STUDY QUESTIONS

Herbert Gans, "The Origin and Growth of a Jewish Community in the Suburbs: A Study of the Jews of Park Forest" in Marshall Sklare, editor, The Jews: Social Patterns of an American Group (New York, 1974): 205-248

1) What did the author set out to analyze? (Note: Do not merely repeat the title as your answer.)

2) Why did the Jewish newcomers to Park Forest feel compelled to transform the previous informal community development patterns of the cities into a new formal one?

3) How had the women's role in the Jewish community changed by the 1950s in comparison to their previous role in earlier, predominantly urban environments?

4) What did the author mean when he described the behavior of the adults, particularly the women, of the community as "child oriented"?

5) What was at stake over the arguments regarding whether or not to establish first a "congregation" or a "Sunday school"?

6) What were some of the ways in which community members strove to preserve and indeed enhance their sense of Jewish identity?

7) Using Park Forest as an example, how had the role of religion in maintaining group cohesion changed since the early twentieth century? (You can draw from previous readings to answer this question.)

8) Gans asserted that the appearance and development of this new community was not an example of a "revival" of Jewish life. What did the author mean by this statement? Which aspects, if any, of previously urban Jewish life remained the same? Which different?

9) How did existing socioeconomic differences among members of the Jewish community affect community development?

10) What was the role of the "Jewish professional" in the village, according to the author, and why did he referred to him as a "new man?"

11) Might the author's admission, in your opinion, that at least half of the Jews in Park Forest were "unaffiliated" and had played no role in community development at all skew his conclusions?