In a recent issue of Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women's Studies and Gender Issues, Debra Mesch, director of the Women's Philanthropy Institute at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy, together with colleagues, has published an article called "Does Jewish Philanthropy Differ by Sex and Type of Giving?" This kind of title tends to turn a potential reader into a pillar of salt—but if you are serious about the future of the American Jewish community and its values, you'll want to look at Mesch's findings about the connection between intermarriage and generosity.
The epistomologist Will Rogers once observed that "it isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so." This is the principle driving modern survey research, which probes, measures, and hypothesizes about human opinions and behaviors that most people think are just common sense. When survey researchers want to explain why this sort of thing is useful, they sometimes point to Samuel Stouffer.
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