Aging and Religious Commitment in a Midwestern Jewish Community

This research describes the relationship between age and religiosity among American Jews living in a metropolitan area in the midwestern United States. lnterviews were completed with the head of household or hislher spouse in 286 "affiliated" Jewish households. Religiosity was measured in diverse ways under two broad categories: organizational religious commitment and nonorganizational, or individual, religious commitment. Scales were identified, in the unidimensional Guttman sense, among the indicators of religious commitment. The effects of age and education on each of the identified scales were observed. Separate analyses were conducted for thosc indicators of religious commitment not included in any of the scales. For malcs, only the number of Jewish organizaiional memberships showed age related differences. Females showed statistically significant age differences on organizational and individual measures of religiosity, including the organizational-symbolic scale (made up of "synagogue attendance" an...