Levels of Social Science Research and their Contributions to Homogeneity and Diversity among Jews

This paper analyzes the interplay between micro-level interactions, meso-level organizational participation and influence, and macro-level values and collective memories and how this interaction explains much about how and why Jews in many respects are not homogeneous as a collective, as well as the ways in which they converge. This came to the forefront when comparing similar levels of institutions and behaviors across cultures and settings, or across Jews with diverging identities (e.g., religious or secular, Zionist or anti-Zionist, even relatively affluent or relatively poor). The paper analyzes how to bridge predominant primary sources of information about Jewish life that come that come from individual-level data (surveys) with other social sciences research techniques, and/or be designed to flesh out the role of different levels in individual lives, to help us understand how meso-level participation and macro-level penetration contribute to meaning-making on individual levels, cross-cutting and competing identity formations, and different uses of similar macro-level foci in contrasting settings.