Herbert Gans, "The Origin and Growth of a Jewish Community in the Suburbs: a Study of the Jews of  Park Forest" in Marshall Sklare, ed., The Jews: Social Patterns of an American Group (New York, 1974): 205-48

[This chapter contains several tables in the original; they have been removed in this on-line version.  A copy of the chapter is on reserve at McKeldin.]

Urban residents have been moving to the suburbs almost as long as cities have existed in America. For many decades, this movement was limited to the upper-income groups, but since the 1920's and increasingly since the end of World War II, it has attracted middle-class families and even those of skilled workers.

The post-war housing boom was fed by returning G.I.'s. The new suburbs which sprang up to meet their housing needs followed traditional subdivision practices. However, the builders' search for the cheapest land located the new and low-priced settlements on the outskirts of the metropolitan areas and placed the young veterans into one-age, one-class communities.

American Jews, stimulated by similar housing aspirations and needs, participated in this latest expansion of the city. In the new suburbs, they set up a distinctive type of Jewish subcommunity. The new Jewish suburbanites are young members of the second generation (i.e., the first native born one) and their children. Although they may be geographically and socially more mobile than their peers who remained in the city, they are typical in other respects, being mostly business and professional in occupation and overwhelmingly middle class in style of life.

The universal Jewish migration to the suburbs is very recent. However, unless American cities are redeveloped at a faster rate than is currently apparent, the middle class may become almost exclusively suburban. Among Jews as well, the suburban community may thus become the norm. This report on one suburban Jewish subcommunity, consequently, is not only a case study of a new phenomenon, but perhaps a source of future trends. Furthermore, the main body of the study deals with a Jewish suburban community in its first year of existence; Park Forest thus presented a rare opportunity to study the processes which shape Jewish communal structure.

 I. The Community and the Characteristics of the Jewish Residents

Park Forest, Illinois, the scene of the study described here, is not an ordinary suburb but rather a partially planned garden city. Located eight miles south of Chicago's Loop, it was envisioned both as a dormitory for Chicago white-collar workers (which it is) and a partially self-sufficient community with its own industries (which it still hopes to be). The plan called for 3,000 rental garden apartments, for 4,500 single-family homes available for sale, as well as for shopping centers, schools, churches, playgrounds, and other community facilities. The conversion of the golf course and farmland which were to be the site of the new town began in 1947, and the first tenants moved in on August 30, 1948. By April, 1949, the community had been incorporated as a village.

Like other post-war suburbs, Park Forest first attracted the people most sorely pressed for shelter—young couples with one or two children of preschool age. In 1949, the median age of the men was thirty-two, of the women somewhat less; anyone over forty was generally considered old. Many of the men were beginning their careers, and most of them were in professional, sales, or administrative and other business fields. Their educational level was high, and a majority of the men and many of the wives had some college education. Despite their recent graduation from the G.I. Bill of Rights, by 1949 the men were earning from $4,000 to $10,000. Their median income was generally estimated at $5,200. Consequently, it seemed probable that the village was attracting the socially and geographically more mobile members of the generation of returning veterans.

In November, 1949, when the interviewing for this study was completed, about 1,800 families were living in the village. About 25 per cent of them were Catholic. The Jewish community then numbered just under 150 families. Of these, about twenty (fifteen of them mixed marriages) rejected all relationships with the formal Jewish community. Another thirty families had not been in Park Forest long enough to have made contact with the established Jewish community. We interviewed a sample which consisted of forty-four of the remaining group of 100 families. This sample was subdivided into families of people who had been active in the formation of Jewish organizations or were now in leadership positions, and those inactive, whether or not they were members of organizations. Within the total sample, the median age of heads of households was thirty-five, and of their wives, thirty. As is indicated in Table 1, 43 per cent of the families had one or more school-age children, while 57 per cent had only younger children or were still childless. Although there were no age differences between the actives and the inactives, the former had a slightly higher proportion of older children.

The distribution of annual income for those who divulged such information is indicated in Table 2. The median family income was about $6400. The actives' median income was only $6000, while that of the inachves totalled some $6400. However, since 40 per cent of the actives were in the highest income category, their mean income was about $7100 as compared with $6800 for the inactives.

As is indicated in Table 3, about 90 per cent of the men in the sample had some college training. Some 57 per cent had graduated college, and 32 per cent held graduate or professional degrees. Again, the actives ranked somewhat higher: 75 per cent of the active men had four or more years of college as compared with 50 per cent of the inactive men.

As is indicated in Table 4, 36 per cent of the sample were professionals. A total of 48 per cent were in business and industry, though only 14 per cent were owners. Eighty-eight per cent of the adults in the sample were native-born. Most of the parents of this group were foreign-born. Overwhelmingly the families came from Eastern Europe. All but a few of our interviewees were brought up in large cities (60 per cent of them in Chicago); they come primarly from working-class or lower-middle-class areas of second settlement. While Park Foresters are mainly "second generation," they are the children of later immigrants or of immigrants who themselves came to America as children, and must be distinguished from second generation descendants of Jews in the frst waves of Eastern European immigration (before 1900) whose own children (third generation) are already adolescents or young adults. Table 5 shows the formal generational distribution using the classification system employed by Wamer and Srole. The comparison by activity status indicates that the percentage of F-2 (third generation) and mixed F-1, F-2 (second and third generation) among the actives was 25 percent, as compared with 18 per cent among the inactives.

In summary, the Jewish sample can be described as a group of young, highly educated, second generation Jews of Eastem European parentage, most of whom have already achieved—or are likely to achieve—upper middle-class income status, given continued prosperity. The active members of the community rate somewhat higher on socio-economic characteristics than do the inactives.

Turning to the problem of cultural distinctiveness, it is apparent that many of the Jewish residents could not easily be distinguished from other Park Foresters. Although many of them could be said to "look Jewish," they wore the same fashions, ate the same dishes (except on special occasions), and participated with other Park Foresters in the ubiquitous American class and leisure culture of the "young moderns." They observed few of the old cultural and religious traditions. The village's isolation from synagogues and kosher butcher shops discouraged observant Jews from becoming tenants, and brought problems to those who did.

Not only did Park Forest Jews live like other Park Foresters, they lived with them. Whereas most American cities have neighborhoods which are predominantly Jewish (if not always in numbers, at least in atmosphere and institutions), such was not the case with Park Forest. The Jewish families were scattered at random, and only rarely were two Jewish families to be found in adjacent houses. The tenants, Jewish and non-Jewish, lived in so-called "courts"—cul-de-sac parking bays encircled by twenty to forty two-story garden apartments, built together in rows of five the occupants of the courts described themselves as living in a goldfish bowl in which privacy was at a minimum. Depending on the make up of the group, this court life ranged from that of "one big happy family" to a tense collection of unwilling neighbors, although with the passing of time people learned how to find privacy in a high-density world of picture windows. For many of the non-Jewish Park Foresters, the court was almost an independent social unit in which they found most, if not all, their friends, and from which they ventured only rarely, at least during the first year or two.

II. The Formation of the Jewish Community

The Jews who came to Park Forest were impelled by the same need for housing, and a desire for a suburban environment in which to raise their children, as were their neighbors. (Some of them also came to learn how to live in the suburbs before buying a house.) Soon after they arrived, they aligned themselves into a number of cliques. In a remarkably short period these formed an interrelated network by which news, gossip, and rumors could be communicated. Out of this informal community there developed a formal community of voluntary associations and religious organizations.

A. Evolution of the informal community. The developmental processes of this informal community can be described in four stages: contact, recognition, acquaintance, and friendship.

Contact is the opportunity for face-to-face meeting. In order for interaction to develop beyond this point, there had to be the mutual recognition of each other's Jewishness and status position. As an ethnic group, the Jews, form a cohesive ingroup and tend to behave differently toward a member of the ingroup than towards a non-Jew, in many cases reserving the intimacy of friendship for the former. Thus, before two persons can act in terms of the more personal ingroup norm, they must have a sign that identifies them to each other as fellow ingroup members. Without this recognition there can be no progress towards the formation of acquaintance and the regular interaction of an intimate nature (i.e., the exchange of personal facts, attitudes, and feelings which we call friendship).

Due to the fact that most of the officers of American Community Builders, Inc. (A.C.B.), the corporation that built Park Forest, are Jewish, and the further fact that several have long been active in Jewish affairs, a Jewish community in Park Forest was almost predestined. Before the opening of the development, its officers had invited several friends to move in, and these were among the first tenants.

For those not personally known to the officers, the recognition process began in each court, as families stood beside their moving van and eyed the strangers who were to be their neighbors. Recognition was initiated even before contact was made, for with the first glance, Jewish people were attempting to figure out whether one or another person could be Jewish. This hypothesizing sometimes went on for days; or, if there was relative certainty, and one person was aggressive enough, it lasted a matter of minutes. Mrs. H. described it thusly:

"Mrs. F. came over and talked to me while we were outside with the moving van. It was not a question of religion, but of recognition. I knew she was Jewish by her name, and she looked Jewish. I don't know if the thing was ever discussed. I don't know if she knew I was Jewish that first day."

Mrs. F. said of that meeting: " I didn't know Mrs. H. was Jewish. I kind of thought as much by her looks."

In this case there were two signs of recognition, the Jewish "look" and a Jewish "name." Frequently people used a customary request for each other's names to test hypotheses of recognition based on the Jewish "look."

Anthropologists are agreed that there is no Jewish race. Nevertheless, many people, and especially Jews, tend to identify Mediterranean and Armenoid facial features as Jewish. This, plus the fact that certain names are almost monopolized by Jews, has created a stereotypical recognition formula which is realistic enough to be correct more often than it is not. This formula was used in a large number of cases for determining who were the other Jews in the court; its role in the formation of the Jewish community cannot be underestimated.

The look and the name were sometimes reinforced by what might be described as Jewish mannerisms, that is, a set of gestures or verbal expressions that are—again stereotypically—ascribed to Jews:

"It was obvious he was Jewish, by name and appearance. I thought he was from New York, by his speech and action. I've run into a lot of Brooklyn people and can tell them apart. Then I went into his house and saw the candlesticks."

As the above respondent indicated, there were other signs of recognition, for some people displayed Jewish ritual objects which quickly resolved all doubts.

Sometimes, however, people turned to systematic techniques of exploration. For example, initial conversations were skillfully directed towards attempts to discover the other's religion or to offer clues as to one's own. When that failed, or seemed imprudent, the conversation turned to food habits:

". . . We have a taste for Jewish food . . . We told them what kind of food it was we liked: cornbeef, lox [smoked salmon].... "

"The day I moved in I advised that I was Jewish by asking for Jewish women who kept kosher....''

Sometimes there were no symbols or formulas which could be applied, and people found out by accident: " My next-door neighbors, they didn't look Jewish, nothing Jewish about them, but then I asked before Passover if they wanted to try some macaroons, a And we found out!"

"I knew them as neighbors, knew them for a month, then the name given me on a mailing list. I was amazed; I didn't know they were Jewish."

