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An existential exploration of the experience of coming out in the Orthodox Jewish community
Author(s): Feigin, Elizabeth
Date: 2024
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Mental Health, Psychology, Psychology/Psychiatry, Interviews, LGBT, Orthodox Judaism, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood
Abstract: This research considers an existential exploration of the experience of coming out in the Orthodox Jewish community. It is grounded in a qualitative, phenomenological and existential methodology. Eight participants were interviewed, all male between the ages of 20-30, who grew up in the Orthodox Jewish community and came out as gay, a minimum of three years ago. The interviews were semi-structured in nature; they were recorded and transcribed. The interview transcripts were analysed using SEA, a phenomenological and existential research tool. It used two specific features of SEA; the four worlds and its paradoxes, and the timeline tool. Accordingly, data was analysed against the four existential worlds, and the four periods of time identified in the timeline tool; with the moments of coming out being the present focus. Key themes, paradoxes and similarities were drawn out from across the analysis. They were then analysed alongside a consideration of relevant literature, also presented in this study. Overall, significant findings were identified, which both resonated with, supported and questioned existing literature. Findings were linked to four particular time periods: before, during and after coming out, and the ongoing state of participants. The findings relating to the time period before coming out mainly linked to matters around identity and findings linked to the actual moments of coming out mainly related to embodiment overall. The findings of the time period immediately after coming out linked to relationships and emotions, whereas the findings linking to the ongoing state of participants were to do with spirituality and meaning. This study concludes by outlining the valuable contribution these findings have made to Counselling Psychology, as well as areas that have been highlighted as ripe for further research.
Jewish Leadership in the UK for the 21st Century: Values, Relationships and Intergenerational Renewal
Date: 2023
Topics: Jewish Leadership, Jewish Organisations, Jewish Community, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Interviews, Youth Movements, Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood
Abstract: In 2022, UJIA, in partnership with the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) and thanks to funding from the
Pears Foundation, engaged Rosov Consulting to design and conduct a study to explore Jewish leadership
in the UK to inform UJIA's and JLC's strategic planning. This research project had three primary goals.
The first was to develop a conceptual model of Jewish leadership in the UK and a map of the community's
existing leadership supports to show who is currently serving as Jewish leaders and what has shaped and
empowered them. The second was to identify the challenges Jewish leaders presently face, the issues they
are likely to encounter, and their readiness to do so, and provide recommendations for how UJIA and JLC
might better prepare and support these leaders now and for what lies ahead. The third goal of this project
was to present these findings to community stakeholders to spark reflections and generate meaning that
would assist UJIA and JLC in their approach to developing leaders and leadership structures to ensure a
future thriving Jewish community.
Young people's articulations and geographies of diasporic politics: Perspectives from the Greek, Jewish and Palestinian diasporas
Author(s): Mavroudi, Elizabeth
Date: 2023
Topics: Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Teenagers, Politics, Main Topic: Other, Interviews, Diaspora, Comparisons with other communities
Abstract: This paper examines the geographies of how young people, aged 11–25, in the Greek, Jewish and Palestinian diasporas in the Midlands region of England articulate notions of formal and informal politics. In doing so, it connects work on diasporic politics with work on the geographies of diaspora, young people's politics, and, in particular, diasporic youth politics. The paper discusses how young people have views on politics and on being political but feel that they struggle to have their voices heard by those in positions of power. At the same time, it paints a picture of how these participants articulate such feelings of politics in complex, multi-scalar, multi-directional ways. In doing so, they are potentially creating new spaces to feel and be political. The paper therefore stresses that it is important that diasporic politics takes into account the views of young people and that assumptions should not be made as to where such politics are located.
Generation Enraged: The Journal Jalta as a Mouthpiece for Young Jews in Germany
Author(s): Peretz, Dekel
Date: 2023
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Newspapers, Magazines and Periodicals, Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations
Abstract: How does the increasing diversification of both the Jewish and general population in Germany influence Jewish self-positioning in German society? It seems that especially young Jews no longer perceive themselves in a binary relationship to the majority society alone, but as part of a heterogeneous, post-migrant society. The journal Jalta – Positionen zur jüdischen Gegenwart [Yalta – Positions on the Jewish Present], published between 2017 and 2020, served as an important mouthpiece for the young generation's rage and desires. This study identifies and expounds upon three sets of relationships within German society that Jalta wishes to redefine: relationships within Jewish communities, relationships between Jews and the majority society, and relationships of Jews to other minorities.
Negotiating Masculinity and Identity as a Jewish British Male: Young Jews Talking
Author(s): Nicholls, Anthony J.S.
Date: 2023
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Gender, Interviews, National Identity, Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood
Abstract: In this book, Dr. Anthony Nicholls uses a series of in-depth interviews to investigate how young Jews talk about their Jewishness, Britishness, and masculinity. From his analysis, he argues that Jewishness is constructed between adherence to halachic requirement on one hand, and Jewishness experienced as cultural affinity to history, family, and tradition without recourse to halacha on the other hand. He further argues that Britishness is experienced between varying degrees of nationalistic localism against cosmopolitan liberalism played out against a backdrop of Britain contrasted with the rest of the world, and also London against the rest of Britain. Nicholls rejects the view that masculinity is constructed in the inherently unstable terms of physicality against intellectualism. Instead, he argues that it is better considered as lying in a range between competitive hegemonic masculinity and a cooperative model with which physicality and intellectualism combine to produce a more stable and emotionally satisfying mode of living.
From a new Jewish Culture to social Justice Entrepreneurship:Jewish revival among young Adults in Post-socialist Hungary
Author(s): Susán, Eszter
Editor(s): Miron, Guy; Spitzer, Shlomo; Szalai, Anna
Date: 2021
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Revival, Jewish Renewal, Post-1989, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Youth
European Muslim antisemitism : why young urban males say they don't like Jews
Author(s): Jikeli, Günther
Date: 2015
Topics: Antisemitism: Muslim, Attitudes to Jews, Interviews, Islam, Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: Antisemitism from Muslims has become a serious issue in Western Europe, although not often acknowledged as such. Looking for insights into the views and rationales of young Muslims toward Jews, Günther Jikeli and his colleagues interviewed 117 ordinary Muslim men in London (chiefly of South Asian background), Paris (chiefly North African), and Berlin (chiefly Turkish). The researchers sought information about stereotypes of Jews, arguments used to support hostility toward Jews, the role played by the Middle East conflict and Islamist ideology in perceptions of Jews, the possible sources of antisemitic views, and, by contrast, what would motivate Muslims to actively oppose antisemitism. They also learned how the men perceive discrimination and exclusion as well as their own national identification. This study is rich in qualitative data that will mark a significant step along the path toward a better understanding of contemporary antisemitism in Europe.
Young metropolitan Anglo-Jewish masculinities: a qualitative interview study investigating intersectionality between Jewishness, Britishness, and masculinity
Author(s): Nicholls, Anthony Jeffery Stephen
Date: 2022
Topics: Gender, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Interviews, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Youth, National Identity
Abstract: My thesis is an empirical study of young British Jews, exploring their experience of being Jewish, British, and male in society today given the fluid nature of each of these aspects of their identity. As society has changed over the last half century each of these aspects which had normative monocultural taken-for-granted expressions have been repeatedly deconstructed, examined and re-built, and I argue that in the process they have emerged as fluid entities. It is in negotiating these fluid aspects that today’s young male Jews ask, what does it mean to be a Jew, what does it mean to be British, and what does it mean to be male as they try to make sense of their lives. The method chosen for this study has been the in-depth interview which I conducted with a sample of 16 interviewees chosen to reflect the diverse range of religiosity, age and intellectual ability which is apparent in the heterogenous nature of the Anglo-Jewish community supplemented with a group discussion. I have produced an interview tool of overlapping coloured discs representing the three aspects I am studying as an aid for the interviewee to think and talk about themselves. I have transcribed the interviews and used constructionist thematic analysis to advance my argument. I argue that Jewishness is constructed between extremes of adherence to halachic requirement on one hand and a Jewishness experienced as cultural affinity to history, family, and tradition without recourse to halacha on the other hand. I argue that Britishness is being experienced between varying degrees of nationalistic localism against cosmopolitan liberalism played out against a backdrop of Britain contrasted with the rest of the world and also London against the rest of Britain. With regard to being male, I have rejected the view that masculinity is constructed in the inherently unstable terms of physicality against intellectualism. Instead, I argue that it is better considered as lying in a range between competitive hegemonic masculinity on the one hand against a cooperative model with which physicality and intellectualism can combine to produce a more stable and emotionally satisfying mode of living. I argue that young Jewish men inhabit a fluid three-dimensional matrix being aware of the pitfalls of particularism, xenophobia, and misogyny as they negotiate their relationships with their families, communities, and wider society to construct their Jewish British masculine identity.
Being and becoming Jewish: kinship, memory, and the politics of Jewishness in post-socialist Slovakia
Author(s): Ockova, Katarina
Date: 2020
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Post-1989, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Youth, Marriage, Age and Generational Issues
Abstract: This thesis, based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork, examines the entanglement of kinship, religion and politics among Jews in Bratislava. It uses marriage as a lens to explore how young Jews identify with their often newlydiscovered Jewishness and secure its socio-cultural reproduction into the future. Studying the lived experience of three generations of Slovak Jews – Holocaust survivors, their children, and grandchildren – I describe the intergenerational transmission of knowledge about Jewishness and Jewish heritage, marital preferences and practices, and choices and decisions involved in the upbringing of children in the context of changing political regimes. I focus in particular on the generation of Jews who reached adulthood after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, and explore how their families’ memories and experiences of the Holocaust and Socialist persecution, as well as the current socio-political situation and rising extremism influence the ways young Jews navigate their Jewishness – both within the Jewish community, and in the unpredictable non-Jewish public sphere. To demonstrate their allegiance to this community while keeping it hidden from non-Jews, I argue, young Jews stretch and shrink the boundary between the ‘public’ and ‘private’, complicating the distinction between these categories, and allowing the emergence of new ‘publics’ and ‘privates’. The chronic uncertainty affecting Slovak Jews’ everyday lives exacerbates the fragility of trust, and underpins a constant need to negotiate their Jewishness across this elastic boundary, as well as within their intimate relations. The thesis sheds light on the role of social distinctions and processes of boundary-making and maintenance that characterise the politics of Jewishness in post-Socialist Slovakia. It shows how, for young Jews, discovering their Jewishness, demonstrating their devotion, and gaining recognition, is more a matter of becoming than of simply being Jewish
Parallele Welten oder eine vielfältige Gemeinschaft? Organisationen und Initiativen jüdischer junger Erwachsener in Deutschland
Translated Title: Parallel worlds or a diverse community? Organizations and initiatives of Jewish young adults in Germany
Author(s): Pletoukhina, Anastassia
Date: 2017
Topics: Jewish Community, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Jewish Organisations
Building bridges, negotiating boundaries: young Christians’, Jews’ and Muslims’ experiences of interfaith work in the UK
Author(s): Törning, Lenita
Date: 2021
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Interfaith Dialogue, Interfaith Relations, Jewish - Christian Relations, Jewish - Muslim Relations, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Youth
Abstract: This thesis focuses on young Christians’, Jews’ and Muslims’ experiences of interfaith work in the UK and what impact(s) being involved in interfaith might have on their religious, social, ethical and political identities. It is situated in a growing academic and policy interest in interfaith work as a means to build cohesive communities, mitigate tension and conflicts, and encourage active citizenship. It also engages with still under-explored questions around how young people active in interfaith work are affected by this activism. The aim is not only to understand how and why young people from different religions are involved in interfaith work, but also the impact being involved in interfaith work might have on young people’s identities and sense of belonging. Focusing on the biographical accounts of young Christians, Jews and Muslims involved in three different interfaith organisations in UK, the thesis explores how the young people have become interested in interfaith work; the relationships, messages and contexts that have been important in forging this interest and activism; what interfaith work means to them socially, theologically, ethically and politically; and the challenges they have experienced with this form of faith-based engagement. Drawing on Kate Tilleczek’s ‘complex cultural nesting approach’, this thesis attends to the young people’s complex personal experiences of interfaith work and the different social actors, contexts and frameworks that have been important in forming this interest. The thesis shows that, to understand young people’s interfaith work, we need a multidimensional approach that considers social and theological dimensions in young people’s lives; look at how interfaith work is a means to fulfil social and political goals, but also forms of theological commitment; and explore how challenges facing interfaith work inform young people’s experiences in different ways, particularly theological, social and political tension in relation to interfaith space, religious congregations and British society at large.
(Friendly) Strangers in Their Own Land No More Third-Generation Jews and Socio-Political Activism in the Present in Germany
Author(s): Kranz, Dani
Editor(s): Bartlett, Catherine; Schlör, Joachim
Date: 2021
Topics: Holocaust Survivors: Grandchildren of, Politics, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Main Topic: Other, Jewish Identity, Activism
Holocaust, Hurban, and Haredization: Pilgrimages to Eastern Europe and the Realignment of American Orthodoxy
Author(s): Ferziger, Adam S.
Date: 2011
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust, Holocaust Education, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Memorials, Orthodox Judaism, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Students, Educational Tours
Abstract: The article describes and analyzes the evolution of trips to Poland for post-high school American Orthodox young adults studying in Israel. It contends that beyond exposing the students to aspects of the Holocaust in an unusually visceral and intense manner, these excursions increasingly serve as “pilgrimages of particularistic Orthodox identity.” Indeed, while they are aimed at products of Modern Orthodox homes and schools, over time they have adopted some of the religious stances and celebrated Jewish cultural models that were heretofore more consistent with haredi Orthodox practice and ideals. As such, these voyages offer insight and may even play a role in the process of religious intensification of American Modern Orthodoxy that has been examined from a broader sociological and historical point of view by a number of prominent scholars.
A Review of the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship Program
Author(s): Ukeles, Jacob B.; Baker, Sally; Cohen, Steven
Date: 1997
Topics: Surveys, Summer/Youth Camps, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Evaluation, Main Topic: Education
Abstract: The purpose of the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship is to stimulate and train a new generation of young leadership for Jewish communities in Europe (East and West), and in Latin America. The purpose of this review is to collect information that will help the Memorial Foundation assess and improve this program. This report covers findings, interpretation of results, and implications for the future directions of the Nahum Goldmann Fellowship Program. The report is based on the analysis of survey results.
Jewpop ou de nouvelles formes d’appropriation du judaïsme
Translated Title: Jewpop or new forms of appropriation of Judaism Alain Granat
Author(s): Granat, Alain
Editor(s): Tartakowsky, Ewa; Dimentstein, Marcelo
Date: 2017
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Culture, Internet, Media, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood
Living and Loving Jews in the German Present: Jewish Life Beyond the Past, and Beyond Antisemitism
Author(s): Kranz, Dani
Date: 2021
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Body, Intermarriage, Jewish Identity, Gender, Singles, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood
Abstract: Most academic research on Jews in Germany addresses the past, culture, and religion. If the present is discussed, researchers mainly focus on antisemitism. Ina SCHAUM breaks this pattern. Her research needs to be located in a transdisciplinary framework. In her work, she introduces individual lives, and expressions of agency, indicating the divide between the diversity of Jews, and their experiences, and how they are perceived by non-Jews. Boldly, she uses case studies to depict what "doing being Jewish" means for young Jews in connection to their intimate love relationships. The outcome is refreshing; it does full justice to Jewish life-worlds in Germany. By way of presenting two young Jews in Germany in depth, SCHAUM lifts the lid on the underlying diversity of Germany's Jewish population. She contrasts constructions of Jews with real living Jews, revealing that Jewishness is but one aspect in their quest for love, and that the researcher of the bespoke Jew is indeed also an implicated subject. SCHAUM's work needs to be appreciated as a harbinger in the country where she is based. Informed by English-language anthropology and sociology, she pushes methodological boundaries, consistently questioning the line between researcher and researched from late 1960s onwards. Jews are her case study; yet her theoretical considerations and methodological reflections extend much further.
Growing up Jewish in Poland
Author(s): Budziszewska, Magdalena
Date: 2020
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Teenagers, Youth Movements, Summer/Youth Camps, Longitudinal Studies, Interviews
Abstract: Growing up Jewish in Poland presents the findings of a study about the developmental trajectories of 17 children and adolescents from 14 families living in Poland who attended the Lauder-JDC International Jewish Youth Camp Szarvas (Hungary) for the first time at the time of the study (2015-2018). Resorting to a longitudinal analysis, the present study aims to examine what happens, over a period of three years, to a group of Jewish boys and girls that have experienced a Jewish summer camp for the first time in summer 2015. The study focused on the role that the summer camp itself plays in shaping a proactive Jewish life but also analyzed more globally other aspects that influence Jewish participation. What are the main factors that affect Jewish participation both on the kid’s and on the parents’ perspective? What are the possible “Jewish” trajectories of 13-to-16-year-old teenagers in Central Eastern Europe? Do they keep connected with Jewish life? If yes, how? What’s their scale of values? What are their priorities, their hopes, and their perceived future as they make their way from teenagehood to young adults?

