Gender Equality and American Jews (review)

180 SHOFAR Spring 1998 Vol. 16, No.3 Yet there is also the weird and totally impractical side of Kallen that came up with the idea ofa secret society, the Parushim, a sort ofpalace guard that would carry out the missions needed to strengthen the American Zionist movement. The whole episode, which at best involved a very small number of men and women, would be laughable if it were not for the fact that someone of Kallen's intelligence and commitment to democracy thought it necessary to create a cadre ofsecret warriors to carry out his idea. Schmidt takes the Parushim seriously, and perhaps her closeness to and obvious idealization of Kallen make her a bit blind to the farcical aspects of the Parushim. Aside from that, this is a clearly written book about an important Jewish and American thinker. It belongs in every serious library about American Jewry. Melvin I. Urofsky Department of History Virginia Commonwealth University Gender Equality and American Jews, by Moshe Hartman and Harriet Hartman. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996. 374 pp. $24.95. Gender Equality Among American Jews is an important scholarly study of the educational attainment, labor supply, and occupational attainment of contemporary American Jews. The primary focus is on differences between Jewish men and Jewish women, but there is also much comparison between Jews and what the Hartmans refer to as the "wider white population." The book is part ofa series ofstudies that exploits the richness of data in the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS). This was a survey of about 2,400 households that included at least one Jewish member. This survey has had a profound effect on the Jewish community, providing quantitative support for propositions regarding the achievement, practices, and family relations, including intermarriage, among American Jewry. The Hartmans' book includes an Appendix written by Joseph Waksberg that explains the sampling methodology and statistical reliability of the data in the NJPS. The reliance on the NJPS is both the strength and the weakness of the book. The NJPS provides a richness of detail on American Jewry unavailable elsewhere, and the Hartmans put it to good use in simple tables and multiple regression, path and factor analyses. The statistical novice should not be put offby the more sophisticated analyses, as the fmdings are generally explained well in the text. Unfortunately, the NJPS did not ask some questions that would have been invaluable for the Hartmans' study, such as the person's labor market earnings. There is one question on household income, the Book Reviews 181 very last in the NJPS questionnaire. The usefulness of the household income data is limited, however, by the very high no*-response rate. The Hartmans quite correctly compare American Jews with the "wider white population" in many of their statistical ianalyses. These data are from the 1990 Census ofPopulation. The NJPS does not include a random sample of non-Jews, and the 1990 Census does not include any mechanism for identifying a random sample of Jews. I Unfortunately, the Hartmans do not: use the 1990 Census to estimate regression equations for the general population thAt are comparable to the equations estimated for I Jews. The comparative analysis ofmeniand women is limited to intact Jewish couples. They do not address whether inter-Jarried couples differ from Jewish in-married couples in the characteristics of intere~tfor this study. The Hartmans' theoretical frame~ork is presented in a readable, non-technical manner. They use a family decision making model that views parents as making optimal investments in their children, and hu~bands and wives as making optimal decisions I regarding the allocation oftheir time, including labor supply and fertility decisions. The theoretical analysis of gender differenc~s needs to be fundamentally different from that ofrace, ethnic, or religious group diffeiences. Men and women live together and share family relationships as spouses, sibling~, parents, and children. They have a shared past ! and a shared future that differs from that experienced by different racial, ethnic, and religious groups. The Hartmans emphasize the str~ngth of the Jewish family, and particularly the parental commitment to their children!(Jewish continuity). The strength of the Jewish family, the Jewish tradition...