On The Declining Cohesion Among American Jewry Since The 1970s

Over the centuries Jewish people was constantly persecuted and oppressed in many parts of the world. In spite of all the bitter hardships filled in the whole Jewish history, the small, mysterious people has managed to survive and to keep closely united through ages. Generally,the studies of Jewish people from both domestic and foreign scholars are centralized in the following aspects : the Jewish history, explore Judaism from the perspective of philosophy and religion, appreciate Jewish literature,demonstrate and probe into the strong Jewish cohesion in history, probe into the deep cause of anti-Semitism in history.This thesis cuts the Jewish history into three periods: before the WWII, from the WWII to 1970s and after the 1970s. After briefly introducing the ups and downs of Jewish cohesion in the three periods, the thesis attempts to analyze the declining cohesiveness among American Jews after the 1970s.This paper is organized in 3 chapters in addition to Introduction and Conclusion surveying the rise and fall of the cohesiveness of Jewish people with an emphasis on the weakening Cohesion among American Jewry since the 1970s.Introduction offers a brief glimpse of the present research status of Jewish people at home and abroad: their pointcut and emphasis. It also tries to explain the niche of the research in this field and the value of this thesis.Chapter One demonstrates and explores briefly the strong Jewish national cohesion in the history. It points out that compared with European Jews; American Jewry underwent less discriminations and persecutions in the United States. The relatively tolerant situation in America in history leads to a less solid cohesion among American Jewry than in Europe.Chapter Two gives an account of the upsurge of national cohesion among American Jewry from the end of the World War II to 1970. The underlying causes for it are understandable: the lingering fear for the Holocaust, the joyful hope for the common motherland—the newly established Israel, all these factors acted jointly to tightly hold the American Jews together.Chapter Three demonstrates and gives explanation to the weakening cohesion among American Jews since the 1970s. The decline of the support for Israel ,the indifferent attitude towards Judaism, the sharp increase of intermarriage with Gentiles and the smash of Ghettos all act together to indicate that the national cohesion of American Jews had become weaker and weaker since the 1970s.The thesis tries to give explanations to the declining of American Jewish cohesion as following : Improved Jewish economic and social status in America; American sympathy and more tolerance for American Jews after the 1970s; Moving out of the Jewish Communities; The indifference of the younger generation toward their Jewishness; The Irrational leadership structure within the Jewish communities and the declining Israeli charisma .Conclusion further confirms the fact of the declining cohesion among American Jews since the 1970s. It takes a brief look at all the efforts the American Jewish communities have made to keep the continuity of the cohesiveness.