The main methodological feature of this study lies in it being a qualitative, longitudinal, observational cohort study. In contrast to most studies that explore development retrospectively, this study involved interviewing first-time Szarvas campers and their families over a longer period, with up to three consecutive interviews per family over a period of three years. To our knowledge, this research experience is unique in Jewish Europe.
The International Jewish Youth Camp at Szarvas History, impact and future
Author(s): Pasajlic, Mina
Date: 2020
Topics: Main Topic: Education, Summer/Youth Camps, Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Teenagers, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Informal Education, Jewish Revival
Abstract: The JDC-Lauder International Jewish Youth Camp at Szarvas is perceived today as the single most important Jewish outreach and educational programme in Central and Eastern Europe; it is a key symbol for Eastern European Jewry. This paper emphasises the importance of the Szarvas camp, located some 170 km south-east of Budapest in Hungary, and its impact on the Jewish identity of the Central and Eastern European participants, and by extension on their families and communities. It focuses on the camp’s history and uniqueness, and includes a personal experience on the part of the author, who has participated in the camp and today works as its programme director. It also presents information collected from those who have experienced the impact of the camp on themselves.
Young Jews from the Old Continent. Europe as a catalyst for identity reconciliation amongst Polish-Jewish youth
Editor(s): Klein, Lars; Tamcke, Martin
Date: 2012
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Revival, Jewish Identity, Post-1989, Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Interviews
Being Jewish (and) in Love Two and a Half Stories about Jews, Germans and Love
Author(s): Schaum, Ina
Date: 2020
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Body, Singles, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Gender
Abstract: What does it mean to be in search of love as a young Jewish adult in Germany? How are closeness and distance experienced, negotiated and shaped in romantic encounters? In which contexts could it matter if the other person is Jewish? In the book, the author discusses these questions with the help of two stories of young Jewish adults. Based on biographical interviews, the author gives an insight into the complexity of the social, emotional and biographical dimensions that are negotiated with the desire for a love relationship. Interwoven with this, the author uses autoethnographic fragments to reflect her own history and positioning as non-Jewish majority German and the ethical questions that arise for her research and writing.
Les jeunes adultes juifs de France aujourd'hui : un tournant ?
Author(s): Cohen, Erik H.
Date: 2014
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Surveys, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood
Еврейская Община Как Ключевой Фактор В Построении Идентичности Российскими Евреями Поколения 20-40-Летних
Translated Title: The Jewish community as a key factor in the Russian Jewish identity building of a generation of 20–40 year olds
Author(s): Веденяпина, Дарья
Date: 2018
Topics: Jewish Identity, Jewish Community, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood
Abstract: This article is about new identities experienced by Russian Jews and the construction of the Jewish community. Jewish identity in the Soviet Union was based solely on ethnicity. Soviet passports contained the graph of ethnicity and Jews were considered to be a nationality. It is important to stress on the fact that Jewish identity in the Soviet Union can be characterised as a negative one. It was through the State antisemitism that Jews were defined, being suppressed and discriminated in the social field. With the collapse of The Soviet Union, the situation changed dramatically: those who had been discriminated obtained a rare opportunity to reconstruct their Jewish identity through religion, the rebirth of Jewish
tradition and equal rights with the rest of the population. With all that, the auto-definition through ethnicity still persist, among the young generation as well as among the older ones. The quantitative part of my research shows that around 50% of respondents suppose that it is one’s parentage that defines one’s jewishness. In this work I also pay attention to family
transmission and collective memory and their contribution to the construction of new types of identities. I show that the identity the young generation obtained from their parents needed to be developed in the new post-soviet reality. So, they have transformed the “passive”, negative
Soviet-time identity into new ones, religious or secular, - the principal point is that they are “active”. The construction of active identity demands the construction of the environment, the community. In the second part of the article I demonstrate the way this community functions in social, cultural and political spheres. I take the president elections of 2018 in Russia as an example of community act, following the possible trajectories of vote as well as problematizing the existence of community vote among Jews on contemporary Russia. Within the framework of the research I took 20 interviews with Jews from different types of communities: the orthodox communities, the reformist one, as well as from so called “secular Jews” attending events in various Jewish clubs and organisations. I also distributed a questionnaire (100 answers) containing questions on the two basic topics of the research: the construction of Jewish identities and the political identity of the respondents.
Jüdischsein, Deutschsein, Verliebtsein. Eine Untersuchung von Liebesbeziehungen junger jüdischer Erwachsener in Deutschland
Translated Title: Being Jewish (and) in Love. Dating Narratives of Young Jewish Adults
Author(s): Schaum, Ina
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Jewish - Non - Jewish Relations, Body, Singles, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Gender
Abstract: Im Zentrum des Dissertationsprojektes steht die empirisch verankerte Erarbeitung einer intersektionellen, feministischen Theorie von Liebe und Liebesbeziehungen als Orte des Doing Gender in Verschränkung mit Doing Being Jewish (Jüdischsein) bzw. mit Doing Being German (Deutschsein). Was Jüdischsein und Deutschsein bedeutet und wie es konzeptualisiert werden kann, soll durch die Erhebung narrativer Interview empirisch rekonstruiert werden.

