ABSTRACT
This chapter utilizes a cross-cultural situation to examine what happens to American Jews, and their two major denominations, within a multi-ethnic sociological context that discourages their religious expression. It considers the hypothesis, that ethnicity might shield religion, just as religion at times shields ethnicity. The added advantage of focusing upon Americans in Israel and the Jewish denominations that they have developed is that they are a relatively homogeneous group. Americans in Israel, in contrast to the US Jewish adult population, are more likely to be children of American bom parents, highly educated, and to have held a professional position in the United States. The high levels of secular education and professional occupations among Americans in the Conservative denomination are so predominant as to make the Conservative denomination have a higher social status than the Israeli Reform denomination. With regard to religion, most Americans in Israel do what the Israelis do and join Orthodox synagogues or melt into the secular population.
