What Association Researches Jewish Sociology Worldwide?

Who We Are

We are a scholarly association built around a single discipline: the sociology and demography of Jewish populations. Our members are sociologists, demographers, historians, and statisticians who study how Jewish communities form, change, migrate, and define themselves.

The work is collaborative by necessity. A demographer counting households in one country needs a methodologist who understands survey error, who in turn needs a historian to read the numbers in context. That cross-disciplinary habit shapes everything we publish.

Our flagship journal, Contemporary Jewry, anchors the association's published record. It carries peer-reviewed research that has, over the years, become a reference point for anyone working seriously in the field. You can explore the wider body of work through our Publications.

Our Core Mission

The mission starts from a premise that sounds obvious but rarely is: Jewish life is best understood empirically, not assumed. Counting populations, measuring affiliation, and tracking generational change require careful method, and method requires a community that argues about it openly.

So the association exists to advance rigorous research and to give that research a place to be tested, refined, and circulated. We bring scholars together, support their inquiry, and honor the work that moves the field forward.

We are deliberate about scope. The association does not claim to settle questions of identity or belief; it studies how those questions appear in measurable patterns of behavior, residence, and self-description. That boundary keeps the research honest.

Research Focus and Resources

Most of our work clusters around a few enduring problems. How many Jews are there, and where? How does affiliation pass — or fail to pass, between generations? What happens to community structures when migration, intermarriage, or secularization reshape them? These questions sit at the center of our Research Areas.

From data to interpretation

A population estimate is only as good as the survey behind it. We take that seriously, which is why our work pairs raw demographic counts with the methodological scrutiny that tells you how much to trust them. The same dataset can support a confident claim or a cautious one, depending on how the sampling was done.

Consider intermarriage rates. A figure quoted without its definition — who counts as married, who counts as Jewish, over what period, can mislead more than it informs. Good demography spends as much effort defining the question as answering it.

Tools for the working scholar

Beyond published articles, the association maintains datasets, bibliographies, and research instruments through its Resources. These are the practical materials a researcher reaches for at the start of a project: existing surveys to build on, prior literature to situate against, and shared tools that keep methods comparable across studies.

That comparability is the quiet payoff. When researchers in different countries use compatible categories, their findings can be read together rather than in isolation.

Value for Academics

For an early-career scholar, the value is access — to a journal that takes the field seriously, to peers who will read a draft closely, and to Events where ideas get pressure-tested before they reach print.

For an established researcher, the value is continuity. A discipline survives only if it transmits its standards. The association is where those standards are debated, documented, and handed on.

One honest caveat: the social-scientific study of any small, dispersed population carries irreducible uncertainty in its numbers, and we treat our estimates as the best current evidence rather than the final word. That humility is part of the method, not a weakness in it.

If the questions here are your questions, you are likely already part of this conversation. We would welcome you in it. To reach us directly, see the Contact page, or read more about the scholars who guide the association on the Leadership page.