Die Dissertation hat zwei Ausgangspunkte. Der erste ist, sich Liebe als eigenständigem Forschungsgegenstand feministischer Analyse zuzuwenden. In Liebesbeziehungen – als verkörperlichte Erfahrungen von Liebe und Begehren, Macht und Dominanz – werden Geschlechterverhältnisse und andere Ungleichverhältnisse und damit zusammenhängend vergeschlechtlichte Arbeitsteilungen von care work und emotional work (re)produziert, verändert, aufgehoben oder legitimiert. Der zweite Ausgangspunkt ist die Feststellung von Kurt Grünberg in seiner Studie „Liebe nach Auschwitz“ (2000), dass Liebesbeziehungen den wohl intimsten Kontakt zwischen Nachkommen von Überlebenden der Shoah und Nachkommen von Täter*innen, Mitläufer*innen und Nazi-Sympathisant*innen im Land der Täter*innen und Opfer bilden. Vor dem Hintergrund der Shoah und der Nürnberger Gesetze von 1935, welche das sogenannte „Blutschutzgesetz“ und das Verbot von Eheschließungen und Geschlechtsverkehr zwischen Juden/Jüdinnen* und Nicht-Juden/Jüdinnen* umfassten, ist zu fragen, welche Gefühlserbschaften und Erinnerungen (active memory) an die Folgegenerationen weitergegeben werden und wie intime Beziehungen und Liebesbeziehungen davon (nicht) beeinflusst werden. Die beiden Ausgangspunkte sollen miteinander verknüpft werden, um eine kritische, intersektionelle feministische Analyseperspektive in Bezug auf Liebesbeziehungen als auch auf die komplexen Differenz- und Identitätskonstruktionen von Jüdischsein und Deutschsein einzunehmen.

