World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדות

/ שאלות מתודולוגיות בדמוגרפיה יהודית SOME METHODOLOGICAL QUESTIONS IN JEWISH DEMOGRAPHYAuthor(s): H. EMANUEL and ה' עמנואלSource: Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies / דברי הקונגרס העולמי למדעיכרך ב / VOLUME II ,היהדות, כרך דpp. 89-90 תשכ"ה / 1965Published by: World Union of Jewish Studies / האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדותStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23528212 .

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SOME METHODOLOGICAL QUESTIONS IN JEWISH DEMOGRAPHY

H. EMANUEL

THE HAGUE

During the years 1958-1961 we have participated in

a demographic study of Dutch Jewry, set up by the

Demographic Committee of the Foundation for Jewish

Social Case Work, and based on a census survey of the

files of the religious communities in The Netherlands

as of January 1st, 1954. The results of this study have

been published in full in English in the Jewish Journal of

Sociology.2

Apart from the community files mentioned we had

access to some results of the German census of Dutch

Jewry in 1941, to estimates of the number of those who

remained after the holocaust from the State Bureau

for War Documentation (Rijksbureau voor Oorlogs

documentatie) at Amsterdam and to some results of the

break-down by religions of the 1930 and 1947 Dutch

Population Census of the Centraal Bureau voor

Statistiek (C.B.S.). Combining and comparing these results from

different sources it became apparent that the 1954 census

survey in itself would lead to an under-estimation of the

Jewish population, especially of the younger part and of

Jews in mixed marriages.

For the last two years we have been preparing a

similar census as of January 1st, 1964. In order to

obtain more reliable results than for 1954 we have

visualized the possibility of checking and completing the data obtained from the Jewish community files

with the help of the official Municipal Population Registers. A trial of this method has been agreed to by

the Population Register authorities of Amsterdam.

The situation in The Netherlands for demographic

studies of the Jewish section of the national population

is in several senses to be considered unique. In the

first place, unlike the attitude in other countries, the

Jewish community councils in The Netherlands have

always tried — probably as a consequence of the

heavy degree of secularization among Dutch Jewry — to

register all those considered to be Jews, including those

who did not want to be members of a Jewish community.

This principle made it possible to consider the com

munity files at all as an instrument in setting up a census

of Dutch Jewry.

The usefulness of these files for this purpose was

greatly increased by the fact that Dutch law asked the

Municipal Population Register authorities to give lists

of all changes in the files — deaths, births, marriages,

divorces, changes of address — with mention of the

denomination of the person whose data had changed.

In many cases — e. g. in Amsterdam — until this month,

the religion of the other household members was also

mentioned. So even in those cases where parents did not

mention the religion of a new-born child when it was

first registered the Jewish community knew the religion

of the parents, which was registered at their birth.

In many cases, this enabled the community to trace

children of Jewish mothers.

However unique this situation may be, the Dutch

Jewry studies still reveal some phenomena which are of

more universal validity and have to be considered every

where in setting up studies of Jewish populations. We

would like to dwell a little upon the lessons which we

think may be learned from these Dutch experiences and

circumstances.

In the first place, even in the exceptionally favourable

circumstances prevalent in The Netherlands it turned

out to be impossible to obtain a sufficiently reliable

demographic picture of the Jewish section of the

population on the basis of Jewish community data alone.

These data are too incomplete, not sufficiently up to

date and probably contain too many mistakes to serve

that purpose. We have to realize that all 'Jewish' files or

lists have this 'demographic deficiency' to a greater or

lesser extent and in most cases to a far greater extent

than in the case of the Dutch Jewish community files.

The essential reason is that the names contained in such

files always form a selection from the total Jewish

population of a group which shows, on the average,

stronger ties with Jewry than generally prevail in the

Jewish population group. Although this criterion of

selection might be very useful for certain studies of a

sociological nature it distorts the demographic picture.

Secondly, we come across the old problem of defining

the Jews. In most demographic studies of Jewish popu

lation groups this problem has been passed ־ 4־ 51 7־ 38

over lightly. Very often a definition based on some form

of identification with Jewry (Yom Kippur absentees

from school, Jewish burials) or on possibility of Jewish

identification (Jewish names) has been adopted for

practical reasons, without much further thought. This

seems true even of the recently produced methodological

draft of a National Jewish Population Study for the

United States,6 otherwise a very promising study. (At

89

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90 H. EMANUEL

the Congress I was informed by Dr. Nathan that this

aspect has been dealt with extensively elsewhere in the

preparation of the American survey).

For the purposes of demographic investigations it is

necessary to adopt a very broad and formal definition

of Jews. It would, for example, be wrong to exclude

people who, though of Jewish descent, do not have any

expressed ties with Jewry, as we may find nowadays

with many people in Western society. This would make

our demographic analysis depend on phenomena which

are difficult to establish and unstable in time and would

exclude study of the characteristics of these 'extra

marginal' Jews. Moreover, Orthodox Jewish authorities

would rightly dispute the value of such a study as the

definition excludes people who belong to the Jewish

group according to Orthodox religious conceptions.

There are even very good arguments for including in

a demographic study of the Jews certain categories of

people who are not considered to be Jews by everybody

or even are not Jews by any possible standards. In

traditional Jewish philosophy, Jewish identity is es

tablished by descent from a Jewish mother, and children

of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother are therefore

not considered to be Jews. In many of the societies in

which Jewish population groups live, a different

conception prevails, identity of a child being conceived

as depending on the origin of the father as much as or

even more than on the origin of the mother. Such

conceptions influence the feelings of group belonging

and group behaviour of children of mixed marriages

between Jews and non-Jews. For certain purposes of

sociological and social-psychological study it is there

fore interesting to include these children in a demo

graphic study of the Jews.

If one wants to obtain a demographic picture of the

Jewish population group — e. g. with regard to family

structure or fertility — which can be compared with

that of other population groups, the same children and

also the non-Jewish partners in such mixed marriages

may well have to be included. This was not done in the

first Dutch Jewry Study of 1954, with the result that the

household structure of the Jewish population group

showed a very distorted picture, with far too many

one-person households.

The point is that demographic data has to form the

framework for further studies of very varied purposes:

comparative demographic analyses; studies of socio

logical and social-psychological structures; predictive

studies of future needs for social assistance or socio

cultural services and so on. The demographic data

have to be collected in such a way that tabulations

can be provided for very different purposes.

Finally, the methods which are now being tried out in

the second Dutch Jewry Study include features which

are new and point to a possible path of improvement for

some other countries, as well. We are thinking of the

possibility of starting from some system of name lists

or Jewish registers and then trying to complete the files

by finding relatives and other family members of those

listed in some kind of register of the national popu

lations. In Holland the municipal population registers are

used for that purpose. In Belgium the same possibility

exists, in France perhaps police registers are available

for that purpose, etc.

Some References

1. John P. Dean, Patterns of socialization and association

between Jews and non-Jews, with comments by Julian L.

Greifer, Leo Srole and Joshua Tracklenberg; 'Papers and

proceedings of the tercentenary conference on American

Jewish sociology, November 27th and 28th, 1954', Jewish

Social Studies v01. 17, no. 3 (July, 1955). 2. 'Dutch Jewry: a demographic analysis', The Jewish

Journal of Sociology (Part One: vol. 3, no. 2 [Dec., 1961]; Part Two: vol. 4, no. 1 [June, 1962]). 3. S. Joseph Fauman and Albert J. Meyer, 'Estimation of

Jewish population by the death rate method', Jewish

Social Studies vol. 17, no. 4 (Oct., 1955). 4. Maurice Freedman, 'The Jewish population of Great

Britain', The Jewish Journal of Sociology vol. 4, no. 1

(June, 1962). 5. Horrowitz, 'The estimated Jewish population of New

York, 1958 : a study in techniques', The Jewish Journal of

Sociology vol. 3, no. 2 (Dec., 1961).

6. Nathan Gad, 'National Jewish population study:

methodological research project. Interim report — July 1964 (first draft) from planning consultant for national

Jewish population study to Alvin Ebenkin, supervisor research and statistical unit' (unpublished document of

U. S. A. Jewish Demographic Committee). 7. Sophia M. Robinson, 'How many Jews in America?

Why we don't know', Commentary vol. 8, no. 2 (Aug.,

1949).

8. Erich Rosenthal, 'Five million American Jews, pro

gress in demography', Commentary (Dec., 1958). 9. Marshall Sklare, Marc Vosk and Mark Zborowski,

'Forms and expressions of Jewish identification' (eastern

city study) with comments by Isidore Cohen, Werner J.

Cahnman and Leibush Lehrer; 'Papers and proceedings of

the tercentary conference on American Jewish sociology, November 27th and 28th, 1954', Jewish Social Studies vol.

17, no. 3 (July, 1955).

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