The recognition process was somewhat facilitated by the presence of a minister who conducted a religious survey soon after each court was occupied and informed curious Jews who the other Jews in the court were. In addition, there were a number of Jewish men who made a point of getting to know the entire Jewish community, and, thus, they were able to introduce individuals to each other.

There was no automatic progression from recognition to acquaintance without a desire for further association. In many cases, however, this desire for association with Jews was implied, if not expressed already at the recognition stage, by the aggressiveness of one person or the other in creating conditions that allowed recognition when the Jewish-look-or-name formula alone was not conclusive.

Mutual recognition was followed by further exploration of each other's ethnic characteristics and affiliations. Neighbors asked each other where they were from, where they lived last, whom they knew there, what congregation or groups they belonged to, and later turned to discussing their attitudes towards Jewish traditions and observances. The question, "Did you know the So-and-So's in --?" Was perhaps most important. People who had mutual friends, or even mutual acquaintances in previous places of residence, very quickly passed to the acquaintance and friendship stages, thus accelerating the rate of community formation.

The abundance of these prior contacts is a function of the fact that the world of the middle-class Jew is comparatively small. Even in the larger cities, there are only a limited number of Jewish organizations, temples, and neighborhoods. Furthermore, Jewish families are still extensive and maintain communication contacts even when kinship solidarity is much reduced. Consequently, people who are socially active tend to meet, or at least know about, a considerable proportion of their community's Jewish group. Many Park Forest Jews thus encountered neighbors with whom they could initiate relationships on the basis of some previous bond, even if it was nothing more than an introduction at some social function. In a new community of strangers, these prior contacts were invested with a greater significance than they would have elsewhere, and the relationships which grew from them achieved regularity and stability rather quickly. They became the foundations for the informal community, which was then completed by the slower development of social relationships among total strangers. The exchange of names also provided an opportunity for the parties involved to measure each other's social status and interests by those of the mutual acquaintance.

While it is difficult to determine at what point an acquaintance relationship became one of friendship, the overall time table of the process of informal community development was fairly uniform. Usually ten days to two weeks passed before any but the exceptionally gregarious and mobile people made any serious attempts at getting out of the house to make contacts. However, after this moving-in period, contact, recognition, and acquaintance relationships developed quickly. In general it was a matter of only four to eight weeks before people said they had friends whom they saw regularly. Some residents suggested that regularity did not yet mean intimacy: "We see the So-and-So's regularly but you really can't call them friends; we haven't been here that long." Nor was it certain that these relationships would persist. Nevertheless, in November of 1949, almost all of the families who were living in the village by July of that year had established some regular and stable sociability relationships with their fellow Jews.

B. Development of formal organizations. The development of the formal community began with the organization of a b'nai b'rith lodge and a chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women.

Among the first arrivals in Park Forest were a handful of "Jewish professionals," men who work for American-Jewish agencies. They were interested in setting up Jewish organizations, and while their activity was voluntary, like that of any other resident, their interest was still more than purely social or civic. In March of 1949, when fifty Jewish families were living in the village, one of these professionals (employed as an organizer in Chicago) considered the time to be ripe and invited a small group of men to discuss the formation of a lodge. Several of the men had met each other previously in the course of a local political campaign. Many of those present at the meeting, although vaguely in favor of a group, were not interested in any specific organization. One of them said: "We were contemplating some kind of a social club, recreational; then we hit on . . . b'nai b'rith. The fact is that we were influenced, I guess, by fellows who are with b'nai b'rith."

Consequently, the group decided to form a lodge. Some thirty-five men were invited to the next meeting. There the lodge was organized, with the professionals and a handful of other actives taking over the decision-making positions.

The organization of the women's group took place about a month later. It was initiated by two women who had just entered the village. While they knew the Jewish residents of their court, they wanted to make contact with others. Through a mailing list already compiled by the men's group, the women were contacted and invited to an organizational meeting. At this gathering the process which took place at the men's meeting was repeated. Most of those present expressed the desire and need for a women's group. The initiators proposed affiliation with the Council. Their choice was approved, and they were named to leadership positions.

Attendance and active participation in the Council of Jewish Women was immediately greater than in b'nai b'rith, reflecting the women's greater desire for Jewish companionships. Furthermore, the Council meetings provided an efficient and easily available method for newcomers to make contacts with the older settlers. It facilitated the recognition process, and initially this was perhaps the group's major—though latent—function.

The early leadership structure of both groups in its relationships with the informal community was quite similar. The top leaders in both organizations  were "lone wolves"—they belonged to no set clique in the village. The rest of the officers in both groups were drawn largely from a clique of the older, well-to-do people who had been active in formal organizational life elsewhere. This clique had become fairly well stabilized by the time the two formal groups were organized; consequently, clique members worked actively together in the structuring of the formal community.

After the organizational period, both groups evolved in the direction of  their urban counterparts. Thus, b'nai b'rith had speakers, played poker, and offered refreshments; the Council ran a number of study groups, heard other speakers, conducted charity programs, and gave the Jewish women of the community a chance to dress up and meet. In November, 1949, each had enrolled about fifty members.

III. The Child-Oriented Community:

The Organization of the Sunday School

From the point of view of gaining an understanding of the special nature of the Park Forest Jewish community, the most important process was the formation of the Sunday school. During the four months of organizing activity, the sociological and ideological splits already latent in the young community were brought to light. In the events that culminated in its organization, one may discern the growth of what will be described as the child-oriented Jewish community.

In June, 1949, eighty-six Jewish families were living in the rapidly growing community. Passover had come and gone—the handful of people who observed it traditionally having banded together to order "matzos [unleavened bread] and all the trimmings" from Chicago. The men who had organized the b'nai b'rith lodge, and who now constituted its decision making group, had already begun to discuss among themselves the organization of a congregation. It was generally agreed that Park Forest's prime problem, however, was a Sunday school for the forty-odd eligible children then in the village. Both organizations had heard speakers on this subject.

A. The organizational process: child vs. adult orientation. The b'nai b'rith leadership met one evening and outlined the setting up of a Sunday school. This was to be part of a synagogue, either Reform or Conservative. But the project was short-lived. A meeting was arranged with a delegation from the Council. The women refused to help form a congregation, for they insisted that what Park Forest needed at present was a Sunday school; they believed that the organization of a congregation could be discussed later. The men's group had also considered and voted down this alternative. The leader of the group complained:

"They [the women] hadn't faced Jewish life. They didn't care for Jewish values, but they recognized that they were Jewish, and they needed a Sunday school because the kids asked for it . ."

School

Thus began four months of discussion, argument, and conflict, something previously unfamiliar to the community but easily understandable as institutional labor pains. In other groups such conflicts can often be explained in terms of power struggles between two socio-economic strata or ideological factions. In the Jewish community, however, they may signify conflicts between groups representing different stages in the ethnic adjustment to American life. In Yankee City's Jewish community, for example, the conflict over the synagogue was a struggle between generations. At issue were the rules to be followed in the institution and the amount of acculturation to be legitimated. In Park Forest, where almost everyone is native-born and acculturated to a large and similar extent, the history of the conflict over the Sunday school may be explained as the ascendancy of a new type of formal Jewish community, the child-oriented one. This contrasts with the traditional Jewish community, which may be described as adult-oriented.

The adult-oriented community is one whose religious-cultural activities are focused around its adult population, and in which the children's role is to learn to become adults, and to assume adult functions at the earliest opportunity. The child-oriented community is one in which the community's organizational energy is focused almost exclusively around the children's problems and needs as Jewish children (as perceived by the parents) while at the same time most of the adults abstain from religious-cultural activities and involvement in the community.

The Sunday school conflict in Park Forest was from the beginning a conflict between these two concepts of community organization. The men who wanted a congregation were thinking of an adult Jewish community training its children through a congregational Sunday school for eventual membership in the adult Jewish group. The women represented the child oriented conception; they wanted a school for the children. As soon became clear, it was one that would not involve the adults in the Jewish community. Thus, one man pointed out, very bitterly, that: "The Jews are running away from each other. They don't want to stick out, and in a small community like this, they do stick out."

The women, equally bitter, accused the men of wanting a "Jewish Community Incorporated." Heated words revealed the underlying pattern. The women were accused of deserting the adult Jewish community; the men were said to be trying to overorganize it.

The conflict between these opposing concepts became clearer in the weeks that followed. A steering committee consisting of four men and four women was formed to proceed with the actual organization of the school while the men handled the administrative organization and the budget, curriculum problem was left to a young Chicago rabbi who had first been invited as a speaker, and had then become interested in Park Forest. He supported the women in their rejection of the synagogue but suggested instead an adult-oriented Sunday school. He made this quite clear at public meeting held early in October, 1949, when he said:

[QUOTE?]

The reaction to the rabbi's remarks came a week later at a meeting called to discuss the choice of texts and to answer parents' questions. There quickly developed a spirited discussion of the curriculum. (The rabbi did not attend, having meanwhile accepted a post outside the Chicago area.) A large number of the parents voiced their dissatisfaction with the rabbi's ideas and demanded what they described as a "secular" Sunday school which would teach the child about Jewish traditions. It would not put pressure on parents to observe these in the home. Under the misnomer of "secular," the major concept of the child-oriented school was defined in public for the first time.

The committee defended the rabbi's formulation. However, when feelings began to rise, some of the disagreement in the committee itself became public and finally the group resigned. In the heat of debate, one woman stated her belief that a locally staffed school could be set up, and she was asked to recruit a new committee. The group was voted into office after giving assurances that it would maintain a child-oriented approach.

The new committee felt it lacked sufficient Jewish background and experience to organize the school and sought help from a Jewish group worker (who had been away while the conflict raged) and his wife. He went to work and, after others had refused, he accepted the presidency of the group. His wife, an experienced Hebrew school teacher, agreed to become the superintendent of the school, which meanwhile had already announced an opening date.

While registration of children was taking place, the group worker met with the committee. Because of his previous experience, and the fact that he was a stranger to everyone concerned and had not been involved in the ideological and personal conflicts, he was able to get the various factions to work together. In talking with the parents of prospective students the couple found that:

"As we train the children, you will have to train them yourself. [You will] have to move towards a community center and a synagogue eventually [and] give the children support."

"The chief objection seemed to be, they don't want the child taught that he must do this and that, light Sabbath candles, etc., So that when he comes home and his parents are not doing these things, there is no trouble."

They explained the curriculum to the parents, assuring them that: "The children will not be taught that parents have to light candles; the children will be informed of the background of candles.... We're teaching the child not that he must do these things; we just teach him the customs."

They also suggested to the parents that candles ought to be lit, if only to satisfy the needs of the child. In describing the major direction of the curriculum the couple unconsciously summarized the opposing points of view: "It was pointed out that the parents too play a role in the education, but we thought that the historical approach was best." Parental pressure had thus resulted in a child-oriented school.

