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The article features Jewish Political studies as a field of inquiry knowledge. Intellectual concerns and understanding of political matters deserves to be elevated to a prominent position in Jewish studies. It is a matter of recognizing and analyzing the political dimension present in a tradition devoted to the creation of the good commonwealth on earth. An understanding of the influence of Jewish political ideas on Jewish public affairs during the epochs of Jewish national independence and communal self-government can be useful in our efforts to meet the problems of Jewish public affairs and communal organization in the modern voluntary communities of the diaspora.

The article discusses the study on the factors that influence the decision of students in pursuing Talmud Torah, a Jewish religious instruction in the U.S. Results showed that the geographical birthplace of a father is a positive factor that determines the extent of the child's motivation in pursuing a Jewish education. Another influencing factor is the attendance at religious services on the part of the parents which orient the child in having Jewish studies. Meanwhile, there are cultural determinants that the child may experience in the home environment which have no significant influence on the family's religious life and may be classified as group ethnic behavior differences.

The Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies will be held on August 31,1969 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Working sessions will be held in the following five divisions. These are "The Ancient Near East as related to the Bible and the Holy Land," "The History of Israel-Period of the First and Second Temples," "The Dead Sea Scrolls," "Archaeology."

This essay will attempt a description of Jewish education in America, a subject about which outside that country comparatively little is known even by experienced Jewish educationists. The subject by itself is of real interest, but it may also be of some practical importance in our efforts to evaluate Jewish education in England and improve its standards. All authoritative observers are agreed that there is much to support the thesis that the present generation of American Jewish children receive a better Jewish education than their parents ever did. Like most other special aspects of American Jewish life this has to be examined within the general background of the development of the whole of Jewish life in that country. Not least among the areas of American Jewish life is the effort now being made in the field of Jewish education. Fifty years ago there was Virtually only one kind of organized public Jewish educational institution and that was the "Talmud Torah." A word may be added here about the efforts being made in the sphere of adult Jewish education. In general, the pattern of the adult education group is not very different from what one might find in the best and most active of our Anglo-Jewish synagogues, except perhaps that in America they are more intense and are adequately financed.

The article focuses on a study regarding the changing ethnic identity of Canadian Jewish youth. Adolescent Jewish boys and girls were involved in the study. They were given eighteen questions seeking information about their background and social and religious life. Three Jewish groups may be hypothesized, including those who identify mainly with Jewish ethnic groups, those Jews who more often identify with non-Jewish groups and mixed Jews who identify equally with both Jewish groups and gentiles.

A biography of Joseph Salvador, a nineteenth century French Jewish scholar, is presented. He was born and raised in Montpellier, France to a liberal Jewish father and a Catholic mother. He turned from his study of medicine at the University of Montpellier to the study of the antiquity of the Jewish people. He devoted himself to scholarship and to the care of his nephews. His accomplishments include bridging the duality of Jew and European by uniting them through their past.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship of authoritarianism to traditional family ideology and to prejudice (social distance) toward minority groups in a relatively non-Western sample. Also, the function of personal adversity in prejudice toward out-groups was investigated in this research. The sample used in this study consisted of 76 male foreign Arab students in Oklahoma and Texas, the majority of whom are engineering under-graduates, representing middle and upper-middle classes in their own countries. Twenty-three subjects in this sample were Christians and 47 were Moslems. All subjects were administered a slightly modified form of the F-scale, as a measure of authoritarianism, and the TFI scale as a measure of traditional family ideology. A revised Bogardus social distance scale composed of nine statements and applying to four minority groups in the Arab World (Armenians, Kurds, Jews and Circassians) was administered as an index of prejudice or social distance. Also, the subjects were asked to indicate if they had suffered any personal losses at the hands of arty of these four minority groups. The results confirmed the first hypothesis that authoritarianism was significantly related to traditional family ideology. However, concerning the second hypothesis of this study, authoritarianism was found to be significantly related only to prejudice toward Jews, but did not show significant relationship to prejudice toward Armenians, Kurds, or Circassians. An analysis of variance showed that the subjects in this sample, regardless of their religious group membership, were reacting consistently in an unfavorable manner toward Jews while maintaining a favorable social distance toward all of the other three minority groups. Explanations here were made in terms of the nature of functional relations between Arabs and these groups, as well as in terms of the authoritarian's general tendency to dichotomize values. The third hypothesis of this study was verified since it was found that personal loss at the hands of an out-group does not necessarily increase hostility toward that out-group more than is revealed by other members who did not suffer any such losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excerpts from discussion reports about the national Jewish population in the U.S. are presented.