Außerdem sollen forschungsethische Überlegungen in Hinblick auf Theoriebildungsprozesse, Methodenentwicklung und Ergebnisdarstellung im Kontext der „negativen deutsch-jüdischen Symbiose“ (Diner 1986) einerseits und einer feministischen Epistemologie des „situierten Wissens“ (Haraway 1988) andererseits entwickelt werden, da die individuelle, familiäre und soziale Verstrickung mit dem Nationalsozialismus keine Position der Unbeteiligtheit zulässt und eine reflektierte und selbstkritische Positionierung von mir als Forscherin verlangt.
Молодежь в синагоге г. Смоленска: проблемы выбора идентичности
Translated Title: Youth at Smolensk City Synagogue: Problems of Identity Choice
Author(s): Гарапова, Алсу
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Synagogues, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Youth, Age and Generational Issues, Interviews
Abstract: Problems of religious and ethnic identity are especially pertinent for people of Jewish heritage in post-Soviet states. Radical changes of the 20th century made the society more secular, put distinctions between definitions of being “Jew” and “Judaist”; the number of mixed marriages grew, and the young generations now learn traditions not from parents but from public lectures in Jewish communities. In this paper we have tried to find out what has brought young people to the Jewish community of Smolensk, why they choose to remain there, and whether they consider themselves Jewish. We have been especially interested in understanding how much does religious identity influence the choice of ethnic identity, and vice versa.