B. The function of child orientation in the ethnic process. The traditional Jewish community has always emphasized adult orientation and adult-oriented activities. In the religious code, the period of childhood was terminated at thirteen and the young Jew was expected to take part in the intellectual and ritual activities of the adults. The traditional curriculum prepared youngsters for these activities, though the rigor of the training did not take into consideration that the student was a child. Reform and Conservative groups instituted many changes, but their organizational objectives and activities continued to be oriented toward adults. The American Jewish community remains officially adult-oriented. Major emphasis is placed on adult activities, although actual attendance and participation statistics would probably indicate a changing pattern. In Park Forest, however, adult Jews quite consciously rejected any involvement in the religious and cultural aspects of the Jewish community, while trying to teach the children to be Jews.

The source of this change seemed to lie in the American-Jewish middle class family. The Sunday school is an institution which transmits norms of ethnic culture and symbols of identification, whereas the home and the family are run by secular, middle-class behavior patterns. The parents expected that the contradictions between the concept of the traditional Jewish home implicit in the Sunday school curriculum and that of the actual one would result in family tensions. Consequently, the parents were firm in not wanting the youngsters to bring the traditional patterns, plus the pressure of their youthful persuasiveness, into the house.

The group workers' advice to the parents to light Friday night candles for the satisfaction of the needs of the child appears as a significant redefinition of the traditional adult-oriented pattern. The statement accepted the fact that the parents were no longer emotionally involved in the ceremony. It redefined their role in a child-oriented manner—they became instruments which focused the ceremony exclusively toward the child. The traditional ceremony itself remained the same.

Why should the parents want to involve their children in the Jewish culture while withdrawing their own participation? Some explanations can be inferred from the reasons parents gave for sending their children to Sunday school.

Uppermost was the parental desire to develop and to reinforce Jewish identification through learning about Jewish history and traditions. That the child should internalize this identification was taken for granted. One parent explained: " When a child grows up, you begin to let the child know what she is and make her familiar with the Jewish people . . . To learn what Judaism is about she might as well learn what she is, and what it means...."

The reinforcement pattern was stressed by parents of several six- and seven-year-olds, who hoped that the Sunday school would supply the children with answers about their identity. The interviewees indicated that such questions began to develop in the children's peer groups at this age. Some times the children were stimulated by a remark made in school or by phrases picked up from the parental conversation. One child may have discovered that he is Protestant and that there are also Catholics and Jews, He brought that information to the group, which then tried to apply these newly discovered categories to its members. Soon the Jewish children came home to ask their parents what they were, "were they Jewish," or perhaps even to inquire,"Papa, why do I have to be Jewish?" Here the Sunday school was asked to come to the rescue and to help the parents solve their children's problems. One father reported that his son, now in Sunday school, could: "Probably tell me more [about Judaism] than I can. Sixty per cent of the Jews couldn't answer the questions their children ask."

Some parents were troubled by the children's questions because of their own ambivalence about the answers, but others were less concerned about their own ideas than with the fear that a wrong answer to the child might lead to undesirable emotional consequences.

Less sophisticated parents who wanted their children to learn about being Jewish complemented all of this by the qualification, "We want him to know what it's all about so that later he will have the background to make a choice." The notion that a Jewish child has a choice about being Jewish (at least in terms of public affiliation and overt social behavior) and that he could make his own decision in early adolescence or early adulthood was voiced even by some parents who minutes later expressed their own continuing ambivalence about how to act and feel as regards to their identity.

Another group of parents saw Sunday school preparation as a defense against later hardships arising out of the minority position of the American Jew. Two parents suggested that: "A Jewish child, he's something different. He's never one of the boys in a Gentile group; even if he's the best guy he's one of the outsiders, the first to get abused. And if he doesn't know why, it's going to be a great shock. It's part of his training, the Sunday school; he needs it."

"I want him to have more security and acceptance in regard to his status and relationship with society—be better prepared than I was. . ."

The origin and growth of [. . .]

Another reason for the parents' desire to have their children attend Sunday school stemmed from the latter's distinctive sociological position in the suburban Jewish community. While the parents selected their intimate friends from within the Jewish group, the children found their playmates in the court, without concern for ethnic origin. In this respect they differed from big-city children who grow up in a peer group which is largely Jewish, partly for ecological reasons and partly because their parents try to bring them up among Jewish children. Furthermore, in Park Forest, the Jewish children of grammar-school age soon saw their non-Jewish friends leave for school on Sunday mornings. They also heard about it from them later. Then, as one mother explained: " Our kids run around in the court, they want to get dressed up and go to church too. The Sunday school [the Jewish one] will give them something to do."

A number of children were actually sent to Protestant school a few times, but in general this pressure from the children was translated into an accelerated parental demand for a Jewish school.

For most of these parents, the Sunday school was not—like the traditional educational institution, the cheder—a religious or cultural school, and few considered the teaching of Jewish tradition to be an intrinsic end. Rather, the Jewish father in Park Forest who arises early on Sunday morning in order to deliver his youngster to Sunday school, conceived the institution to be a school in Jewish identity, in "Jewishness," not in Judaism.

C. The child-oriented holidays. The Sunday school was not alone in being child-oriented. During the fourteen months covered by this study, all of the adult activities of the formal organizations—aside from some sociability programs—were also oriented towards the children. The b'nai b'rith group nearly collapsed when its leadership was drawn into the attempt to organize a congregation, and later a Sunday school. After the school had been set up, the lodge immediately went to work on a Chanukah party which it planned to make an annual event of major proportions. The officers had realized that child orientation was dominant in Park Forest. One speculated hopefully that "perhaps the party will draw the parents closer together."

Even the future congregation, which then existed only as a discussion topic, was conceived of as child-oriented. In asking respondents whether or not they would like to see a congregation established in the village, we found that two-thirds responded favorably. Of those who gave a reason, 48 per cent explained that they wanted it exclusively for the children:

"I just like to feel that I belong, as far as the childen are concerned. I'd like to keep it up, for them to think they should belong."

"I want to give him the opportunity of witnessing something Jewish; he doesn't get too much at home."

Others were more emphatic in their child orientation: " You can't get me down . . . I don't believe in praying . . . In God . . . I want it for my son and daughter, I want them to know what it's like. I have had the background . . . I remember I enjoyed it at the time."

In Park Forest the Jewish holidays were major instruments for teaching and reinforcing Jewish identification, and in this process, they too became child-oriented. Perhaps because of the age of most of the children, major emphasis was placed on what were called the happy holidays: Sukkoth, Passover, Purim and Chanukah (traditionally commemorating the fall harvest, and victories over Egyptian, Persian and Syrian persecution respectively).

Chanukah bulked largest of all. Even at Chanukah-time in 1948, when the Park Forest Jewish community numbered less than twenty families, the problem of Chanukah vs. Christmas had already concerned the parents. A year later the subject loomed large indeed. Thus, the Council devoted its November meeting to ways of celebrating Chanukah; the apparent need to counteract the non-Jewish holiday encouraged the sale of $300 worth of religious materials. The parental concern was understandable, for by late November the peer groups in which Jewish children participated were eagerly awaiting Christmas and Santa Claus. Naturally, the Jewish children attempted to share these expectations and asked their parents for Christmas trees. The parents acted quickly:

"My child wanted a Christmas tree, and we talked her out of it.... I make a fuss about Chanukah to combat Christmas. I build Chanukah up, and she appreciates Chanukah lights just as much. What we have done is to give her presents every night."

"The F's had a big menorah in their window; that was very fine; maybe i'll do the same next year.... I could put my little menorah up there, I could wire it; is that O.K.? We could have different color lights—no, that's too much like Christmas."

Other parents explained that they decorated the menorah, and even the entire house, and used electric candles instead of wax ones. They tried hard to emphasize and advertise Chanukah to the child, and at the same time to exclude the Christmas tree and its related symbols from his environment. Parents were very bitter about the Jewish families who displayed Christmas trees. The names of these people were known throughout a large part of the Jewish community and described in hostile terms. One mother explained:

"The main trouble is with other Jews. In our house we do certain things, and in other Jewish houses, they don't, and the children ask questions.... It's very confusing when Jewish people celebrate a definitely Christian holiday; I don't know what to tell my children when there are Jewish people with a Christmas tree on Chanukah."

During this conflict between the American and the ethnic culture, the ethnic festival undergoes marked changes. The traditionally simple menorah must compete with the visually more exciting Christmas tree; the gaiety and glitter of the Christmas season forces the parents to use a redecorated Chanukah to reinforce the child's Jewishness. Thus, Chanukah becomes increasingly a Jewish Christmas. In this process, the parents' already minimal participation in the holiday is forgotten. Chanukah, more so than any other festival, becomes completely child-oriented.

IV. The Adults: Secular Involvement in Sacred Patterns

Religion in Park Forest is thus primarily for the children; the adults have been pictured so far only as its somewhat unwilling handmaidens. However, their own religious activities, or lack of them, are equally important in shaping the suburban Jewish community and will now be discussed.

Although Park Forest's isolation from religious facilities discouraged tradition-oriented residents, the village did attract two groups of people who wanted congregational affiliation. One group consisted of high-income families who had previously been active in congregations elsewhere. After the unsuccessful attempt to set up a synagogue in the village, about ten families equal in socio-economic position and status to the well-to-do storeowners and professionals in nearby Chicago Heights, joined the Reform congregation there. In addition, there were about ten families from Chicago's lower-middle-class Jewish areas who maintained enough of the traditional religious complex of behavior patterns and attitudes to describe themselves as Orthodox or Conservative. They favored the establishment of a Conservative synagogue in the village.

The large majority made no effort at religious affiliation at this time, however. Judged by religious practices and synagogue attendance, most Park Foresters were not observant. As indicated in Table 6, 59 per cent of the families said that they had not attended religious services in recent years. The "break," if it can be described as such, generally came with the leaving of the parental home.

While previous synagogue attendance was greater among actives than inactives, it was also higher among parents with children of Sunday school age. However, Table 7 suggests that the presence of older children was a more significant factor than activity itself. After arriving in Park Forest, even the more loyal Sabbath worshippers ceased attending services. The nearest synagogues were in Chicago Heights, about fifteen minutes riding-distance away, but considerable social and cultural distance existed between that community's wealthy Reform temple, its Orthodox synagogue, and most of the residents of Park Forest. Geographical and social distance, lack of motivation, and the problem of baby-sitters all served to keep residents from attending services in Chicago Heights. Chicago's synagogues were one and one-half to two and one-half hours away, and only on the High Holidays did some ax-Chicagoans return to the city for services and family reunions.

For the observant few, the isolation from other Jewish institutions led to compromises and eventual neglect of traditions that could be kept up only with extraordinary effort. Two examples suggest that forsaking of tradition appears to take place particularly at times of residential change. One of the housewives reported:

"I used to buy kosher meat till about a year ago.... I just didn't like the kosher butcher in the neighborhood when we moved to Chicago; he gave me bad cuts.... I was just fed up, and everybody else was eating nonkosher meat, so I thought I'd try it. It took me two years to get used to it—many times I threw steaks away, I just couldn't eat them—but now I think non-kosher cuts are much better."

