Prof. Alice Goldstein

"There are many forms of being Jewish," Alice Goldstein, a member of the new survey's advisory committee, said in a telephone interview.

"We didn't have a handle on that" in the 1990 survey.

The 2000 survey is being designed to build on the demographic information collected a decade ago - and then to probe deeper into the ways Jewish identity is formed and maintained in American society.

The 1990 survey, sponsored by the Council of Jewish Federations, sent shockwaves through the Jewish community with its report of a 52 percent Jewish intermarriage rate.As a result of that finding, the organized Jewish community refocused its agenda on examining and promoting Jewish continuity.
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"a clear drop" in the levels of organizational membership, volunteerism, synagogue membership and ritual observance "across the board," said Alice Goldstein.

As a member of the Rhode Island federation's education planning commission and a past president of the local Bureau of Jewish Education, she said she was "frankly more concerned with that than with intermarriage," which she views as a symptom of the larger trends.

A prolific author, Professor Goldstein's writings include Jews on the Move (with Alice Goldstein), Lithuanian Jewry 1993, and Jewish Americans.As an active member of Rhode Island's Jewish community, he has served on the Board of the Jewish Federation of Rhode Island, the Bureau of Jewish Education and the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Society.Professor Goldstein served as a member of the American Jewish Task Force on the Future of American Jewry and on the Board of Directors of the Association for the Sociological Study of Jewry.