The research is based on 8 in-depth interviews collected during Sefer Center’s trip to Smolensk Oblast in 2016. The interviewees were selected according to the following criteria: regular visits to the synagogue (twice a month or more) and age between 14 and 35.

The working hypothesis is that the number, the frame of mind, and the identity of the young people who visit the synagogue are influenced by the following factors: 1) ethnic and religious identity of the family members and close people of the respondents and their disposition towards various confessions and ethnicities; 2) the rabbi’s policy in ethnic issues and traditions, how loyal he is to rule bending and now active he is in attracting the youth to the synagogue; 3) the environment: the influence of historically significant places of Smolensk Oblast and memories of remarkable historical events that occurred on its territory.

After analyzing the data we have drawn the following conclusions. The main reason for the interviewees to choose the Jewish identity is the prevailing of such identity in their parents. For those whose parents are both Jewish this argument is sufficient. If only parent is Jewish, a young person starts seeking for additional arguments to “allow” himself/herself be Jewish. Such reasons may be their sympathy towards Judaism and/or Jewish customs and the feeling of one’s “distinction”. Sometimes for the final integration into the Jewish environment the interviewees conduct Giyur or circumcision, the latter being not only for religious reasons. If the young people don’t feel such sympathies or don’t perform the special rituals for integration, they leave the community because they don’t feel enough “Jewishness” to remain there. The forming of one or another religious identity depends mostly on which identity is considered the right one in the family. Also, in contrast to ethnic identity, religious identity changes more often and is dependent on the person’s environment and period of time.