A Conservative resident explained his dilemma about one of the major holidays. Should he drive to the synagogue and violate one law, he wondered, or stay home and miss services, thus violating another commandment? In the absence of theological counsel, he finally decided it would be more fitting to drive to services than to stay away.

For the majority of the residents, such problems were nonexistent. Their Friday nights were spent as others spend them in Park Forest—entertaining, going out, or staying home. Some people did light the Sabbath candles at dinner time, however. Saturdays were reserved for work around the house, shopping, visiting, and taking care of responsibilities and errands for which suburbanites have no time during the week.

Two types of Jewish religious patterns were still being observed. The first were the holidays and traditions that had become child-oriented. The others were those that related the Jew to his parents. Thus, several of the men remarked matter-of-factly that they were not interested in religious observances, but added, just as matter-of-factly, "except Yahrzeit Tig [the annual remembrance of dead parents] of course." Others mentioned keeping certain holidays: " The only thing we did, at my son's birth we had a rabbi at the circumcision, mostly for my wife's parents; they would have felt bad."

Some people spent the holidays with parents, in-laws, or grandparents, celebrating them less as religious ceremonies than as family get-togethers. One respondent explained in jest: " I believe Rosh Hashanah [the Jewish New Year] should be two days, Passover too, for practical purposes. One day we go to his family, the other to mine."

Of the four housewives in the sample who were keeping kosher households, one explained: " I don't believe in keeping kosher . . . I do it for my parents now . . . I owe it to them to make my home welcome to them; I would prefer to go to the A & P . . . It's this weird sense of obligation to my parents."

Due to the fact that almost all Park Forest's Jewish residents came from more-or-less Orthodox homes, deference to the parents was expressed in these religious terms, even by those otherwise nonobservant. Many such individuals had broken away from all personal religious observance when they left the parental home. An Orthodox upbringing had left its mark, however, for the people who were no longer observant were conscious of this fact. The uneasiness and embarrassment which greeted the section of the interview on religious behavior suggested guilt feelings and indicated the extent to which the immigrant standards remained in force psychologically even though they were no longer implemented behaviorally. In fact, some individuals viewed the desire to have children attend Sunday school as compensation for guilt feelings about personal religious deviations. One observer commented: " The parents aren't interested but they sort of give their kids Sunday school as a castor oil, a preventative for what ails the parents."

The parentally oriented religious observances created the first demand for a village religious institution. In January, 1949, when twenty-five Jewish families lived in Park Forest, the group already had a rabbi-substitute. A gregarious Jewish professional, although a layman, appointed himself on the basis of having had more religious training than any other resident. He ministered to occasional needs for technical religious advice and reported that: " Someone needed Hebrew writing on a tombstone, they were told to call me; someone else wanted Yiskor [prayer for the dead] or Yahrzeit services, they called me." When the Jewish population increased, other men served this function in other sections of the oommunity.

The religious needs were not strong enough to create sufficient demand for a synagogue. In September, 1949, after the first unsuccessful attempt to set up the congregation, two small groups of residents tried to organize High Holiday [New Year and Day of Atonement] services. However, because of poor communication between the newer courts, and the fact that the existing Jewish organizations in the older parts of the village were either engrossed in the Sunday school fight or had not yet resumed operations after the normal summer layoff, neither group was able to get a minyan [the quorum of ten needed to hold public services]. Some families went to Chicago to celebrate the High Holidays with relatives.

Reference has already been made to the desire for a congregation as: (1) an institution to maintain the adult-oriented Jewish community, (2) an instrument in a power struggle, (3) a child-oriented device for the inculcation of Jewishness, and (4) a religious institution (for a minority). A fifth function of the congregation in the suburban community became apparent after the High Holidays. At that time a small group of Jewish residents in what were then the newest courts had found each other and decided after an evening's discussion that Park Forest should have a congregation. With the militancy of a newly established social movement, they planned to organize a mass meeting, run a fund-raising dance and make a special financial appeal to the developer. While the project never materialized, a statement made by the group's leader is significant. He said as follows: " We need a synagogue so they'll have more respect for us, to show that we have arrived, that we're not merely a bunch of individuals."

"They" referred to the non-Jewish neighbors. As it happened, the area in which the agitation arose was occupied by some small-town Midwesterners and Southerners who had already shown their distaste for their Jewish neighbors. The desire for physical evidence of Jewish group existence, and for a unifying symbol to negate feelings of inequality in the face of aggression, was translated into the militant demand for a congregation."

This function of the congregation as a symbol of Jewish solidarity was also suggested during the interviewing by other residents in older parts of the village. Almost one-third of those who gave reasons for wanting a synagogue in Park Forest thought along the lines suggested by the following two respondents:

"I think it's sort of nice for the Jewish community to have a focal point; the religious congregation is a focal point."

"If the others are here, I don't see why a synagogue shouldn't be.... It's
not competition as much as a matter of self-respect; I mean when the Catholic Church is established, it'll have something to offer.... I would not like the Jewish community to have to rely on another church."

"Respect. The Jews should carry their load."

The extent of the religious interests of the adult community was illustrated further by the responses to the previously mentioned interview question about a congregation. Some 66 percent of the respondents were favorable toward the formation of a congregation. Since it was both psychologically and morally easier for a respondent to favor a synagogue than to oppose it, attitude intensity was also analyzed. Table 8 indicates that only 32 per cent of the sample could be described as personally involved in this problem (43 per cent if the unfavorable ones are included), and 57 per cent were indifferent, although most of them favorably so. Actives were considerably more favorable toward a congregation and personally more involved than the inactives.

Attitudes toward a congregation were also more favorable among parents with school-age children ( see Table 9 ). However, a separate analysis of the favorable-involved respondents showed that the presence of older children seemed to be more significant than activity.

While the community climate in 1949 did not seem to be conducive to a congregation, the attitude analysis indicates that the favorable-involvement on the part of more than half the actives combined with the support of a quarter of the inactives, and the indifference of most of the others, might not present any major obstacles to the setting up of a congregation (although it might place a handicap on its ability to achieve widespread support ). The kind of congregation that might be set up could be guessed at by an analysis of the reasons given by the favorable-involved and the favorable-indifferent respondents. Of the respondents who gave any reasons, 48 per cent favored a child-oriented congregation; only 14 percent, all of them favorable-involved, wanted a synagogue for the religious cultural observances of the entire family (see Table 10).

V. The Informal Community —  The Ethnic Cohesion of Sociability

While Jewish Park Foresters may have been child-oriented when concerned with Jewish religious life, and though they avoided involvement with adult Jewish activities, they were nevertheless willing and desirous of associating with other Jews. Groups were formed consisting usually of another couple or a clique of couples. Together they composed the informal Jewish community.

A. Sociability Patterns. On the whole, the informal community existed only at night. In the daytime Park Forest was inhabited by housewives and the ever present children, and the Jewish women participated in the social life of the courts in which they lived. They interrupted their household duties to chat and "visit with" a neighbor over a morning cup of coffee or while watching the children in the afternoon. They also belonged to the bridge and sewing clubs that were established in many courts. In these non-intimate, quasi-occupational relationships, which in many ways resembled their husbands' relationships at the office, ethnic distinctions were minimized.

In the evening and weekend social relationships of couples, however, the Jewish husband and wife turned primarily to other Jews. One housewife summarized matters as follows: "My real close friends are Jewish, my after-dark friends in general are Jewish, but my daytime friends are Gentile."

Table 11 shows the sociability choices of thirty respondents who volunteered the names of their friends living in the village. Although the figures are small, it is apparent that the actives chose their friends among other Jews to a greater extent than the inactives. However, about half the people who named both Jews and non-Jews pointed out that their best friends were Jewish, and two of the inactives who "saw" mainly non-Jews explained that they were merely visiting with nearby neighbors and implied that the search for friends had not yet begun in earnest. Two of the respondents who named only non-Jews were attempting to avoid all relationships with Jews. Thus, for the purpose of "friendship" as distinguished from "neighboring," and especially for close relationships, the Jewish residents seemed to prefer other Jews. The informal Jewish community existed primarily for this function.

The cliques into which this community was subdivided varied in size from two to six couples. Sociometric factors as well as living room size set this as an upper limit. A superficial sociometric analysis indicated that these cliques were connected into a network (which existed primarily for communication) by people who belonged to more than one clique, and by a few others who maintained loose memberships with a large number. These latter people, who made few close friends, chose to get to know as many people as possible and derived pride and satisfaction from the acquisition of such relationships. During the time of the study, the informal community came together only once. This was at a village dance. As both Jews and non-Jews later reported, the Jews at this affair congregated in one section of the hall.

The formation of cliques was accelerated by the people with previous acquaintances. However, loose as these contacts may have been (a fleeting introduction at a meeting or party suffficed), such people established friendship relationships much more quickly than strangers who had first to explore each others' social attributes and interests. They generally became "charter members" of a clique which then attracted strangers into its circle. Of the approximately twenty-five cliques and combinations isolated in the sample, twenty had been formed, at least in part, on the basis of previous or mutual acquaintance. In this respect, the Jews differed sharply from other Park Foresters, most of whom knew no one when they arrived in the village.

Cliques were formed primarily on the basis of class, status, age, and ethnic background criteria. One of the largest and most powerful of the cliques was made up predominantly of relatively older, higher-income Park Foresters, many of them previously active in big-city Jewish congregations and groups. Most of the men held supervisory positions in business or industry or were in the non-academic professions. A second clique consisted largely of academicians, researchers, scientists, writers, and their wives (many of whom were active on the community newspaper). A third was made up of families who had come to Park Forest from areas of second and third settlement. They were torn between their lower-middle-class and still partially tradition-oriented ways of life and the upper-middle class ways of the first clique.

Despite the class-status homogeneity of the cliques, members often harbored the most diverse attitudes toward Jewishness. Respondents reported frequent clique discussions on Jewish topics, and commented:

"I don't start these discussions; it's a beautiful subject to steer away from. There are more fights about religion than anything else."

"There's a couple with whom we're very friendly; we like each other very much. They don't believe the way we do, and if we discuss it, it would just lead to argument."

Whereas most non-Jewish Park Foresters chose their friends from within their courts, Jews tended to wander outside the court for their social relationships. Sometimes this was due to the absence of other Jews, but when this was not the case, clique membership and associated status and age criteria were more important than locational ones. One respondent described her relationship with the other Jewish women in the court:

"We've never spent an evening together. Mrs. F. and I are good friends, we walk together, but she is a bit older.... She travels in a different circle of people . . . With an older, more settled crowd, better off; if they have children, they're beyond the preschool age."

