Are American Jews on a path towardsanomic suicide?

A sociological look at individualism, community, and thetheories of

Emile Durkheim

Sources compiled by Katie Light (JS/ XIX)

Emile Durkheim was born in France in the middle of the nineteenth century into a rabbi-rich Jewish family. Though he did not follow in his father’s, grandfather’s, or great-grandfather’s footsteps, his Judaism shaped his sociological imagination. Not devout, Durkheim was almost heretical in his theories that religious phenomena were caused by the social rather than the Divine.

So, what, you might ask, is the connection between Emile Durkheim and olam ha’ba? Durkheim was fascinated by suicide (another under-studied subject). He believed that anomie, a state most easily described as loneliness and isolation caused by modern society-propagated, self-inflicted over indulgence, led to suicide. Durkheim’s theory of anomie sees the individual in modern society as disconnected from social networks and relationships. We in the 21st century,Western world deal with this same tension between the individual and community. To use Hillel campus terminology, anomie is the opposite of engagement. If the American Jewish community is going to be robust, its members cannot be allowed to “suffer” from anomie. Though not necessarily communal suicide, we run the risk of widespread disengagement, dilution, and dissipation of American Judaism.

The following texts use Emile Durkheim’s theories of anomieand suicide as a backdrop for exploring issues of individualism, community, integration, and estrangementfrom the perspective of religion as it relates to contemporary American Judaism.

The effects of anomie are found in the frustration which follows the breakdown in the authority of those moral norms which regulate the satisfaction of desire. “By itself, abstracted from all external power (that is, moral authority) which might regulate it, our sensibility is an endless abyss which nothing can fill.”

(Emile Durkheim as translated by Wolff, 1960: 44)

“the suicide of the few is a representation of the suffering of the rest of society.”

(Emile Durkheim as translated by Mestrovic, 1992: 120)

Some broader questions you might want to consider while you learn:

  • How is anomie related to my life?
  • Where is anomie present in my American Jewish community?
  • What can I do to ameliorate anomic situations?
  • Do these texts speak to my reality/ the reality that I have experienced? Do the theories hold true?

According to Durkheim . . .

“If religion has given birth to all that is essential in society, it is because the idea of society is the soul of religion.” (Durkheim, The Cultural Logic of Collective Representations, 1912 as translated by Lemert, 1999)

  • What are essentials of/in society? Of the American Jewish community?
  • (How) is society the soul of religion? Of Judiasm?

. . . the collective ideal which religion expresses is far from being due to a vague innate power of the individual, but it is rather at the school of collective life that the individual has learned to idealize. It is in assimilating the ideals elaborated by society that he has become capable of conceiving the ideal. (Durkheim, The Cultural Logic of Collective Representations, 1912 as translated by Lemert, 1999)

  • If such a thing truly exists, what is the collective ideal of American Judaism?
  • What are some potential limitations of collective ideals?
  • What are the roles that individuals play in relation to their communities?
  • Do these roles contribute to or detract from collective ideals?

. . . anomie . . . is a condition of a social organization or system. It is not the anomic situation in the society which motivates toward self-destruction, but the individual’s own definition of the situation. That, I believe, is the “host factor” which provides conditions compatible with the rooting and development of the “suicidal hypothesis.” The “suicide germ” is not a defect in a person nor a situation in the external environment. Rather, it is a belief about life – a belief which guides and directs behavior. It is the notion that a pathway is always open when things get too rough. It is the belief that the “escape hatch” from life is always open – one just has to want to, and decide to push the lever. This belief is, however, contrary to the teachings of Judaism and Christianity alike. . . Durkheim placed much weight on the possibility of religion as an anti-suicidal force, concluding from his analysis of international rates that suicide “is very little developed in purely Catholic countries (Spain, Portugal, Italy), while it is at its maximum in Protestant countries. (Whalen, 1964: 98)

  • What does anomie look like in the American Jewish community? (Feel free to refer back to the first quote on the introductory page, page 1, for a definition of anomie.)
  • How is American Judaism, as a “social organization or system,” a counter-suicidal force?

