The Next Generation

Focusing on the more than one million Jewish children and adolescents living in the United States, this book questions the future of the Jewish community's next generation. The Next Generation offers valuable analyses of the critical issues concerning the entire United States Jewish community. Drawing on the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS), the book questions the future of the Jewish community's next generation. Children are the key to the future and continuity of any social, religious or ethnic group. But researchers point to some disturbing trends. A recent study shows that in families with a Jewish and a non-Jewish parent, only 31 percent of children are raised Jewish; only 24 percent of children living in a single-parent household have received any Jewish education; and only about half of all Jewish children today live with two Jewish parents. The authors probe topics that have crucial policy implications for dealing with the new conditions of the American Jewish populace including the demographic and social characteristics of American Jewish children; the effect on children's socialization due to differences in parental religious background; the role of household composition and family structure on the way Jewish children are raised; the impact of children on the Jewishness of their families; and the demographic projects for the younger Jewish population.