B. Friendship and ingroup behaviour. Many factors must be considered in the explanation of this intraethnic friendship pattern. A fundamental one is the age-old segregation between Jew and non-Jew in Western society. Despite political emancipation, this segregation has been maintained by cultural differences. While many of these differences are being eliminated by acculturation, not enough time has elapsed for this change to affect adult social, and especially peer-group, relationships. As a consequence, current Jewish-non-Jewish relationships are still based largely on the historic segregation. Most Jews seem to assume its continued existence. Also, some feel they would be rejected in non-Jewish society, while others are not much interested in primary relationships with non-Jews.

Perhaps most often, the long segregation has made association solely with other Jews almost habitual. The interview material indicated that most Park Forest Jews grew up in urban Jewish neighborhoods. Their parental circle, and their own childhood, adolescent, and adult peer groups, were predominantly Jewish. In the absence of any strong incentives or socio-economic and ideological pressures for greater social intimacy with non-Jews, these patterns of association were rarely questioned.

An important functional basis for the choice of Jewish friends was contained in the attitude shared by many Park Forest Jews that "it's easier being with Jews." Since sociability is primarily a leisure activity, and in a suburban community one of the major forms of relaxation and self-expression, the belief that there is likely to be less tension in social relationships with other Jews becomes all-important. A respondent who had both Jewish and non-Jewish friends pointed out:

"You can give vent to your feelings. If you talk to a Christian and say you don't believe in this, you are doing it as a Jew; with Jewish friends you can tell 'em point blank what you feel."

However ambivalent their feelings towards Judaism, in a group of friends, the Jews form a strong ingroup with well-verbalized attitudes toward the non-Jewish outgroup. The group cohesion, the ingroup attitude, and the anti-outgroup feeling that often accompanies it, are expressed frequently at the informal parties and gatherings where the friendly atmosphere and the absence of non-Jews creates a suitable environment. These feelings are verbalized through the Jewish joke, which expresses aspects of the Jew's attitude toward himself as well as toward the outgroup, or through direct remarks about the outgroup. At parties which are predominantly Jewish, it is necessary to find out if everyone is Jewish before such attitudes can be expressed overtly. When someone in the gathering who is assumed to be Jewish turns out to be otherwise, the atmosphere becomes very tense and the non-Jewish person may be avoided thereafter.

The manifestation of this ingroup attitude was described by one respondent who was converted to Judaism in his twenties. He told of becoming disturbed over a discussion at an informal party, the subject being how to inculcate Judaism into the children "and keep them away from the goyim (non-Jews )." This resident was very active in the Jewish community and feared the consequences of revealing his origin. Nevertheless, he felt the time had come to announce that he had been born and raised a Christian. The declaration broke up the party and shocked many people. He said afterwards: "From now on, they'll be on their guard with me in their presence. They've lost their liberty of expression. They don't express themselves without restriction now. At a party if anybody says something, everybody looks to see if I've been offended and people are taken into a corner and explained about me." Despite the fact that this person had adopted the Jewish religion, was raising his children as Jews, and was active in Jewish life, he was no longer a member of the ingroup although he remained a member both of the community and of his clique.

In summary, ingroup feelings provided a solid base of emotional security for group members of the type which they felt they could not receive from strictly organizational and religious activities. It gave a cohesive function to the informal community.

C. Ethnic cohesion through intellectual positions and leisuretime preferences. Some of the more highly educated members of the community rejected these ingroup feelings as "chauvinistic"; they pointedly responded that they did not distinguish between Jews and non-Jews in choosing friends. Nevertheless, they remained in the ingroup. They made statements like the following: "The funny thing is, most of our friends are Jewish even though we say we don't care." Or they said, on a note of guilt: "I think we should try to have friends that aren't Jewish. I don't like the fact that all my friends are Jewish." Such Jews sensed that their failure to associate with non-Jews was not due to ethnic differences, but rather to their own special orientation toward American society and middle-class culture. Several reported such differences with honest misgivings and alarm:

"I think most Jews feel they are a little better than others . . . They wont admit it; they think they're smarter than the rest. I almost guess Jews live by brain more than anyone else."

"We're smarter, that's a prejudice. It's not true."

"We have better intuition, but I know . . ."

"The Jews are more conscientious, they get more involved as in the League of Women Voters."

These feelings were summarized in extreme form by one respondent:

"I have a friend who is not Jewish who told me how fortunate I was in being born Jewish. Otherwise I might be one of the sixteen to eighteen out of twenty Gentiles without a social conscience and liberal tendencies.... Being Jewish, most of the Jews, nine out of ten, are sympathetic with other problems; they sympathize, have more culture and a better education; strictly from the social and cultural standpoint a man is lucky to be born a Jew."

These attitudes had some basis in reality, for there seemed to be proportionately more Jews than non-Jews in Park Forest who expressed strong feelings of social consciousness, a personal concern in the political, social and economic problems of the larger society, some interest in intellectual questions, and a tendency towards humanistic agnosticism. Similarly, more Jews seemed to be interested in serious music and the fine arts, or at least the "highbrow" or "upper-middle brow" mass media fare, in the so-called "higher quality" magazines, in the reading of books, and in membership in a Park Forest Cinema Club which showed foreign and art films.

As a result, Jews who sought people sharing this subculture of intellectual interests and leisure preference tended to find them more easily among other Jews. In part this was due to the greater accessibility of other Jews. However, this was not a sufficient factor. Jews came together not only because they were Jews but because they shared the subculture, though it was actually devoid of Jewish themes. Furthermore, when Jewish problems were discussed by this group (and they were discussed), these were seen from a generalized world-view rather than from the ingroup perspectives described above. Since the reasons for associating with other Jews were not primarily ethnic, ethnic distinctions were not made. The Jewish scientists and academicians in the village formed a number of cliques organized on the basis of this shared culture. Membership, though predominantly Jewish, included non-Jews as well.

The explanation for the fact that Jews seem to be more predominant in this culture than non-Jews is a complex one which can only be suggested here. In part, it stems from the fact that the second generation Jew is frequently a marginal person whose upbringing makes him sensitive to the world around him. Furthermore, this culture is associated with upper- and upper-middle class circles, and in Park Forest was shared by Jews who were either already upper-middle class, or moving in that direction. However, people did not choose this culture for its status implications for they did not choose it consciously. Rather, they were drawn to it as much by their marginality as their mobility.

VI. Some Elements of a Young Suburban
 Jewish Community: A Summary

In 1949, Park Forest was a new, growing, and only partially completed community which could be expected to change significantly before stabilizing. Nevertheless, a number of elements in the make-up of the community, even after only a year of existence, seemed fundamental enough to remain unchanged.

First, the single theme which seems to characterize Park Forest Jews best is their child orientation. Second, in behavior and aspirations, they are solidly identified with one part or another of the ubiquitous middle class consumption culture—even though they are likely to share this culture, especially in their intimate sociable activities, only with other Jews. Their adjustment to American society and their present position in it can be described therefore as behavioral acculturation, but with continued social cohesion and isolation. Thus, the Jews of Park Forest remain an ethnic group, albeit different from the parental one. As cultural differentiation has disappeared, ingroup cohesion depends increasingly on the feeling of Jewishness and identification with a group known as Jews. This cohesion in the face of cultural change cannot be better illustrated than by the angry comment of one Jewish resident about his Jewish neighbor:

"He went to work on Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement]. That made me so mad. I think that's our day, I don't believe in Yom Kippur and I can't fast . . . But I do think it's an important day; that's not hypocrisy."

This feeling of Jewish identity provided the impetus for the parents' insistence on a Sunday school, for their transformation of the Chanukah holiday, and for the unending attempt to indoctrinate the child with a sense of Jewishness.

From a functional perspective, child orientation must be viewed as a social mechanism by which Jewishness is transmitted to the next generation. In most societies, the group's esprit de corps is transmitted latently through the children's imitation of, and partial participation in, adult activities. In Park Forest, however, this transmission has become a manifest process, programmed by the school. This has permitted parents to select their own involvement pattern even while seeking ethnic allegiance from their children.

In the transmission of ethnic identification, the cultural tradition is also passed on, though as an instrument and a by-product, and consequently with alterations in content. Nevertheless, so long as Judaism is the curriculum for transmitting Jewishness, the traditional behavior patterns and ideas will at least be discussed and taught, even though their incorporation into the rules of daily life seems highly unlikely. Child orientation is thus a mechanism that guarantees the existence of the ethnic group and its culture for another generation, despite the indifference, ambivalence, or rejection of the culture by the adult carriers.

Third, the community divides itself into "actives" and "inactives." In 1949, the actives made up about 27 per cent of the sample. However, this proportion was probably temporarily high, for leaders of minority factions would later withdraw from activity as the organizations crystallized around majority points of view. As a group, the actives are distinguished as having a somewhat higher average income, better education, and higher status occupation than the inactives. Actives are more likely to be upper middle class in consumption characteristics.

The inactives show a relative indifference to formal organizations, especially if their children are not yet of Sunday school age. However, the direction of this indifference tended to be favorable toward a proposed congregation, especially if this was defined as a child-oriented institution. The actives, on the other hand, are personally more involved in a congregation. They are likely to rank the existence and growth of the formal organizations ahead of their personal religious-cultural attitudes, which seem also to be primarily child-oriented.

Fourth, the developmental history of the Jewish community testifies to the role of the Jewish professional as a spearhead, or "catalytic agent," of the actives. Jewish professionals helped to bring Jewish residents together, they administered to their religious needs, started the lodge, tried to organize a congregation, helped in forming the Sunday school, and have since supervised Jewish education in the village. The Jewish professional who replaced the citizen leader as the main cog in group formation seems to be a new man on the Jewish scene, and his role may be another contribution to the trend of a functional rationalization of community life. He is not a rabbi, but rather a youth worker, teacher, fund-raiser, social worker, or public relations man whose occupational skills may be useful in the extra-curricular task of starting a new community. But even more important, in Park Forest, he is an expert at being Jewish, a skill many other Park Foresters do not have. Sometimes this expert Jewishness is a part of his background and his reason for becoming a professional. At times it results from a desire to work in the Jewish community rather than among non-Jews. Sometimes the expert's Jewishness may be expressed primarily in his career, so that after-hours activities in community organizations are a means of career advancement. Whatever his motivations, in Park Forest, the Jewish professional directed the actives in a considerable part of formal Jewish community development. In the informal community, his influence was much smaller for his professional techniques were not applicable.

Fifth, the sexual division of labor in the Jewish community has changed. In the suburb, and especially in the suburban dormitory, the men's daytime absence shifts a much greater role in its affairs to the women, except in functions requiring business skills and aspirations such as power. In Park Forest, while the men still ran the financial and political aspects of community organization, the women participated in the ideological disputes and achieved their version of the Sunday school curriculum.

In the middle-class family, mothers generally play the major role in child-raising. As a result, their concern with Jewish education seems also to be stronger than that of the men. Furthermore, they are likely to be child-oriented, viewing the school mainly in terms of its consequences for the child. This is a major shift from the traditional Jewish family organization in which the father, as religious leader of the household, supervised the children's education for an adult community in which he himself was playing a role. Thus the traditional father was likely to be adult-oriented.

