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Communal Affiliation and Jewish Connections

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Traditionally, formal institutions have been vital to the Jewish community. The centrality of synagogues, JCCs and other Jewish organizations is so profound that Jewish leadership frequently distinguishes between "affiliated" and "unaffiliated" members of the Jewish population. Institutional affiliation is not a constant over the life course. Marriage and parenthood, economic status, friends, residential location, Jewish commitment and other factors combine to influence who joins Jewish institutions. Though causal directions are difficult to determine, institutionally affiliated Jews more often engage in other domains of Jewish life than Jews who are not organizational members.

To examine affiliation-related differences in Jewish involvement, a measure of affiliation* was constructed based on synagogues, JCCs and other Jewish organizations. Those with no such memberships total 44% of adult Jews and are called "unaffiliated." The affiliated divide evenly into two groups: those with one membership (28%) are called "moderately affiliated," and those with two or more memberships (28%) are regarded as "highly affiliated." [4]

Substantial differences in Jewish connections and engagement exist between the unaffiliated and the moderately and highly affiliated (see Table 10).  The unaffiliated differ most dramatically from the two affiliated groups with respect to religious service attendance, adult Jewish education, charitable giving to Jewish causes, volunteering under Jewish auspices, and selected observances like lighting Shabbat candles and keeping kosher at home.  Differences between the unaffiliated and the affiliated are smaller but still significant regarding friendships with other Jews, connections to Israel, the use of media with Jewish content, subjective importance of being Jewish, and observances such as fasting on Yom Kippur, lighting Chanukah candles and holding or attending a Passover seder.

In every case, the highly affiliated are even more engaged in other aspects of Jewish life than the moderately affiliated, but the differences between these groups are not substantial in most cases.  The major divide in the population is between those with at least one institutional affiliation and those with none.

[4] All findings related to affiliation are restricted to the Jewish population of 4.3 million.

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