Thus, the working hypothesis has been confirmed in a number of points. 1) The forming of identities is indeed influenced by the identities of parents and social circles of the interviewees and the rabbi’s policy towards the youth and other members of the community. 2) It is also influenced to a lesser extent by which religious and ethnic identity is prevalent and considered normal in a particular region. Historical events and places have basically no influence on the identity formation.
Community building and identity construction in the Moishe house : Dor Hadash community in Budapest
Author(s): Karsay, Noémi
Date: 2011
Topics: Post-1989, Jewish Revival, Jewish Community, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Interviews, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: The present thesis is about the history and the members of the Dor Hadash community in Budapest, currently housed in Moishe House. I interviewed the congregation’s rabbi and eight of its members for my research. My interviewees were born between 1979 and 1991, they all belong to the generation who grew up around the fall of Communism and experienced the new era as teenagers and young adults. This radically sets them apart from the generation of their parents and grandparents who partially or completely abandoned Jewish tradition because of the trauma of the Shoah and the Communist regime’s restriction of religious activity. Despite the often lacking Jewish traditions in their families, or very often exactly as a result of these, many young individuals of this new generation, including my interviewees made a choice, the choice of returning to Jewish tradition and they dove headfirst into the newly emerging options that sprung up after 1990
Anglo-Jewry and authenticity, British Jewish youth movements, informal education and the communal contestation over authentic Judaism
Author(s): Abramson, Sarah J.
Date: 2010
Topics: Youth Movements, Youth Clubs, Youth, Teenagers, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Informal Education, Jewish Youth, Jewish Youth Work, Main Topic: Education
Abstract: This dissertation is an exploration of the ways in which Jewish youth movements create, recreate and re-envision wider Jewish communal norms relating to authenticity, or what it means to be a `real' or `legitimate' Jew. The culmination of thirteen months participant observation fieldwork within one Jewish youth movement, as well as interviews with other youth movement leaders and archival research of one prominent British Jewish newspaper, I argue that the modem Orthodox Jewish Establishment in the United Kingdom has a strong grip on the concept of authenticity. The stakes for maintaining control over the boundary between the authentic and the inauthentic are high, as British Jewry is shrinking rapidly and education has been identified as the primary means by which to secure communal continuity. Consequently, Jewish formal education often supports particular (Orthodox) interpretations of Jewish authenticity, specifically in relation to communal pluralism, appropriate gender identifications and relationships with Zionism. However, these Orthodox expectations of authenticity are often incompatible with how many young British Jews today lead their lives. Youth movements are key sites in which the battle for continuity is being waged; British Jewish youth movements aim to create informal education agendas that inspire young people to create lifelong affiliations with Judaism. I contend that informal education has the necessary flexibility to disrupt (and thus redefine) the boundaries of Jewish authenticity. Specifically, the very pillars of Orthodox authenticity (pluralism, gender and Zionism) are beginning to be (re)- constructed in new and innovative ways by some movements. It is in this space, created through the negotiation of a movement's ethos and its simultaneous obligation to, or disregard for, communal (Orthodox) expectations, that the validation of `alternative' performances of Judaism is possible. In turn, such validation helps to associate authenticity with a fluid and context- dependent belief system that is more likely to secure communal continuity than the exclusive Orthodox system currently so predominant.
The Guide with the Tourist Gaze: Jewish Heritage Travel to Poland
Author(s): Kangisser Cohen, Sharon
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Education, Educational Tours, Jewish Heritage, Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood
Abstract: Over the past three decades, travel to Poland for youth and young adults has become increasingly popular, to the extent that it is even seen as a “rite of passage”1 for members of many Jewish communities. For these groups, the accompanying guides or educators are central to their educational experience. Based on a series of interviews with educational guides, this article sets out to understand the trips from the perspective of the guides. A deeper appreciation of the guiding experience—the guides’ goals and reflections—will enable a more holistic understanding of these trips.
Cittadini del mondo, un po' preoccupati: Una ricerca sui giovani ebrei italiani
Translated Title: Cosmopolitan but slightly worried. A survey of young Italian Jews
Editor(s): Meghnagi, Saul
Date: 2011
Topics: Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Jewish Identity, Surveys, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: L’identità dipende dai legami, dalle storie e dalle esperienze personali, dalle condizioni esistenziali nel tempo e nello spazio,dai processi complessi di mobilità fisica e intellettuale, dai sistemi normativi e regolativi del lavoro e della vita di singoli e collettività. Gli ebrei italiani, legati a una Tradizione nobile, a una tragedia immane, come quella della Shoah, alla recente nascita di uno Stato, Israele, al quale sono legati emotivamente e affettivamente, possono essere dei protagonisti del cambiamento, in forza della loro esperienza, o chiudersi in una particolarità separata nella difesa, in sé legittima, della propria specificità. La ricerca sui giovani ebrei italiani parte da queste premesse proponendo le loro risposte alle alternative indicate.

L’Associazione di cultura ebraica Hans Jonas (www.hansjonas.it) nasce alla fine del 2009 per promuovere attività di formazione, ricerca ed elaborazione culturale in seno alle comunità ebraiche italiane e nella società. Da allora l’Associazione ha organizzato due Master per giovani dirigenti delle comunità ebraiche e diversi convegni di studio. Con questo testo l’Associazione apre le sue pubblicazioni.
Cosmopolitan but Slightly Worried: Survey of Young Italian Jews
Author(s): Meghnagi, Saul; Sonnino, Melissa; Techiouba, Ariel
Date: 2012
Topics: Immigration, Intermarriage, Jewish Identity, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Youth, Surveys, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: This applied research contributes to the field of emerging adulthood studies. 144 young adults aged 18-35 coming from communities all over Italy were surveyed through an online questionnaire. Participants presented different levels of religious observance. 45% of young Italian Jews cited culture as the most important definition of Judaism, over family bonds (28%), religion (21%) and emotional ties (6%). Interestingly, 46% of participants declared being at least as religious as their parents and 32% even more religious. Young Italian Jews are divided over the issue of life partners and mixed marriages. Young Italian Jews are proud of Israel. The great majority of respondents (92%) did not view moving to Israel as a necessary condition for the future of Judaism. It was above all in the small communities where youngsters reported immigrants being hostile towards Jews (43%).
Die Schatten der Vergangenheit sind noch lang Junge Juden über ihr Leben in Deutschland
Translated Title: The shadows of the past are still long: young Jews about their life in Germany
Author(s): Ranan, David
Date: 2014
Topics: Interviews, Jewish Youth, Youth, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Junge Juden in Deutschland: Wie leben und wie fühlen sich die Enkel der Holocaust-Überlebenden in diesem Land fast siebzig Jahre nach dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkrieges? Wie erleben die 20-40-Jährigen ihr Jüdischsein im deutschen Alltag und wie reagieren sie auf jüngste Ereignisse wie die Beschneidungsdebatte? In diesem Buch geben junge Juden darüber selbst Auskunft, offen und unverstellt. Sie berichten über die schmerzhaften Schicksale ihrer Familiengeschichte, über ihre Identität und die familiären und beruflichen Zukunftsperspektiven in Deutschland.

