Assimilation is the central motif of Jewish American history. As early as the 1770s, European commentators pointed out that New World Jews intermarried, ceased to practice their religion, and adopted the customs of their neighbors. Succeeding waves of immigrants followed suit. Newcomers held on to their traditions, but assimilation accelerated with each succeeding generation. The ranks were filled by new immigrants whose descendants followed similar patterns. American Judaism underwent periodic resuscitations. Germans breathed life into the dying Sephardic community, Eastern Europeans did the same for the Germans, and survivors of the Holocaust, Israeli yordim, 1 and refugees from the former Soviet Union have filled the ranks since World War II. The boost provided by each wave obscured the rapid pace in which descendants of earlier immigrants were absorbed by the surrounding culture. Current rates of assimilation seem to outpace immigration and natural growth. American Judaism, we are frequently told, is on its way to becoming a minor sect of a 98
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.