ABSTRACT
In addition to relying on in-depth interviews and fieldwork to explore Israeli emigrants’ identities, another source of data is provided by survey research. Survey data on Israeli emigrants’ religious behaviors are available only for those settled in the US. Moreover, most studies have been collected with non-random sampling techniques that overrepresent the well-established. These limitations acknowledged, those data which exist verify that émigrés engage in many Jewish behaviors at higher rates than is the case among the native born. For example, Israelis’ synagogue membership, at 27 percent in Los Angeles and 35 percent for singles and 60 percent for married couples in New York, exceeds that of native-born Jews (Herman and LaFontaine 1983; Horowitz 1993).2
