abeles@mhuxm.UUCP (abeles) (11/20/84)
RESULT: 83 respondents
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1) Do you think that Jews should in any way participate in Halloween?
Answers: Yes: 34 No: 28 No Comment: 21 (among all respondents)
41% 34% 25%
Yes: 31 No: 27 No Comment: 12 (excluding identified non-Jews)
44% 39% 17%
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2) Do you think that Jews should in any way participate in Thanksgiving?
Answers: Yes: 62 No: 5 No Comment: 16 (among all respondents)
75% 6% 19%
Yes: 58 No: 5 No Comment: 7 (excluding identified non-Jews)
83% 7% 10%
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3) Do you think that Jews should in any way participate in New Year's (Jan 1)?
Answers: Yes: 37 No: 22 No Comment: 24 (among all respondents)
45% 27% 29%
Yes: 34 No: 22 No Comment: 14 (excluding identified non-Jews)
49% 31% 20%
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These are some of the results. My summary and comments follow:
First of all, there was a good response. As one respondent mentioned, a
presidential poll on the net got around 100 respondents. Therefore we can
pat ourselves on the back as one of the more thought-provoking yet also
widely read newsgroups on USENET.
Second, the most sweeping consensus occured on the subject of Thanksgiving.
Clearly among the vast majority of the readers Thanksgiving is considered
appropriate for Jews. Halloween and New Year's, both regarded widely within
our society at large as being non-religious and certainly celebrated as such
evoked mixed reactions. However, there is some evidence in the comments
I received (comprising circa 30 pages) that individuals, when confronted
with a challenge to take a stand on what was to them a difficult issue
made the choice to express a more "religious" conviction. But I believe
that this accounts only partially for what is a rather right-wing result
(that there is no clear consensus on participation in New Years in particular):
The readers of this newgroup have pre-selected themselves to be committed
Jews for the most part.
Next, on the subject of non-Jewish respondents, while I haven't given
the actual statistics above, I am pleased to report that most of the
non-Jewish readers agree that it is not their place to suggest what holidays
Jews should celebrate. However, to paraphrase one such response, it would be
nice if Jews could take part in some of the same holidays so that a feeling
of community could continue in America. It is not excessive to suggest
that such interactions between Jews and non-Jews could thwart antisemitism.
Next, while some international responses were received (Canada) not a
single one was from Europe, Asia, or Australia. It is possible that
net.religion.jewish is not being distributed there. However I am certain
that one article was posted from England in the newsgroup within the last
year...whether that is continuing, I expect, is a subject of some interest
to American participants in net.religion.jewish.
I know that many readers are too busy to be active participants in
net.religion.jewish. I respect that point of view, and thank those
who answered. I know of no way to tell how many of us are out there,
though I estimate between 300 and 500. One point of this survey has
been to show that you don't have to be highly visible for your opinion
to be taken seriously.
A final note. Many people refused to give simple yes/no answers to the
questions. Instead, they preferred to give a long, occasionally totally
inconclusive, discussions. Except in the completely inconclusive case,
I searched their responses using both my head and my heart to uncover
what their true sentiments were. I only did this when there was no clear
yes/no answer. Particularly in the case of Halloween there was a number
who admitted that they gave out candy to "trick-or-treat"-ing children
but did not otherwise believe in participation. One person writes that
with his family he does participate to some extent to please them though
he is not really in favor (I was impressed by the importance to this man
of family unity). In both cases the literal answer could have been
"yes" to question 1, since they admit some participation, but since they
expressed deep reservations, I count these as "no" answers.
--J. Abeles
{allegra,houxm,ihnp4,mcnc,princeton,sdcsvax,ulysses,vax135,watmath,
wjh12}!mhuxm!abeles
copyright 1984--This article and data within are not to be redistributed
or published without permission, with the single exception that over
the USENET unlimited use of any type may be made without further permission
provided credit is given to the source, J. Abeles.