Intermarriage Among Jews in U.S. Reported As Being Low and Stable

The modern American Jew has a “relatively low and quite stable intermarriage rate,” a University of Pennsylvania sociologist declared here, addressing the National Conference of Jewish Communal Services. Dr. Joshua A. Fishman, director of research at the University’s Albert M. Greenfield Center for Human Relations reported on a 1959 survey of American Jews.

Dr. Fishman told the delegates that intermarriage among Jews was only 7. 2. percent. He reported that American Jews resided in areas of high urban concentration and showed “disturbingly low fertility even in the period of the baby boom and regardless of occupational differences.” He said that the Jewish fertility rate was only 79 percent of the national average.

The median annual income of American Jews was given as $5,954, the sociologist reported. He said that 22 percent of the heads of Jewish households were college graduates, and 61 percent were high school graduates. Seventy-eight percent of American Jews were white collar workers, with a large ratio of professionals, according to the survey.

Moses A. Leavitt, executive vice-president of the Joint Distribution Committee, reported that “in some respects, the problem of the Jewish refugee is considerably closer to solution than that of other refugees. “For this,” he said, “there is one factor chiefly responsible; the existence of Israel. When Israel opened its gates to all Jews who wanted to go there, it made the most important and most effective gesture possible in solving the problem of the refugees.”

Jewish communal service in this country in the future must emphasize the entire community, rather than the individual, the Conference was told by its acting president, Dr. Judah L. Shapiro. “As the Jewish population becomes almost fully American-born,” he said, “the Jews have less requirement for assistance in the old areas of service.” The mechanism of Jewish philanthropy has not changed and is still focused, on programs for people in need, he said, urging that this service should now be offered to the entire Jewish community.

Albert P. Schoolman, executive vice-president of the Cejwin Camps of New York, discussed ways of improving America’s 3,400 Jewish schools, which have an enrollment of 550,000 pupils. He said that a recent survey, conducted by the American Association for Jewish Education, points to the need for: devoting more time to Jewish education; changed curricula; improvement of the professional and economic status of the 17,500 teachers in the Jewish schools; and greater planning and financing of Jewish education by the Jewish federation and welfare funds.

Awards for the best papers delivered at the 1958 and 1959 conventions of the Conference of Jewish Communal Service were given to William Avrunin, associate director of the Jewish Federation of Detroit, for 1958; and to Hope Leichter and Judith Lieb, of the staff of the Institute for Research of the Jewish Family Service of New York, for 1959. Mrs. Florence G. Heller of Chicago, a vice-president of the National Jewish Welfare Board, received the second annual award of the research institute for group work in Jewish agencies.