American-Jewish identity: Constructing a flexible categorization

American-Jews are losing the ability to accurately define themselves within any Jewish context because the traditional classification system of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform has lost much of its descriptive power. There is such great diversity within Jewish communities that each individual member usually has a different amount of faith, level of commitment, and degree of practice, in their relationship to Judaism. Using the example of three Jewish sisters, Bernice Schwartz, Ada Rousso, and Brenda McBride, I explore this issue of American-Jewish identity. Further, I propose to use the traditional classificatory system, along with Steven Cohen's classifications based on behavioral patterns and level of involvement in Jewish affairs, to construct a new system of identification. In this way, Jewish people will be able to more accurately describe their Jewish identity in terms of their philosophy of Judaism and their involvement in the practice of Judaism.