Furthermore, it seems clear that the women live a greater part of their life within the Jewish community and are more concerned with matters relating to ethnic problems. In Park Forest, they inaugurated social contacts with other Jews, set up the informal Jewish community, and put some pressure both on the men and on the children to keep their social contacts within the ethnic group. The men, on the other hand, seem to place less emphasis on ethnic association; b'nai b'rith was less successful than the Council in developing an active program.

Finally, the Jewish community has been shaped also by the mobility aspirations of its members and the emerging class-status hierarchy. In Park Forest, this seemed to be developing into four major groups. First, the upper-middle-class residents could be divided into two groups according to occupation of family heads. One consisted of men in business supervisory positions and non-academic professions, the other of those in the more academic professions. Between the two there was relatively little social contact. A third set included those residents in lower-middle-class white-collar occupations. The majority of the community was in the suburban middle-middle class (see footnote 13), although a number of families in this aggregate would eventually adopt the consumption and community activity patterns identified with the upper-middle class. A smaller group, who were living beyond their financial capacity and social skills, might have to relinquish their present status position in the event of setbacks.

The actual and potential upper-middle-class people originating from Chicago came to Park Forest from areas of third and fourth settlement. The lower-middle, and some of the middle-middle-class people, came primarily from those of second or third settlement, or had lived in such areas before the combination of marriage, desire to escape the ethnic neighborhood, and the postwar housing shortage, scattered them all over the city's transitional areas.

Whether the Jewish residents of Park Forest were socially more mobile than other urban Jews of similar socio-economic levels, or their non-Jewish neighbors in the village, can be determined only through comparative studies. Various data indicate that the Jews in Park Forest were generally of a higher socio-economic level than the non-Jews. However, this can probably be explained by the fact that non-Jews with incomes at the higher levels might move to areas more prestigiousl than Park Forest and might be less interested in pioneering than in moving to areas whose status was already ascertained.

A similar explanation may be applicable to the Jews' proportionally high rate of activity in the village's political and civic affairs. In November, 1949, only 9 per cent of the community's population, but 30 per cent of the candidates in the first two village elections, were Jewish. Furthermore, the Jews were more successful in getting elected for five of the six members of the first Board of Education and three of the six members of the first village government (including one who later became its president) were Jewish. A proportionally large number of Jews were represented among the founders of the community newspaper, the American Veterans Committee (then the main voice of liberal political thought in the village ), and the local affiliate of the Democratic party. However, these people did not participate as Jews, nor did their participation affect the Jewish community.

VII. Postscript: Park Forest in 1955

A. Community growth: 1950-1955. By 1955, Park Forest had grown almost to its originally planned size. Some 6,300 families lived in the village, half of them as renters in the garden apartments built between 1947 and 1950 and the other half as owners of single-family homes built subsequently. The main shopping center had grown to include two department stores. Subsidiary centers, as well as schools and churches, interrupted the unending stream of streets and dwellings. A new village hall was being built to house the growing municipal functions. Next to it, a huge aqua-center was going up to reduce the discomforts of the Chicago summer.

The Origin and Growth of a Jewish Community

The people that had come to Park Forest since 1950, while thought to be somewhat older and of a slightly lower socio-economic and educational level than the first residents, were still primarily middle-class families with one or more young children. Turnover was high as compared with older suburban communities. But other indices, such as the decreasing turnout at local elections, the end of the boom in new organizations, and the nature of the dominant political issues, indicated that in many ways the village was settling down.

The Jewish community had kept pace with the growth of the village. It was estimated to consist of about 600 families, or 10 per cent of the total population. The Jewish arrivals of the previous five years were also said to be slightly older than the first settlers. Among them were a number of doctors and dentists (although there were fewer other professionals than before) and a large group of businessmen (many of them owning stores in the new shopping centers),salesmen, and other white-collar workers. Family incomes were reported to be similar to those of old residents. Most of the newcomers were also second generation Jews from Eastern European backgrounds. The Jewish families were said to be less transient than the non-Jewish ones, and many of the old settlers had remained to become homeowners. The organizational structure had been enlarged by the formation of a congregation in 1951. A temple Sunday school founded in 1955, and three more women's organizations (Hadassah, an auxiliary chapter of b'nai b'rith, and a temple sisterhood), completed the roster of new groups. After five years then, the Jewish community resembled the other suburban Jewish settlements which have mushroomed in the postwar era. In this section, the community's growth will first be described and analyzed in the light of the child-orientation hypothesis. Then it will be studied for evidences of a reversal of previous acculturation patterns in order to evaluate the frequently heard theory of a "postwar revival" of the American Jewish community.

B. The formation and function of the congregation. In 1950, High Holiday services were conducted in the village. Shortly thereafter, the small group which had attempted to set up a congregation in 1949 was instrumental in organizing Temple Beth Sholom. Late in 1951, a full-time rabbi was hired, and soon thereafter a building program was announced. In 1954, a $70,000 temple was erected through sizable contributions from the developer and his contractors, as well as smaller donations given by about one-fifth of the other residents. In 1955, the paid-up membership of the congregation numbered about 240 families, or 40 per cent of the total Jewish community.

While the congregation's constitution proclaimed the membership's right to denominational diversity, officially the temple was affiliated with the Reform group. Its religious orientation could best be described as "Eastern European Reform." It combined permissiveness toward what many regard as deprivational practices in the home, with a quasi-Conservative array of ceremonies, Hebrew reading, and responsive singing at services. This cultural compromise was perhaps symbolized by the temple kitchen; it was not kept kosher, but no pork was served. The rabbi described this emphasis on ceremony as a "warm liberal Reform" agreeable to both Reform and Conservative members. The rabbi himself reflected the cultural career of his congregants for he came from an Eastern European background, was trained as an Orthodox rabbi, and later changed his affiliation to Reform. While this similarity was not a manifest factor in his selection, it was perhaps no coincidence.

Friday night services generally attracted fifty to seventy-five people. A part of this attendance came from a core of forty more-or-less regular worshippers. The rest were celebrants of Yahrzeit services, or came for other special reasons. Bar Mitzvahs [the rite of adulthood for boys], and social festivities often doubled or trebled attendance, with many of the extra worshippers coming from outside the village. High Holiday services attracted as many as 600 people. A lecture series on secular Jewish topics was well attended, but adult education was limited to a Bible class which drew a comparative handful.

From the point of view of attendance, the religious-cultural functions of the synagogue ran a poor second to the social functions. Dinners, holiday dances, bazaars, and other "affairs" were very popular. Residents critical of the social functions of the temple noted that while Purim services had attracted fewer than fifty, the dance held that evening had brought 350 people to the temple.

Shortly after the organization of the congregation, nine women—several of them leaders of Council—set up a sisterhood. In 1955 it had enrolled about 300 members, or about half the adult women. Its main functions were fund-raising for the temple through parties and bazaars and provision of other assistance such as publication of the temple bulletin. Council had 180 members and still functioned as a community-service agency. Organization of a temple brotherhood lagged. As one of the leaders explained it, this was because of the men's duties in the temple building program. B'nai b'rith had a sizable though inactive membership. Because its chapter boundaries extended beyond the village, it did not play a major role in the community. This was true also of the b'nai b'rith auxiliary and the Hadassah chapter.

C. Child vs. adult orientation: The organization of the second Sunday school. For an understanding of the processes which shape the suburban Jewish community, we must focus again on the Sunday school, particularly on the organization of a second school in 1955. The first, or community school conducted by the Park Forest Board of Jewish Education, continued to operate under much the same leadership. In 1954-55, it had about 385 students, an estimated 85 to 90 per cent of the eligible Jewish children in the village. When the congregation was organized, it had entered into an agreement by which members would send their children to the community school. The rabbi was appointed spiritual advisor, taught some courses, and presided at the Bar Mitzvah ceremonies. However, even at the time this arrangement was made, the group of temple leaders who had sought a congregation with a Sunday school in 1949 felt that the temple ought to have its own school. This position had been maintained over the years despite an adverse vote from a community meeting, and from a congregational committee on religious education in 1953. The influence of this group, which had been instrumental in organizing the congregation and in raising funds for the building, was such that in 1954 the congregational board voted to approve the organization of a school. The rabbi was selected partly because of his extensive training and experience in religious education and was hired with the understanding that he would set up a congregational school. After the rabbi's attempts to incorporate the community school into the congregation had failed, the temple announced the formation of its own school.

Once again, the community leadership split openly into two camps and, through mass meetings and publications, drew about half the community into the issue. By May, 1955, both schools had held pre-registration, and most of the parents had lost interest in the controversy. Some observers felt that such indifference indicated that many parents were satisfied as long as schooling was available and cared little about curriculum or educational philosophy.

Underlying the public discussions was the question that had been debated in 1949: should the school teach children in a way that would encourage and even press parents to take part in religious-cultural activities, or should it teach them in a way that would leave parents uninvolved if they so choose. This question was basic to the larger problem of adult versus child-orientation.

The community school explained its major principles in a pamphlet prepared for distribution for one of the public meetings:

[The school] emphasizes those elements of Judaism which are basically acceptable to all elements of Jewry. Differences of practice which exist are taught in a democratic climate encouraging acceptance of the diversity of opinion.... A community school permits the children to learn all facets of Jewish religion; the strength of Judaism lies in its breadth of outlook and range of inquiry . . . Many . . . Parents desire that their children be exposed to a broad cross-section of Jewish thought.

While the school encouraged the children's participation in the temple, the final decision was left up to the parents. As one of the school's lay leaders pointed out: "Its purpose is education,, and the parents are not involved unless they want to be. Religion for the parents is not necessarily the main end of life; we want a school for our children, and the education they get here is excellent."

For the parents who took this position, the school fulfilled all the requirements of a child-oriented institution. Furthermore, its first objective was one which all parents ranked highly, that is, "to develop in the child pride and security in his Jewish identification." Other parents probably accepted the community school's belief that: " A child who shares the experience with his parents in a temple and further enriches himself in an independent school will have a deeper insight that can be obtained from a single viewpoint."

The congregational leaders recognized the high quality of the school's educational program. However, they opposed the community school for its nondenominational orientation and suggested that it was teaching the children about Judaism instead of emphasizing the practice of one kind of Judaism. The emphasis of the curriculum on the diversity within Judaism, they felt, was better suited for an adult education program; it did not sufficiently encourage loyalty to, and participation in, the congregations. The rabbi illustrated the differences he thought existed between the two schools: "The community school teaches that Jews light candles on Friday night and that the children can do this, but don't have to. Our curriculum will be more emphatic, we say you ought to do it."

As in 1950, the two groups differed over the role of "the home" in the transmission of Jewish identity and culture. The community school felt that the family had a central role in the children's education, Jewish or otherwise, and that parents should be free to determine their own position on religious matters. The school held workshops to help the parents integrate school program and home practice, but for those parents who rejected involvement, the teaching program could be limited to the child and the school.

