ABSTRACT
Studies of American Jews challenge the prevailing notions in the social sciences. There are those who have sought to study American Jews from the inside. These authors raise questions that concern the organized Jewish community or that concern individual Jews or that concern the author him/herself as a Jew. While these studies may utilize conceptions prevalent in the social sciences they do not derive from any body of social science theory and contribute very little to those interested in other ethnic or religious groups. The majority of studies written about American Jews are of this type. These are books written by Jews, about Jews, for Jewish audiences. The social scientist, in his role as social scientist reads them with some degree of uneasiness. They may be well written, intelligent, helpful to him in understanding Judaism but they seem peripheral to the discipline of social science.
