The Jews and the city of Chicago: a changing but continuing presence

• In Event: Urbanism, Urban Jews and Jewish identity: part 2, Qualitative Research and Social History

Abstract

Chicago has played a seminal role in the sociological study of American Jews. Louis Wirth’s “the Ghetto” using urban Chicago Jewry, influenced theories of immigrant assimilation for many decades and several decades thereafter, both Herbert Gans and Marshall Sklare wrote about Jews living in the suburbs, which influenced views about the suburbanization of American Jewry. The city still remains an important area of Jewish settlement and activity. This paper will focus upon population trends of the Jews in the city itself over a several decade period through 2013 using Jewish population studies (1980 through 2010) and other data about the Jewish and general communities. It will explain the continuing presence of Jews and Jewish communities within Chicago. It will focus upon three diverse communities: (West Rogers Park, primarily Orthodox), Lincoln Park/Lakeview (families and singles) and Hyde Park (home of the University of Chicago) to demonstrate the diversity within the contemporary urban Jewish experience. The focus upon neighborhoods is evidence of the importance of the social context in which we live within the city. At the same time the presentation will touch upon the role and limits of Jewish communal social policy in maintaining urban communities. While acknowledging the limits of a “case” study, we hope that it may provide insights that can be applied to other urban communities in the United States.

author

• Peter Friedman, Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago