Toward the Study of Community Effects on Jewish Engagement: The Case of Educational Enrollment

2007. (with Steven M. Cohen). Chapter 9 in Family Matters: Jewish Education in an Age of Choice. Edited by Jack Wertheimer. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Pp. 257-74. Studies in the sociology of education: One of three chapters analyzing the roles played by families, schools, communities, and advocacy groups in Jewish education. To…

Posted by kelnersj on September 21, 2011 in Articles, Chapters, Research, chapters, education

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Review of The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age

Review of Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider’s The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age (Temple University Press, 2005) 2007. Social Forces 86(2):873-5 From the review: “’The past is not dead. It is not even past.’ Faulkner’s words might serve as the epigraph to the entire field of collective memory studies. Its key insights –…

Posted by kelnersj on September 21, 2011 in Research, Reviews, collective memory, reviews

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Review of Engaged Spirituality

Review of Gregory Stanczak’s Engaged Spirituality: Social Change and American Religion (Rutgers University Press, 2006) 2008. International Review of Modern Sociology 34(1):144-6 From the review: “When a book subtitled How Religion Poisons Everything nears the top of the best-seller lists, as Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great has, it is but one more indication that…

Posted by kelnersj on September 21, 2011 in Research, Reviews, religion, reviews

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Reconceptualizing Religious Change: Ethno-Apostasy and Change in Religion among American Jews

2006. Sociology of Religion 67(4): 507-24. With Benjamin Phillips. Drawing on data from the NJPS 2000-1, we argue that traditional approaches to the study of religious mobility – both apostasy and switching – are increasingly problematic. Apostasy from ethno-religious communities, in particular, must be refomulated to incorporate an ethnic dimension. Analyses using this revised concept…

Posted by kelnersj on September 21, 2011 in Articles, Research, articles, methodology

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The Impact of Israel Experience Programs on Israel’s Symbolic Meaning

2003-4. Contemporary Jewry 24: 124-154. Ethnographic study of Israel experience programs reveals processes by which Israel becomes cognitively and affectively meaningful to American Jews. A Durkheimian analysis suggests that feelings generated by an intense group experience are preserved in symbolic residue that re-evokes these feelings. For American Jewish travelers, Israel comes to serve as a…

Posted by kelnersj on September 20, 2011 in Articles, Research, articles, Birthright Israel, israel, tourism

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Serious Fun

The Jerusalem Post June 28, 2010 When Birthright was launched a decade ago, skeptics dismissed the 10-day tours of Israel as little more than a free party for privileged college kids. It was an unfair critique, but it gained traction because it combined the ever popular lament about the “youth of today” with an equally…

Posted by kelnersj on June 28, 2010 in Media, Birthright Israel, book, diaspora, israel, op-eds, tourism

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So Near, So Far

New York Jewish Week
May 12, 2010

A traveler’s quiz: When American Jewish tourists arrive at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport, which two words are they more likely to be greeted with?

A) “Welcome home!”
B) “Passport, please.”
Resist the temptation to choose “A.”

Posted by kelnersj on May 12, 2010 in Media, Birthright Israel, book, diaspora, israel, op-eds, tourism

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The Place of Cultural Production

Sh’ma June 2007, Issue no. 642: Place, Space, and the Shaping of American Judaism From Congregation B’nai Jeshurun to Heeb Magazine, New York is producing a new urban Jewish culture defined through shelilat haparbar, the “negation of the suburbs.” But can a culture defined in opposition to the suburbs revitalize Jewish life there? Read more…

Posted by kelnersj on June 30, 2007 in Media, jewish innovation, new york, op-eds, space/place, synagogues

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