From Generation to Generation to Generation: The Influence of Grandparents on the Jewish Identity of College Students

• In Event: Whither Jewish College Students?

Abstract

Judaism is a religion of history, of stories handed down from generation to generation—l’dor vador. This paper will explore the changing role of grandparents in the acculturation of Jewish youth. Young Jews are less likely than past generations to live in the same homes or neighborhoods as their grandparents. But grandparents may nonetheless serve as critical links in the transmission of Jewish values and traditions, maintaining family customs, rituals, and religious holiday celebrations. The rapid pace of secularization in recent decades means that grandparents tend to be more Jewishly active than their own children, who may even be intermarried, and may thus feel it is incumbent on them to serve as Jewish role models for their grandchildren. In cases where grandparents are nearby, two-career couples may lean on them for childcare more than in the past, when mothers were more likely to stay home. Even when grandparents live far away, their greater wealth and improved health vs. past generations make it possible for them to visit and play host to their grandchildren more often. Grandparents can also maintain contact through phone calls, emails, text messages, and social media. They are not replacements for parents, but supplements.

This research will draw on two data sources. Most important is a survey of Jewish college students of all denominations and degrees of religiosity, which was in the field in the spring of 2014. It includes questions such as how many of a student’s grandparents are or were Jewish and which cultural and religious activities students have done with their grandparents. The paper will also draw on a longitudinal survey of American and Canadian college students who were raised in Conservative synagogues and had their bar or bat mitzvah in 1995. As freshly minted bar/bat mitzvahs, 13% named grandparents as their Jewish role models (Kosmin, 1997). When contacted again in college, students in focus groups repeatedly reached into the past to recount stories told to them by their parents and grandparents (Keysar, forthcoming; Keysar and Kosmin, 2004).

An old wisdom claims “talent skips a generation.” What about Jewishness?

author

• Ariela Keysar, Trinity College