5
have the regular contact with Jews that was the norm in New York, Boston, and other
North East cities. Kivisto and Nefzger (1993), for example, show that among Jews living
in the Midwest, more than 41 percent interact mostly with non-Jews. In other words, in a
place with many Jews, Judaism can thrive in Jewish networks, but as Jews come into
more contact with non-Jews they have less contact with other Jews, which leads to
assimilation.
Jewish parents used to be highly opposed to their children marrying non-Jews, but
this opposition has declined drastically since W.W.II (Mayer 1980), which is
symptomatic of the assimilation taking place. Kivisto and Nefzger (1993) find that about
25 percent of married Jews are married to non-Jews in a Midwestern city, though 46.5
percent of their married children are married to non-Jews, indicating an immense increase
in interfaith marriage among younger Jews today. The 1990 National Jewish Population
Survey shows that 52 percent of American Jews are now choosing non-Jewish spouses
(Shapiro 1997). Interfaith marriage is shown to lead to lower levels of acceptance of
traditional Jewish identities, such as Jewish religiosity, Jewish ethnicity, attachment to
Israel, and concern with anti-Semitism, and to be directly related to assimilation or
“Americanization” (Winter 2002). Frideres (1973) views the children of interfaith
marriage as a major cause of the decline of Judaism.
Research on American Jews at the beginning of the 21
st
century demonstrates a
continuing decline of Orthodoxy and a movement to Reform Judaism (Hartman and
Hartman 2000). Affiliation with Reform Judaism is generally associated with
assimilation in the form of friendships with non-Jews, not living in a Jewish
neighborhood, and interfaith marriage (e.g. Legge 1997). The Reform movement is
Convention