from their faith, especially those determined to assimilate into American society. Many first-generation Jews were repelled by the orthodox religious practices of their parents, burdened as it was with the taint of "foreignness." A 1935 survey in New York City revealed that almost...

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