|
The President and Dean of the New York campus of
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
cordially invite you to the
Dr. Fritz Bamberger Memorial Lecture
Freakonomics & American Judaism:
Economic Incentives That Help Shape
American Jewish Traditions
Carmel U. Chiswick, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
George Washington University
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Reception: 5:30 pm • Lecture: 6:00 pm
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion
One West Fourth Street, New York, NY
Free admission. Photo ID required.
Can’t make it? Join us on the Livestream!
Modern economics focuses on how price and income incentives affect life decisions as people budget scarce time and money to achieve their goals. Differences early in the 20th century between the home-country economic environments of Jewish immigrants and that of the United States to which they came suggest a strong economic incentive to adapt (or “modernize”) old-country Judaism into the American Judaism that we practice today. Of particular interest is recent research on Jews as workers (education, occupation, income), on the Jewish family (marriage, fertility, two-career households), on Jewish immigrants (economic adjustment and assimilation), and on intergroup relationships (Jews and non-Jews, American Jews and Israeli Jews, Orthodox and other “denominational” streams including secular Jews). Although the evolution of American Judaism is not yet complete, we can trace how it responded to economic incentives throughout the 20th century, examine how these incentives are currently changing, and consider their implications for new issues as the 21st century advances.
|