Does religious geography affect identity? The impact of local group size characteristics on felt outsiderness and Jewish identity salience

Being Jewish and remaining Jewish is a matter of great importance and discussion within American Judaism. This concern has been a topic of debate (although certainly not the only one) since Jews started immigrating to the United States more than three hundred years ago. This research explores how local Jewish presence, which refers to whether there are many or few people sharing a religion living nearby, affects whether an individual feels like an outsider because they are Jewish and Jewish identity salience. This research is based on two sources: the 2001 National Jewish Population Survey and qualitative interviews with Jews from two Midwestern counties. This research presents four main findings. First, this research indicates that Jews feel less like outsiders when they can and do have more contact with other Jews. The increased within-group ties that are possible in areas of greater Jewish concentration facilitate psychological integration into the larger community. Second, the simple correlation between population share and identity salience is positive. This is consistent with the usual assumption that Jews have higher salience levels in the areas where the identity group is most concentrated. Third, after statistically controlling several key control variables, including level of Jewish practice, the overall direct effect of population share is negative. That is, after controlling for all other variables, the general effect of Jewish population share is to reduce religious identity salience. Fourth, respondents who were raised Jewish but no longer consider themselves Jewish are more likely to reside in low Jewish population share areas. This research has implications for understanding assimilation and how it may be happening in different ways in high versus low Jewish population share areas. The odd-man out effect described by the interview subjects may account for the negative, independent, effect of population share (finding 3) and the different kinds of assimilation in high versus low population share areas