ABSTRACT
Sociological research can mean different things, and it would be as well for us to begin with the proposition that the study of Anglo-Jewish social life can usefully be approached in several ways. Demographic information is obviously of the greatest importance. In Great Britain Jewish vital statistics are slender in quantity and most inadequate for wider research purposes. All too often they represent tentative inferences based upon other and yet more tentative inferences. If the social patterns of Anglo-Jewry are to be intelligently mapped, we need a far firmer and more coherent statistical basis upon which to work. We do not feel that either the subject matter or present-day circumstances permit of an unofficial ‘national Jewish census’. Anglo-Jewry is not ‘corporatively organized’, but, for so small a community, it abounds in organizations of various kinds, each with their distinct, if overlapping, catchment areas.