The congregational school, on the other hand, felt that the parents' participation in Jewish education had become so minimal that the congregation had to take a more active role in training the child for religious participation. For this purpose, the rabbi believed he had to assume a surrogate-father role. He explained: "I want to make personal contact with the children; otherwise I only get the volitional ones, and that's not many, and not good enough. I want to be able to identify with the children . . . I want them to accept the synagogue in their lives and to come to services. The school's program will be a 'worship curriculum.' The children will have to come and help prepare services . . . The Saturday morning services will be part of their education." The rabbi viewed the children not as students in a school, but as adults in miniature, playing their role in the temple. He justified this by pointing out:

My primary interest is in the adults, and I am opposed to a child-centered Judaism. However, here the people seem to be mainly interested in the education of the children.... We hope, though, the children will bring the parents . . . Perhaps they will return the parents to Jewish life.

The rabbi's purpose was thus to maintain the adult-oriented congregation envisaged by the temple founders as early as 1949. However, the community's child orientation necessitated a revised version in which the children were to be asked to take over the position vacated by the adults.

D. The school issue: leadership factions. The formation of the second Sunday school forced the leaders and active members of the Jewish community to take sides on the issue. From an analysis of people supporting each school, there emerges a picture of the political-ideological structure of the Jewish community. Because of the similarity of the issues and the leadership to the 1949 controversy, this structure had probably changed very little.

It was explained previously that the congregation was from the beginning supported by a number of actives whose previous participation in a Jewish community had been centered around a congregation. They were families in the higher income categories. The men were employed in executive positions, businesses, and in law or medicine. They provided much of the community's share of the temple building costs and contributed to the extensive fund-raising apparatus developed by the sisterhood, which was led by their wives. The extent of the temple's financial needs, and the socio-economic level of those who organized the fund-raising affairs, tended to limit active participation in temple social activities to people with upper-middle-ciass incomes, or to those willing to make sacrifices to appear to have such earnings. One of the sisterhood leaders estimated that attendance at luncheons, parties, and other affairs had cost her family about $600 in addition to the $100 annual membership fee of the temple:

Many of the gals in the $6000-$7000 bracket can't afford to join it. They join the temple and the sisterhood, but they explain that they don't have time to participate, or some reason like that. Most of the gals have accepted the fact that they can't afford it, only a few got obnoxious about it. But to those who can't afford it, we don't have to sell the sisterhood. I myself have played this game for years, and since my husband works in the community, we have to do it for professional reasons anyway.

For some of these people, the temple-related social life was perhaps the preparatory and final step before affiliation with a higher income group and a style of suburban leisure often centered around a country club.

The decision-makers of this group, however, were a small clique of Jewish professionals and other leaders, who were concerned with maintaining and increasing the strength and influence of the congregation. Their political and financial efforts were previously identified as being instrumental in the organization of the congregation, construction of the temple, and the opening of the second school. This group derived some of its influence from the support of American Community Builders and its officers, though the community grapevine differed in its estimates of the latters' role. The rest of the congregational leadership generally followed the line set by this group, which in turn tended to follow the national  program of the Reform movement. On the whole, this group was concerned with the growth of the congregation and the fostering of participation by the rest of the community, rather than with theological or ideological problems. In so far as they were influentials, they fit Merton's conception of "locals."

The community school, and the Park Forest Board of Jewish Education, was being supported by two groups. One consisted of a number of academic or academically oriented professionals, primarily teachers, lawyers, and scientists, some of whom were active in other aspects of village life. They, too, were already, or would some day, be described as upper-middle-class, though more so on the basis of occupation and amount of education than on income. Furthermore, their consumption style differed significantly from that of the congregation supporters, both in taste and "brow" levels. The differences between the two groups are perhaps best illustrated by the deprecatory labels they attached to each others' styles. The congregational supporters described the community school group as "pseudo-intellectuals," and the latter called the former "country-clubbers." While some community school supporters belonged to the congregation, they generally remained inactive. Most of their wives did not join the sisterhood.

Both groups grew up in Orthodox or ax-Orthodox backgrounds. However, the community school leaders felt that the Reform temple deviated too sharply from a religious-cultural tradition whose theological aspects some of them had rejected more completely than the congregational leaders. Their feelings of affinity to ethnic traditions were stronger than status considerations. Thus, after the split with the temple, they proceeded to arrange for the holding of Bar Mitzvah services at an Orthodox congregation in Chicago Heights, whose membership was primarily lower-middle class.

Although some of these leaders did not participate in adult activities other than the Board of Jewish Education, they were highly interested in the content and quality of the children's Jewish education. Consequently, they provided the support for the intensive intellectual emphasis of the curriculum and the high teaching standards which the staff of the community school sought to achieve. Most of the people in this group would fit Merton's description of the "cosmopolitan."

Allied with them was the previously mentioned group of residents who were Conservative in religious outlook, lower-middle-class in occupation and style of life, and who had maintained some affinity with the immigrant culture. Despite their differences in background, they agreed with the cosmopolitans in their attitudes about the Reform temple, and on the religious and intellectual level of their school. The Jewish professionals and other leaders of the community school possessed characteristics and attitudes of both groups, which permitted them to bridge whatever differences in outlook appeared between the two.

The Origin and Growth of a Jewish Community

E. The school issue: factors in parental choice. At the end of Spring registration, the time when Park Forest was revisited, the congregational school had enrolled about 215 children, the community school about 125, and an estimated 150 children or more had not yet been registered.° Only an extensive study could discover to what extent these enrollment figures reflected a choice between the child-oriented and diffuse religious affiliation of the community school, and the adult-oriented and specific congregational-allegiance objectives of the temple group.

There could be at least three other considerations which parents might consider relevant to the decision to be made when the school year would actually begin. First, the system of fees was such that people with several eligible children would find it more economical to join the congregation and thus receive the benefit of a tuition-free institution. This appealed to those residents more concerned with the high cost of suburban living than with the ideological and organizational differences between schools. A second factor was the congregation's symbolic role as a community focus and, more importantly, as an instrument for teaching Jewishness to the children. The erection of a building had transformed this symbol into a physically real and imposing object, which allowed the residents to feel that they too had "arrived." According to one mother, it gave parents an opportunity to point out to their children that "they had a church now too, just like their non-Jewish friends." Also, many parents had been brought up to expect a Sunday school within congregational confines, so that the organization of a temple school created little surprise on their part. Furthermore, many of the parents who had grown up without any Jewish training were confronted with the necessity, and the wish, to teach their children to feel Jewish. To them, the rabbi loomed as a figure of authority and as an expert who could replace them in a role which they could not fill (and, judging by some of the parental comments made at pre-registration, a role which they did not especially cherish ). On the other hand, some people felt that this transference of authority to the rabbi was undemocratic.

A final factor was the difference in the status images of the congregation, with its upper-middle-class social activity, and the community school, where social functions were limited to educational events centered around the holidays and the children. Also, the latter's working agreement with a lower-middle-class Orthodox synagogue outside the community probably influenced a number of families, especially those with children of Bar Mitzvah age, toward the upper-middle-class temple.

Despite these considerations, if the congregational school follows its current aims and succeeds in training the children for participation in the temple in such a manner as to demand parental involvement, those parents who reject such participation may eventually be forced to choose . . .

In October 1955, the congregational school had enrolled more than 500 students; the community school had only about 125 students from 80 families loyal to its program.

Adult and child orientation. In families where the children's education, or the parents' desire to avoid participation, rank above all other considerations, the final decisions are predictable. In other homes, however, the family structure and the influence of the children's demands on parental authority may be significant factors in the final choice. For example, in families which William Whyte has described as "filiarchical," the events described by one mother might base the decision on the child's preference. This woman reported that:

Here the children force you into things. If you send them to Sunday school and if a holiday comes up which you do not observe at home, the children tell you to participate and you have to. And if you don't send them to Sunday school, if your child is in that age group, he says, 'Why can't I belong?' So I became interested; I had no choice.

On the other hand, the temple school, like the community school before it, may be able to carry on its teaching program in such a way that both its objectives and those of the child-oriented parents are satisfied at a level at which neither party feels a serious need to make changes. Furthermore, it is impossible to predict whether the children themselves will accept the program of participation to be offered them by the temple school.

For the student of the ethnic process, the most important question about both schools concerns the extent to which Sunday school education will induce students to participate in religious-cultural functions of the synagogue and the community when they reach adulthood. This problem cannot yet be studied in Park Forest, and it has not been investigated among third generation Jews in other communities. A reversal of acculturation processes seems unlikely, although some evidence of a "returning reaction" among the third generation members of other ethnic groups has been documented by Marcus Hansen. However, their return has been more on the ideological than the behavioral level; the resurrected cultural patterns do not seem to have affected basic aspects of their way of life.

F. Community growth as revival? Whatever the final outcome of the educational split, it is apparent that in the last five years the Jewish community in Park Forest has experienced considerable institutional growth. On the national scene, such things as the increase in synagogue affiliation, the organization of new congregations, the rise in Sunday and weekday school enrollments, and the increasing sales of Jewish consumer products, have all given rise to the suggestion that a Jewish revival was taking place, at least in the suburbs. If this revival were actually a reversal of the acculturation trends which had been reported in studies of urban Jewry, it would indicate that the reaction which Hansen described as a third generation phenomenon elsewhere was being anticipated among Jews by younger members of the second generation.

While the comprehensive study necessary to verify or reject this theory has not been made, the data collected in Park Forest do permit some tentative explanations of trends in the suburban Jewish community. These hypotheses dealing with the influence of the suburban environment, the function of child orientation, the sociability patterns of the upper-middle class, the responsiveness to social pressure, and the adaptability of the suburban congregation do not indicate a reversal of previous acculturation trends. Instead, they suggest the transformation of a previously existing informal community pattern of urban origin into a new formal one. It is this phenomenon which appears in the guise of a "revival."

1. Influence ofthe suburban environment. To some extent, the growth of the suburban Jewish community is a response to suburban conditions. The move beyond the city limits, itself a function of the higher residential standards of today's urban middle class, has affected Jewish families with young children as much, if not more so, than others in their socio-economic category. In the suburbs, the environment is strange. The Jewish residents are no longer the majority or plurality which they were, or felt themselves to be, in the urban neighborhoods or blocks from which they came. Park Foresters describe themselves as now living in a "mixed community" and as "sticking out." This may be as much a consequence of their own mobility as of their ecological situation (i.e., They are really "sticking out" in relation to a previous self-image). Nevertheless, these feelings make them responsive to formal "organizing" by more active Jewish residents.

The urban Jewish pattern of limiting sociability and friendship relationships primarily to other Jews has been carried over unchanged into the suburbs. This suggests that among adults, at least, there has been no "return" to the Jewish community, since there had been no real "departure." Rather, the covert cohesiveness of the urban Jewish neighborhood has been transformed into an overt one in the suburbs by shifting sociability activities that previously took place in comparative anonymity to a set of formal and well-publicized organizations, primarily the congregation.

