Using Social Science Research in Creating Innovative, Problem Solving Programming

• In Event: Potpourri: Social Science and Community

Abstract

Social research is a powerful tool to help us see what might be happening in a given population. It ranges from issue oriented to demographic data collection and analysis. For several decades research has been carried out and data collected that describes the increasing rate of Jewish intermarriage in the United States. The research has occurred with both local and national surveys, and carried out by both Jewish and independent researchers and organizations. Intermarriage has been cited by some for the overall decreasing numbers of Jewishly identified individuals and households.
Within the field of social research, practitioners, known as research-practitioners, utilize knowledge gained through research in an applied way to create innovative programs and activities, known in social work, as interventions. These interventions are created to help work at solving the perceived social problems understood in a particular population.
In this paper I will present work done in a suburb of Detroit , Michigan, in creating new means for welcoming interfaith families into the organized community of a small synagogue.
By reframing the organization of the synagogue as a social institution whose purpose is to care for the needs of Jewish individuals and community, we are able to bring to bear the modalities of applied social science. In this case I look at the “problem” of intermarriage and ask: In what new way can they be included in the Jewish community? Using the methodology of participant observation to learn about their experiences, interests, their availability to connect with and their desire to feel welcomed in the Jewish community, as well as to learn about those who want their children to be raised with a Jewish identity, the lack of a positive identification of the non-Jew within Jewish community discourse was discovered. Since research uncovered the interest and willingness of non-Jewish spouses to be active in the community in many and varied ways, it was determined that new means of acceptance and involvement were needed. As such, a personal status designation (the intervention) was created that allows for the non-Jew to have a positive Jewish referral as a “Mitchaver/et Yisrael, a “Friend of the Jewish People.” This paper will describe processes by which individuals were selected and the stories of those who accepted this designation.

Author

• Peter Kaufman Gluck, Independent Scholar