ABSTRACT

Is America different? Has the pattern of the centuries been altered to a considerable degree as the Founding Fathers and the conviction of countless immigrants expected it to be? The question is hard to answer because American history, and certainly the history of the Jews in America, does not cover a large enough span of time to permit a final judgment. Patterns do not emerge in less than two centuries. The Jewish community in America is still in the process of becoming, and so are the relations of various kinds of Americans to each other. Besides, American and European data are not always comparable and the American data are redundant in one regard, deficient in another. For instance, prejudice has been studied over and over again, but the occupational composition of the Jewish population, that is, the structural prerequisite of human relations in a large society, is known only in broad outlines. We must nevertheless try to broach the complexity of the problem.