The article presents the author's perception on the role of political activity on an academic and scholarly association such as the Association for the Sociological Study of Jewry (ASSJ). The author believes that ASSJ can focus on its goals to strengthen scholarship and teaching in the sociological study of Jewry. To see the ASSJ protest about the Jewish social scientist is also considered. The author also emphasizes the duty of the Jewish scholars, or non-Jewish scholars active in the Jewish field to be active and come to the aid of the colleagues. The effort to speak out and do the best for the rights and freedoms of Jewish social scientists is noted.

The article presents a progress report of family data from the National Jewish Population Study (NJPS) in the U.S. The article compares family variables for four religious groups including the Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Just Jewish, the last group consisting of nominal Jews on the margins of the Jewish community. Previous data analysis showed that these groups correspond to a continuum with regard to traditionalism or orthodoxy on various dimensions of Jewish identity. The analysis covers four areas including residential mobility, household composition, divorce and remarriage, and family roles.

The article profiles the elected members to the Executive Committee of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (ASSJ) for a one-year term in the U.S. They include Professor Zena Smith Blau, David Glanz, Professor Nathan Glazer and Professor Paul Ritterband. Professor Blau received her Ph.D. from Columbia in 1957 and has taught at Stanford, the University of Chicago, and Northwestern University. Glanz is a doctoral student in Sociology at Columbia University. He received his B.A. from Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri. Glazer is Professor of Education and Social Structure in the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. Ritterband is an Associate Professor in Sociology and Jewish Studies at City University of New York.

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The article discusses the book "Papers of the Institute of Jewish Studies London," edited by J.G. Weiss that has a claim to the attention of the serious student of Judaism. It provides a slavery study as a source for social history, that is of special interest to the reader of a sociological journal. It argues that the slavery legislation in the Mishnah and Talmud is not just the product of rabbinic speculation as to what Jewish law would have been had this institution still been in existence in Israel. On the contrary, slavery was still very much in existence and, consequently, the laws relating to it reflect something of the life and values of the period in which they were formulated. It suggests that the pre-Maccabaean period was one in which fellow- Hebrews provided the main source of slaves. Enslavement at home was preferable to slavery abroad and that "the low prices paid for slaves from Palestine as compared with the prices in Egypt prove that the supply cannot have been scanty." During the Maccabaean period gentile slaves were so plentiful that "it is possible that matters reached such a pass that Jews anxious to sell themselves into slavery could not find Jewish purchasers."

This article presents information on the responses of Jews to two questions which formed part of a questionnaire on Jewish identification in Johannesburg, South Africa. It says that the questionnaire was administered to a stratified random sample of 283 Jews. The questions asked were: (a) in what ways, would you say, do Johannesburg Jews, in general, resemble one another and differ from non-Jews? (b) in what ways would you say that you resemble other Jews and differ from non-Jews? In conclusion, it says that there are three aspects of the South African condition which appear to be relevant to the understanding of the Jewish self-image.

This article presents the results of a series of experiments which investigated the role of predisposition in identifying Jews. It says that the experiments show that subjects are fairly successful in identifying which of a series of photographs are of Jewish or non-Jewish models. It notes that subjects are predisposed to identify a Jew based on whether the model has dark hair. Without this predisposition the subject might not perceive the model as Jewish. It details the number of subjects in each experiment.

The article offers information related to Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture Doctoral Scholarships and faculty Fellowships in the U.S. The foundation has set November 30, 1974 as the deadline for the submission of applications. These awards range from $500 to $1,500 a year. Any graduate student specializing in a Jewish field who is officially enrolled or registered in a doctoral program at a recognized university is eligible. The purpose of the foundation's doctoral scholarship program is to help train future Jewish scholars for careers in Jewish scholarship and research, and to help religious, educational and other Jewish communal workers to obtain advanced training for leadership positions.

The article focuses on the readership response to the initial issue of the "Newsletter of the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry" (ASSJ) in the U.S. Based on the response, it was decided to make changes in the editorship and conception of the newsletters's tasks. Another feature of the periodical is the introduction of a Book and Periodical Review section.

The article presents information about the article "The Reconstitution of Jewish Communities in the Post-War Period," published in the December 1969 issue of the periodical "The Jewish Journal of Sociology." That paper was presented at the Fifth World Congress of Jewish Studies held in Jerusalem in August 1969. In the present issue four more papers from the same Congress is published.

The article presents information about the December 1966 issue of "The Jewish Journal of Sociology." In the last issue of the Journal the editors published five papers which were read at two meetings devoted to Jewish demographic research held at the Fourth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, July 25, 1965 to August 1,1965, in the Section "Contemporary Jewry." This Section was chaired by Professor Moshe Davis, head of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

A list of books about Jewish social studies is presented. It includes "Jewish Society Through the Ages," by Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson and Shmuel Ettinger, "Reform Judaism: A Historical Perspective," edited by Joseph L. Blau, "Letter to an Arab Friend," by Andre Chouraqui and "Elder and Younger Brothers. The Encounter of Jews and Christians," by Roy A. Eckhardt.