首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
According to reports in major news outlets, a study published last week included a startling discovery: the nation’s Jewish popu
According to reports in major news outlets, a study published last week included a startling discovery: the nation’s Jewish popu
admin
2010-05-14
66
问题
According to reports in major news outlets, a study published last week included a startling discovery: the nation’s Jewish population is in shrinking. The study, the National Jewish Population Survey, found 5.2 million Jews living in the United States in 2000, a drop of 5 percent, or 300,000 people, since a similar study in 1990. What’s truly startling is that the reported decline is not tree. Worse still, the sponsor of the $6 million study, United Jewish Communities, knows it.
Both it and the authors have openly admitted their doubts. They have acknowledged in interviews that the population totals for 2000 and 1990 were reached by different methods and are not directly comparable. The survey itself also cautions readers, in a dauntingly technical appendix, that judgment calls by the researchers may have led to an undercount. When the research director and project director were asked whether the data should be construed to indicate a declining Jewish population, they flatly answered no. In addition, other survey researchers interviewed pointed to other studies with population estimates as high as 6.7 million.
Despite all this, the two figures --5.2 million now, 5.5 million then --are listed by side in the survey, leaving the impression that the population has shrunk. The result, predictably, has been a rash of headlines trumpeting the illusionary decline, in turn touching off jeremiads by rabbis and moralists condemning the religious laxity behind it. Whether out of ideology, ego, incompetence or a combination of all three, the respected charity has invented a crisis.
United Jewish Communities is the coordinating body for a national network of Jewish philanthropies with combined budgets of $2 billion. Its population surveys carry huge weight in shaping community policy. This is not the first time the survey has set off a false alarm. The last one, conducted by a predecessor organization, found that 52 percent of American Jews who married between 1985 and 1990 did so outside the faith. That number was a fabrication produced by including marriages in which neither party was Jewish by anyone’s definition, including the researchers.
Its publication created a huge stir, inspiring anguished sermons, books and conferences. It put liberals on the defensive, emboldened conservatives who reject full integration into society and alienated ordinary folks by the increasingly xenophobic tone of Jewish communal culture. The new survey, to its credit, retracts that figure and offers the latest survey has spawned a panic created by the last one.
So why did the organization flawed figures once again? Some scholars who have studied the. survey believe the motivation then came partly out of a desire to shock straying Jews into greater observance. It’ s too early to tell if that’ s the case this time around. What is clear is the researchers did their job with little regard to how their data could be misconstrued. They used statistical models and question formats that, while internally sound, made the new survey incompatible with the previous one. For example, this time the researchers divided the population of 5.2 million into two groups--"highly involved" Jews and "people of Jewish background"- and posed most questions only to the first group. As a result, most findings about belief and observance refer only to a subgroup of American Jews, making comparisons to the past impossible.
We can’ t afford to wait a decade before these figures are revised. The false population decline must be corrected before it further sours communal discourse. The United Jewish Communities owes it to itself and its public to step forward and state plainly what it knows to be true: American Jews are not disappearing.
Rabbis and moralists consider the Jewish population decline as the result of______.
选项
A、Jewish negligence of their religious belief
B、Jewish incompetence in America
C、Jewish self-esteem
D、the combination of all the three above
答案
A
解析
答案在第三段:…rabbis and moralists condemning the religious laxity behind it.
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/2OqO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Asthewealthiestnationinhistorydebateswhetherwe’reinterestedinpayingourbills,it’stimetounmaskthetruecauseof
OnDecember5,1945,at2:00pm,agroupof【C1】______tookoffinperfectweatherforapracticeflightovertheAtlanticOcean.
They’resmug,egotistical,andalreadythinktheyrunthecountry(ifnottheworld).Sowhat’stherestofthenationtodonow
A、Hebelievesitisnothighenoughasfarasthejobcategoriesareconcerned.B、Hehesitatestosaythattheincomeistoolow
WhilesummertouristsfloatedthroughVenice’stimelesssplendorthisweek,thecitywasalsohostingsomevisitorswithlittle
Sexualallureisoftenhintedasbeingtheprizeforbuyingthisorthat.Yetadvertisingwaresduringcommercialbreaksinprog
URBANA,Illinois.WelcometoCyberCity,USA,wherescientistsaredevelopingthenext-generationInternetandleadingground-br
1Doyoueverfeelasthoughyouspendallyourtimeinmeetings?2HenryMintzberg,inhisbookTheNatureofManageria
Itcanbeinferredthatthedeafboy’slifeintheorphanagewasThebesttitleforthepassageisprobably
A、PalestiniandeclaredindependenceB、PalestinianauthoritydidnotcurbthemilitantsC、Palestinianauthoritysupportthemilit
随机试题
①正常的状况,诗人总是不直接向读者进行灌输②一般来说,优秀的诗篇总是避开直说③这是诗的一般规律,也是欣赏诗歌所必不可少的一种思想准备,或者叫做训练④由于不直说,因而增加了欣赏的困难⑤言在此而意在彼,不是说明着什么,而
驾驶小型汽车下陡坡时允许熄火滑行。
在《前赤壁赋》中,苏子认为“惟江上之清风,与山间之明月,耳得之而为声,目遇之而成色;取之无禁,用之不竭”,这里是想表达( )
一般性药材制备蜜丸时应选用
麻子仁丸适用于()
A、.经络闭阻B、.气机不和C、.血行不畅D、.筋脉失养E、.骨髓失充痉证的主要病机是
环境保护“三同时”制度是指建设项目需要配套建设的环境保护设施,必须与主体工程( )。
白银市丰华区浩宇水泥有限公司,系私营有限责任公司,法定代表人伍某,主要生产、经营水泥及水泥制品。经查,该企业利用购货方是本地区不索要发票的混凝土生产企业和个人,采取设置“账外账”等手段,将这部分收入不向税务机关进行申报纳税。根据《中华人民共和国税收征收管理
在设计和实施审计程序,以测试日常会计核算过程中作出的会计分录以及编制财务报表过程中作出的其他调整是否适当时,下列审计程序中,应当实施的有()。
2007年乡村劳动力中出省的劳动力人数占全省劳动力总数的比重约为()。
最新回复
(
0
)