Zutiefst bewegende Schilderungen, eine oft überraschende Sicht auf Deutschland und zugleich ein Spiegel unserer aktuellen gesellschaftlichen Situation.
Altering Alternatives: Mapping Jewish Subcultures in Budapest
Author(s): Gantner, Eszter Brigitta; Kovács, Mátyás
Editor(s): Brauch, Julia; Lipphardt, Anna; Nocke, Alexandra
Date: 2008
Topics: Jewish Space, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Jewish Revival, Jewish Culture, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Jewish Dating or Niche-making? A Topographical Representation of Youth Culture
Author(s): Gromova, Alina
Date: 2014
Topics: Singles, Jewish Space, Ethnography, Interviews, Jewish Community, Main Topic: Other, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood
Abstract: In this article I am approaching the topic of Jewish dating among the young Russian-speaking Jews who live in Berlin. Using the analytical concept of space and applying grounded theory, I am presenting data I collected in 2010 using the methods of ethnographic interviews and participant observation. The article is organised around three main questions. Firstly, I am interested in the motivation of my interviewees, who are generally children of inter-ethnic and inter-religious couples, to find a solely Jewish partner. Secondly, I am asking for existing strategies applied within a relatively small Jewish community of around thirty to fifty thousand in Berlin in order to find a Jewish partner. Thirdly, I am looking for the concrete spaces and places used or constructed for the purpose of finding a Jewish girlfriend or boyfriend. Beside these empirical results, I am introducing the theoretical idea of Jewish niches, which is discussed against the background of 'Jewish space' as promulgated by Diana Pinto.
Understanding the Jewish Identity and Experiences of Russian-Speaking Young Adults: A Study of the Taglit-Birthright Israel Generation
Author(s): Shain, Michelle; Phillips, Benjamin; Saxe, Leonard
Date: 2011
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Russian-Speaking Jews, Birthright (Taglit), Surveys, Israel Tours, Interviews
Abstract:

Hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) and their children currently live in North America. The Jewish identity of the young adults in this group is a source of broad concern in the Jewish community. Taglit-Birthright Israel (Taglit), which provides 10-day educational trips to Israel for Jewish young adults ages 18 to 26, is one program that has successfully engaged Jewish young adults with roots in the FSU. Drawing on draws on data collected in a set of surveys conducted approximately three months before and after the Taglit trips in summer ’07, winter ’07-’08, and summer ’08, as well as focus groups and in-depth interviews, this report paints a comprehensive portrait of Russian-speaking Taglit participants.

This report examines the sociodemographic characteristics, backgrounds and current Jewish and Russian identities and engagement of Taglit participants with roots in the FSU. It then examines their Taglit experience and the impact of the trip. Finally, the report explores potential avenues to engage this group’s unique Russian-Jewish cultural and linguistic heritage and draw them into American Jewish life.
Suomen juutalaisten nuorten aikuisten käsityksiä omasta juutalaisuudestaan
Translated Title: Finnish Jewish young adults on their own Judaism
Author(s): Larsson, Julia
Date: 2014
Topics: Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Jewish Identity, Interviews, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Tavoitteet. Suomessa asuu pieni juutalainen vähemmistö, jonka olemassaoloa on jo pitkään uhannut ennen kaikkea sen jäsenten voimakas assimiloituminen. Suomen juutalaiset nuoret aikuiset, jotka melkein poikkeuksetta elävät seka-avioliitoissa, ovat seuraavan juutalaisen sukupolven kasvattajia. Siksi tässä tutkimuksessa pyritään ymmärtämään ja kuulemaan juuri näiden nuorten aikuisten käsityksiä juutalaisuudestaan ja kaksoisidentiteetistään. Toisin sanoen tutkimuksen avulla halutaan saada selville, mitä juutalaisuus merkitsee heille, jotka jatkavat juutalaisen vähemmistön perintöä. Maamme juutalaisten tapoja ja asenteita on aikaisemmin tutkinut Lundgren (2002) sekä Ruotsissa ja Tanskassa Dencik (1993, 2002). Työllä pyritään myös jatkamaan maassamme alkanutta keskustelua vähemmistöjen identiteettineuvotteluista ( Kuusisto 2011, Klingenberg 2014, Rissanen 2014).

Menetelmät. Tämä laadullinen monitapaustutkimus toteutettiin lähettämällä kysely postitse kaikille 137 vuosina 1976-1986 syntyneille Helsingin juutalaisen seurakunnan jäsenille. Kyselyyn vastasi 28 nuorta aikuista. Juutalaisuuden merkitystä Suomen juutalaisille nuorille aikuisille tutkittiin laadullisin keinoin, induktiivisella lähestymistavalla, joskin teoriaohjaavalla tutkimusotteella. Kaksoisidentiteettiä ja siten vastaajien akkulturaatioasenteita lähestyttiin Dencikin (1993) diasporajuutalaisen identiteettiä kuvaavan mallin avulla.

Tulokset ja johtopäätökset. Aineistolähtöisen sisällönanalyysin avulla selvisi, että juutalaisuus merkitsi vastaaajille ennen kaikkea Dencikin (1993) mallin Juutalaisuutta kokemuksien ja elämyksien tulkitsijana sekä yhteenkuuluvuutta kansaan. Tähän juutalaisuuden osa-alueeseen liittyi vastaajien itsensä sanoittamana juutalaisuuden kokeminen saamisena ja antamisena, elämäntapana sekä voimakkaana yhteenkuuluvuuden tunteena muihin juutalaisiin. Kaksoisidentiteetti puolestaan näyttäytyi tasapainoisena kokonaisuutena, jossa ollaan ennen kaikkea suomenjuutalaisia, toisin sanoen, vastaajat kokivat olevansa ensisijaisesti juutalaisia, joiden kotimaa on Suomi.
Academic Jewish Studies and Secular Jewish Identity in Post-Soviet Russia and the FSU
Translated Title: לימודי היהדות האקדמיים והזהות היהודית החילונית ברוסיה והמרחב הפוסט-סובייטי
Author(s): Kopchenova, Irina
Date: 2013
Topics: Jewish Studies, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Education: Adult Education, Informal Education, Main Topic: Education
Abstract: This essay examines the role of informal educational programs in the area of Jewish studies at the Sefer Center (www.sefer.ru) for the gradual emergence of the community of young Russian intellectuals united by their common interest in the Jewish civilization. Along with reaching their academic and cultural targets, student programs at Sefer facilitate fortification of the tenuous Jewish identity among post-Soviet Jewish youths and young adults.
New conceptions of community
Author(s): Boyd, Jonathan; Zarum, Raphael; Boyd Gelfand, Shoshana; Plen, Matt; Kahn-Harris, Keith; Finlay, Joseph; Williams, Judith
Date: 2010
Topics: Jewish Community, Jewish Communal Politics, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Internet, Pluralism, Jewish Education, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Following a year and a half of discussions among a wide-ranging group of thinkers, practitioners and activists in the British Jewish community, several of the participants contributed articles to this publication focusing on how the concept of community is changing in the particular context of British Jewry.

