Jewish Women in Transition

Gender is a crucially important explanatory variable in research, but it is still unfortunately largely neglected in Jewish social studies. No serious analysis can be undertaken of any social process, namely in demography, without giving prominent space to gender not only in terms of differences in profiles and characteristics but as an engine of alternative causal chains which may lead to significantly different conclusions. This chapter deals with selected aspects of gender gaps in the demography, social structure and Jewish identification of Jews in the US. On many accounts, educational and occupational gaps that prevailed in the past have been or are being now closed. Certain features related to gender may be termed as “transitional”, meaning that one part of the social system started a certain transformation earlier (or it may have had the illusion that it started earlier) and moved faster than the other part of the system. Socioeconomic equalization patterns between gender achievements actually emerged more recently in the US – as well as in Israel, also examined in this chapter. Jewish women turned out to be the more Jewishly identified gender. They carried the burden of family growth, evidently paying a price in terms of personal career achievement. While diminishing, the gender gap still prevails regarding the role of women in public leadership, thus outlining a dissonance between attained training and capabilities, and recognition and power.