Durkheim located the suicidal-deterrent capacity of religion mainly in the degree of integration of religious societies, rather than in the religious dogmas. He felt it was not so much the dogmas of Catholicism – despite their specificity regarding the punishment of suicide – that kept Catholics from the act as much as the prophylactic effect of belonging to an integrated religious society. Common traditions and obligatory beliefs and practices make Catholicism more of a society than Protestantism. This is still more true of Judaism, he believed. (Whalen, 1964:100)

  • What makes Judaism an “integrated religious society,” if you believe that it is one?
  • What forces within American Judaism have the power, according to Durkheim, to deter suicide?

According to contemporary social scientists and theorists . . .

Churches provide an important incubator for civic skills, civic norms, community interests, and civic recruitment. Religiously active men and women learn to give speeches, run meetings, manage disagreements, and bear administrative responsibility. They also befriend others who are in turn likely to recruit them into other forms of community activity. (Putnam, 2000: 66)

  • What role does communal membership have in deterring suicide?
  • What are other benefits of social integration? Is the American Jewish community doing a “good job” in this respect?

Personal journeys and experiences, especially if shared with other family members, are the stuff out of which their Judaism is not imagined and enacted, a Judaism constructed and performed by one individual at a time. The spaces in which it transpires are predominantly intimate and private – homes and families, friendships and romances - and some of the most important Jewish action transpires deep inside the self, where meaning is registered, reflected on, and imposed. (Cohen and Eisen, 2000: 16)

  • What is the role of the individual in terms of social integration?
  • How dofamilies and inter-personal relationships in combating anomic conditions?

In 1949-50, according to the American Jewish Year Book, “synagogue building continued,” “membership in synagogues and affiliated associations was on the increase,” “synagogue attendance was improving,” “adult education was continuing to attract substantial enrollments,” and “religious ceremonies were being observed in more homes with increasing regularity.” Forty percent of America’s 4.5 million Jews affiliated with synagogues, an improvement from the 1930s but still far below Catholic and Protestant affiliation rates. By the late 1950s, that figure would reach 60 percent, a figure never exceeded and the only time in the twentieth century that more than half of America’s Jews were synagogue members. . . “Judaism has changed,” one respondent explained to researchers. “Nowadays people enjoy religion and going to synagogue.” As late as 1962, surveys continued to describe the “flourishing state of the American Jewish community’s religious bodies.” (Sarna, 2004: 277)

  • Where is the American Jewish community in the present day, in terms of synagogue affiliation?
  • Is synagogue affiliation important in the fight against social isolationism, or is there something else that is more effective?

. . . the dynamic of acceptance versus rejection/belligerence regarding one’s Jewishness has been replaced by a dynamic of finding Jewishness to be meaningful versus remaining indifferent to it. Jewish continuity of the group as a whole has come to depend on the individual’s commitments and decision-making. For this reason, in addition to looking at Jewish practices and involvements, it is essential to examine the subjective, inner experience of being Jewish in contemporary society. (Horowitz, 2000: 183)

  • Does Judaism need to be personally meaningful to be an effective tool for communal integration and participation? If not, what could fill its place?

While one group of Americans has tended to withdraw from active involvement in faith-based communities, another group is as fully involved as ever. While the fraction of the population that is entirely disconnected from organized religion has increased, the fraction that is intensely involved has been relatively stable. In other words, religious dropouts have come at the expense of those whose religious involvement was modest but conventional. The result is that the country is becoming ever more clearly divided into two groups – the devoutly observant and the entirely unchurched. (Putnam, 2000: 75)

  • What does the American Jewish community look like in terms of the “devoutly observant” versus the “entirely unchurched”?
  • Should it be a communal goal to steer people towards increased religious observance?
  • Is religious observance a component of integration into the American Jewish community and thus a suicide deterrent?

Works Cited

Cohen, Steven M. and Eisen, Arnold M. 2000. The Jew Within: Self, Family, and Community in America. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press.

Horowitz, Bethamie. 2000. Connections and Journeys: Assessing Critical Opportunities for Enhancing Jewish Identity.New York: UJA – Federation of Jewish Philanthropies.

Lemert, Charles, ed. 1999. Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classical Readings. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Mestrovic, Stjepan G. 1992. Durkheim and Postmodern Culture. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Sarna, Jonathan D. 2004. American Judaism: A History.New Haven: YaleUniversity Press

Whalen, Elsa A. Winter, 1964. “Religion and Suicide.”Review of Religious Research, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 91-110.

Wolff, Kurt H., ed. 1960.Emile Durkheim, 1858 – 1917. Columbus: The OhioStateUniversity Press.

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