The report, which was sponsored by the American Joint Distribution Committee and the Clore Duffield Foundation, contains a series of thoughts or ideas designed to facilitate discussion and debate about the Jewish collective future. The views expressed raise some central and often quite challenging questions and ideas, and are designed to promote dialogue about how to sustain, renew and invigorate the Jewish community today.

Included in the publication are essays by JPR Executive Director Jonathan Boyd (Jewish Community 2.0: How the Internet may be changing the face of Jewish life), Rabbi Dr Raphael Zarum (Jewish conceptions of community); Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand (Post-denominational communities: Finding a home for serious Jews); Matt Plen (Learning communities and critical pedagogy); Dr Keith Kahn-Harris (What is British Jewish politics?); Joseph Finlay (Towards an open community); and Judith Williams (Navigating the Jewish landscape; How emerging adults are teaching us new conceptions of community).
Jewish Identity Patterns and Assimilation Trends among young adult Jews in Hungary
Author(s): Bitter, David
Date: 2005
Topics: Assimilation, Psychology, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Jewish Identity, Ethnicity, Youth, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Jewish identity and assimilation in modern times are two sides of the same coin - one cannot speak of one without the other. If we wish to understand what makes certain Jews set out on a path of assimilation, we must first understand what and how they think about Judaism and being Jewish. One of the most important tasks is to uncover their cognitive tendencies when reflecting on Judaism. It is also necessary to search for the affective/emotional components of their identity (or the rejection or denial thereof), and to analyze their habits, customs and social behavior.

When trying to outline assimilation trends and their causes, one should not only apply the "Jewish" point of view - however one interprets such a standpoint. We can get a clearer picture of the psychological and sociological aspects of Jewish identity by analyzing the relationship between various dimensions of an identity. For example, how does a person's cognitive approach to Judaism relate to his or her affective attachment? Or, how do the Jewish and the Hungarian ethnic identity dimensions relate to each other - do they supplement one another, "subtract" from each other, are they complementary, etc.?

In this paper, an indirect approach is applied to the analysis of assimilation. First, it presents and analyzes the most important aspects of the cognitive approach that characterizes young secular Jews. Then it discusses certain psychological aspects of the Jewish identity of young Hungarian Jews

The study is based on in-depth interviews with Jewish men and women in their 20's and 30's. It presents their opinions as well as their perception of their individual identity, and characterizes types of possible intervention. 
Getting in Touch: 18-35 Project Report. 
Author(s): Wise, Justin
Date: 2006
Topics: Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Singles, Synagogues, Jewish Involvment, Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Interview-based study of 18-35 year olds within the UK Reform Movement
On Being Jewish: A Qualitative Study of Identity Among British Jews in Emerging Adulthood
Author(s): Sinclair, Jennifer; Milner, David
Date: 2005
Topics: Interviews, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Jewish Identity, Qualitative Research, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: This article presents a qualitative study of Jewish identity in emerging adults between ages 18 and 27, drawn from across the mainstream British Jewish community. Eighteen in-depth interviews were conducted using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The interviews covered three main areas, focusing on the participants’ developmental history and current experience of being Jewish in Britain today: (a) early influences on Jewish identity, (b) the impact of attending university on Jewish identity, and (c) friendships, relationships and marriage. Interpretative phenomenological analysis yielded two superordinate themes of social identity and religious identity. These contained further important subthemes, of which three are highlighted here: kinship and connection, awareness of difference, and faith and observance. The pattern and importance of these shared dimensions of identity were unique to each individual. The findings may enhance our understanding of how it feels to be different as an emerging adult member of an ethnic or religious minority group.
Beyond the Synagogue: Report of the Working Group of the “Missing” Generation.
Author(s): Bronzite, Sarah; Clifton, Ruth; Goodman, Deborah; Lachman, Yonni; Loewe, Harriet; Pinto, Linzi; Sieff, Adrian
Date: 1995
Topics: Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Synagogue Membership, Affiliation and Belonging, Youth, Reform/Liberal/Progressive Judaism, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Report of a working group set up by the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, on the needs of young adults in Reform synagogues. They are termed the 'missing generation' due to their absence from synagogue life.
Leadership Reflections on 20 Years of the Adam Science Foundation Leadership Programme
Date: 2012
Topics: Jewish Leadership, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Jewish Community, Main Topic: Education
Abstract: Collection of reflections on Jewish leadership from Jewish communal leaders to mark the 20th year of the Adam Science Foundation, which sponsors the eponymous young leadership programme
Young Jewish Adults: Attitudes, Activities and Interventions 
Author(s): Brenner, Simon; Citron, Judith
Date: 1996
Topics: Jewish Community, Young Adults / Emerging Adulthood, Intermarriage, Family and Household, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Report on six qualitative group discussions with Jewish singles who have little contact with the Jewish community. Discusses Jewish identities, attitudes to Jewish community and market tests various possible Jewish communal policy interventions