2. Child-orientation. The main functions of this formal organization are to make sure that the children grow up within a Jewish context and learn enough of it to identify themselves as Jews. Regardless of the objectives of the institutional leadership (which are generally still adult-oriented ), from the perspective of the parents, the Jewish organizations exist for the children.  One of the leaders of the sisterhood explained: "People here don't have a need to join the congregation or the sisterhood until their children are old enough to join the Sunday school, and if there were no children, there'd be no temple or Jewish organizations."

Another leader indicated that while people without children are asked to join, they are not expected to do this. These observations are supported by a tabulation of the congregational membership. Of 180 member families with children, 85 per cent had at least one child of Sunday school age. Unfortunately, this tabulation could not be compared with the total number of Jewish families with one child of that age. However, data for a group of forty-three old and new residents who had recently purchased homes showed that 60 per cent of them had a Sunday-school-age child. While 50 per cent of the families with eligible children had joined the temple, only 18 per cent of those without eligible children had done so.

The need to provide the children with manifest training in Jewish identification is partly a suburban substitute for the latent devices that existed in the immigrant family and the urban Jewish neighborhood. However, the suburban parents, trained by these latent means, feel themselves incapable of providing the proper learning environment for their children's identity. This function is shifted to various institutions.

3. The organizational sociability of the upper-middle class. Although the children may provide the impetus for community organization, some parents use the groups which they have set up to reap the fruits of their socio-economic and educational mobility and to live the "organization"- and "social affair"-centered life of the upper-middle class. This mobility must account at least in part for the higher organizational affiliation of the suburban as compared with the urban Jew, although the environmental and life-cycle conditions initiate formal organization, and channel it into institutions capable of serving the children's educational needs. These conditions do not, however, detract from the desirability of the organizational social life for the Jewish residents who can afford to participate. In Park Forest, this activity constituted the major, though latent, function of the temple sisterhood. Under its auspices, a part of the intense sociability of the Jewish community was transformed into temple activity. Informal get-togethers became committee meetings, parties became fundraising affairs, and occasional night-club outings became community dances. Even so, the sisterhood president complained that there were not enough functions to keep the large proportion of active members occupied. The women who organized these activities are college-trained with social and civic skills of various kinds. Unable to practice these skills in the professional world because of their family functions, they set up an active organization which permitted them self-expression in various non-familial roles. The affairs they scheduled seemed to be modeled on the extracurricular life of the college campus and were supported with high attendance by the rest of the Jewish community.

4. Social pressue and ingroup cohesion. Despite the plethora of organizations and activities, however, voluntary community participation in the formal organizations is not always widespread, or forthcoming when needed. Usually it is more likely to express itself in passive response than active support. The history of the congregation affords various examples of the sparsity of community interest. Its organization was due to the determined effort of a handful, although other residents joined once the institution was established. Fund-raising for the construction of the temple was partially planned by a professional public relations counsel, and involved the sending of many letters and considerable personal coaxing on the part of the fund-raisers. Even so, informants suggested that the contributions of fifty people, and the ability of an additional person to secure a high mortgage, had built the temple. Continual fund-raising is required to support its current, though still expanding, operations. The setting up of the temple Sunday school also required extensive efforts aimed at overcoming community indifference and opposition.

As has already been indicated, the development of the organizational structure was due largely to the efforts of those residents whose power and community-service aspirations allowed them to apply the social pressure necessary to the development and functioning of organizations in a context of community indifference. In Park Forest, these persons were frequently Jewish professionals. However, it is easy to overlook a second component of the process, the willingness of the community to accept social pressure. Despite complaints, even from leaders, that the community was "over-organized," and that there was too much fund-raising, the cohesion of the Jewish group was such that appeals to group needs and pressures for aid and involvement were not, and indeed could not, often be denied. On the one hand, the group's cohesion is so minimal that social pressure has to be applied to get things done, but on the other hand it is sufficient to tolerate the application of pressure.

In Park Forest, the fact that the developer was also a high-ranking officer of the American Jewish community, that he was interested in the local Jewish group and provided free land and considerable financial support to the temple, and was said to wield considerable (though indirect) political influence in its affairs, no doubt affected the rate and direction of the development process. In this respect, then, Park Forest is not a representative community.

5. The functional adaptability of the synagogue. As in other suburban Jewish groups, much of the community's activity has centered around the Reform temple. This is due in part to the synagogue's traditional position and symbolic function in the Jewish community. However, the current effectiveness of the temple in this role is a result of its institutional diffuseness and flexibility and its ability, whatever its own objectives, to orient its program to the desires of its membership. The rabbi commented on this in explaining the temple's policy towards newcomers: "We don't ask them for memberships until loyalties are built up, and until they've seen the services and benefits we can offer them."

This adaptability has been successfully achieved in four important areas. First, the temple has been able to retain adult support by reducing or eliminating the traditional pressure for members' participation in religious activities, and by appealing to their sociability, status, and leisure interests in the religious program. Participation in Friday night services has been maintained in part through the oneg shabbat, or social hour, which follows it, the holding of Bar Mitzvahs, and ceremonies for new members. As already indicated, the Reform ideology has also been flexible enough to permit the integration of ceremonial elements from Eastem European synagogue practices for the new Reform members.

Second, the temple has been able to exist despite minimal adult participation in its normal religious functions (except on the High Holidays) by redefining its adult-oriented program and aiming it also at the children. The organization of the temple Sunday school, despite the lack of community support, was thus perhaps a functional necessity for its survival as a religious institution. By moving up the age of eligibility, and setting up a nursery Sunday school for the youngest children, the temple has been able to enlarge the clientele for these functions.

Third, the temple has not been unwilling to serve as the center for much of the community's social life. Thus it has been able to derive considerable financial support and membership loyalty to guarantee its survival. On the other hand, it is also the target for criticism from those residents loyal to a Jewish community that legitimizes only the manifest religious-cultural functions of the synagogue.

Finally, the temple has also adjusted itself to the sexual role shift that has taken place. A generation ago, synagogue activity was still primarily the role of the Jewish man, but today, and especially in the suburban Jewish community, the woman plays a major part. While men continue to monopolize political and financial leadership, women carry out most of the other activities not handled by the rabbi. The increase in the authority of the rabbi is related in part to the vacuum left by the departure of the men from religious-cultural affairs and the lack of knowledge of the women in this field.

Only further studies can indicate whether this institutional adaptability is characteristic only of the Reform temple (and might thus help to explain why so many suburban congregations have affiliated themselves with the Reform movement ), or whether it is also appearing among the other denominations.

G. The unaffiliated residents. Because the analysis has been concerned with the factors behind the growth of a formal community structure, and the functional adaptation of the congregation at its center, major emphasis has been placed on the activities of the groups who provided the most consistent support. This has slighted the smaller number of residents described previously as the supporters of the Board of Jewish Education. While they sometimes attended congregational activities, more frequently they acted as critics of the temple, and participated in their own Jewish activities either on a familial basis or in the administration and adult activities of the Board of Jewish Education.

Their role in the Park Forest Jewish community can perhaps be best understood historically. A set of leaders from these groups was instrumental in the formation of the community school and in its assumption of the central position in the community structure of the early years. With community growth, this position turned out to be disproportionate to their numerical, political-ideological, and financial strength among the later settlers. The competition for dominance that ensued between the school and the temple seems now to have been won by the latter. While in many communities minority elements later form their own congregations, only a part of this minority seeks such affiliation. Furthermore, much of the potential support for a second synagogue has been diminished by the temple's appeal to both Reform and Conservative worshipers and to the main sources of financial support.

Finally, however, it should be remembered that there are many Jewish families in Park Forest who, as the 1949 study showed, do not participate in any formal activities, although they maintain some relationship with the Jewish community through Jewish friends. Because there is no public evidence of their affiliation, they are often overlooked in the concern with formal organizations. The Jewish life of these people, who constitute close to half the Jewish population of Park Forest, was not studied in the 1955 revisit, and leaves a gap in the description of the total Jewish community.

H. The suburban revival: some conclusions. Events in Park Forest do not suggest any changes in acculturation or assimilation trends that might properly be described as a revival. Synagogue attendance figures and community behavior generally offer no evidence for either a religious or a broader cultural "return." Since the new suburban organizational structures are native to suburban middle-class America, and had no ancestors among Eastern European Jewry, they cannot be used to document an organizational revival. Finally, the fact that ingroup solidarity did not cease even during the most intense Americanization of the second generation rules out the possibility of a socio-psychological revival.

Instead, the growth of the new Jewish community can be explained as a transfer of traditionally intense ingroup sociability patterns from the informal cliques in which they were practiced in the cities, to a set of formal organizations in the suburbs. The fact that this sociability was hidden from public view in its unorganized urban state and suddenly burst forth into a plethora of organizations, budgets, and buildings in the new communities has suggested the possibility of a revival.

This transfer represents in part the increased organizational activity normally associated with achievement of upper-middle-class lifestyles and the special conditions imposed by the suburban residential social structure in which it is happening. Above all, however, it has taken place because of the need and desire of Jewish parents to provide clearly visible institutions and symbols with which to maintain and reinforce the ethnic identification of the next generation.

The re-acceptance of some Judaic traditions at this time can be explained by the requirements of this objective. Even so, Park Forest Jews in their private lives have not adopted any religious or cultural traditions which would affect to any extent their upper-middle-class styles or aspirations. The changes that have taken place, therefore, seem to describe not a reversal of acculturation and assimilation tendencies but rather their continuation in new organizational contexts.

It is too early to tell whether the conditions which provide strength to the organizational structure of the Jewish community will continue as the postwar suburb matures, or whether the institutions can continue to be flexible enough to adapt to further changing conditions, [such as] greater community interest in sociability functions as opposed to religious ones. Perhaps most important is the question whether the Judaic education and the social situations in which the children may find themselves will result in their congregational or other community affiliation in adolescence or adulthood, whatever the major function of specific institutions The answers to these questions will be highly significant in determining the direction of the ethnic process in the next generation.

Although this article is based on the population study of one suburban community, and one that is distinctive in several respects, the generalizations and hypotheses developed here are probably not unique to it. It is likely that they will be applicable not only to other suburban communities, but perhaps also to urban centers. In the latter, the existence of the phenomena described here may be masked by the fact that the Jewish is not so distinctively limited to young middle-class couples with one or two children. However, there seems to be little reason why the phenomenon of child orientation, to mention just one, should be restricted to Park Forest. Indeed, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the developments decsribed here must play an increasingly important role in the future Jewish community life in America. Consequently, the Park Forest Jewish community may be illustrative of a next major stage in the process of Jewish and ethnic adjustment to American society—the stage in which it is the relations between the second and third generations that are crucial, rather than those between an immigrant first and a native-born second generation. As a case study, then, this research on Park Forest is intended as a sequel to the many Jewish community studies which have been devoted largely to an analysis of relationships between the first and the second generation.