American Jewish Secularism: Jewish Life Beyond the Synagogue

Kosmin, Barry A.; Keysar, Ariela

doi:10.1007/978-94-007-5204-7_1

Cited by 35 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Unfortunately, given that so few studies actually differentiate completely nonreligious individuals from the nominally religious, it is likely that other curvilinear relationships between religiosity and prosociality remain undetected. Additionally, given the recent growth in the “nones”—those declaring no religious affiliation (Kosmin & Keysar, 2008)—studies that fail to distinguish at the low end of the religiosity continuum will become increasingly less valid and useful.…”

Section: Methodological Problems With Religious Prosociality Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Does religious belief promote prosociality? A critical examination.

Galen

2012

Psychological Bulletin

347

350

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Numerous authors have suggested that religious belief has a positive association, possibly causal, with prosocial behavior. This article critiques evidence regarding this "religious prosociality" hypothesis from several areas of the literature. The extant literature on religious prosociality is reviewed including domains of charity, volunteering, morality, personality, and well-being. The experimental and quasi-experimental literature regarding controlled prosocial interactions (e.g., sharing and generosity) is reviewed and contrasted with results from naturalistic studies. Conceptual problems in the interpretation of this literature include separating the effects of stereotypes and ingroup biases from impression formation as well as controlling for self-report biases in the measurement of religious prosociality. Many effects attributed to religious processes can be explained in terms of general nonreligious psychological effects. Methodological problems that limit the interpretation of religious prosociality studies include the use of inappropriate comparison groups and the presence of criterion contamination in measures yielding misleading conclusions. Specifically, it is common practice to compare high levels of religiosity with "low religiosity" (e.g., the absence of denominational membership, lack of church attendance, or the low importance of religion), which conflates indifferent or uncommitted believers with the completely nonreligious. Finally, aspects of religious stereotype endorsement and ingroup bias can contribute to nonprosocial effects. These factors necessitate a revision of the religious prosociality hypothesis and suggest that future research should incorporate more stringent controls in order to reach less ambiguous conclusions.

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Section: Methodological Problems With Religious Prosociality Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Does religious belief promote prosociality? A critical examination.

Galen

2012

Psychological Bulletin

347

350

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“…In the Jewish case, as French Sociologist Borowitz (, 46) has pointed out, ‘religion cannot be identified [simply] with the affirmation of a given content of belief’, for many Reform Jews, traditions, rituals, culture and ethnicity, as well as social networks and communities of belonging are important in their identity as Jewish. Indeed, at the time of its founding, Reform Judaism saw social activism as central (Kosmin and Keysar ).…”

Section: The Untranslatablementioning

confidence: 99%

In the contact zone: engineering meaningful encounters across difference through an interfaith project

Mayblin

Valentine

Andersson

2015

Geographical Journal

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Increasing scholarly attention is being paid to urban encounters with ‘difference’. Much of this work to‐date has focused on incidental encounters in various spatial settings from the market to the café. Here, a number of commentators have observed that fleeting, unintended encounters, where diverse people rub along together as a consequence of accidental proximity, do not necessarily produce ‘meaningful contact’. That is contact which breaks down prejudices and translates beyond the moment to produce a more general respect for others. This paper contributes to these debates by focusing instead on purposeful organised activities (‘The Project’) to bring two different groups together intentionally who would not normally have the opportunity for sustained engagement through a case study of an interfaith (Muslim and Jewish) youth cricket project in a large UK city. Here, we use the concept of the ‘contact zone’ to evaluate the effectiveness of this project. The findings highlight three critical processes which contribute to generating meaningful contact. First, it is important to establish space where participants from different groups can safely explore their differences together. Second, it is necessary to create space to establish shared interests: here through the game of cricket. Both are factors which require significant resourcing, in particular to enable a professional facilitator to manage what can be, or become, conflictual encounters and the expression of potentially negative emotions. Third, banal sociality also matters. It was time spent ‘hanging out’ alongside, instead of in, the purposeful activities when the participants identified their own natural affinities and found particular shared identity positions which contributed to destabilising the significance of differences beyond those The Project sought to address. These findings have clear relevance for future policy initiatives to develop interfaith relations.

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“…This set of American Jewish educational experiences includes summer camp, Jewish schooling of some sort (Hebrew or supplemental school, and now Jewish day school), Jewish studies courses in college, educational experiences in Israel, and now Taglit-Birthright Israel. Also, there has been a burgeoning of Jewish-related cultural offerings such as books, films, and so on (Kosmin and Keysar 2013).…”

Section: The Societal Context Has Changed In Significant Waysmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Importance of a Navigational Perspective in the Study of Contemporary American Jews: Response to the Sklare Lecture

Horowitz

2015

Cont Jewry

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American Jewish Secularism: Jewish Life Beyond the Synagogue

Cited by 35 publications

References 5 publications

Does religious belief promote prosociality? A critical examination.

Does religious belief promote prosociality? A critical examination.

In the contact zone: engineering meaningful encounters across difference through an interfaith project

The Importance of a Navigational Perspective in the Study of Contemporary American Jews: Response to the Sklare Lecture

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