A labor economist has written a new book subjecting Jewish identity to a formal cost-benefit analysis. Attempting to sort through the decisions made by American Jews about synagogue membership or whether to send their children to day school, she proceeds on the theory that such abstractions as community and religion are themselves “goods” (like toasters and televisions). She even applies the same measurement to make sense of the resurgence of Orthodoxy. Steven I. Weiss writes:
Carmel Chiswick shows how this view can alter the equation [faced by parents] when looking at the two major options for preparing a child for a Jewish life and a bar or bat mitzvah. Jewish day school is the full-time, dual-curriculum option available at Jewish private schools; by contrast, “Hebrew school” is the term used to describe a much more limited program of study, often on Sundays and a few weekdays as an after-school program at a local synagogue. Chiswick assumes that the several hours of extra time required to shuttle one’s child back and forth to Hebrew school instead of enrolling the child at a full-time day school can represent a time cost of $18,000 per year for a $200-an-hour lawyer. Suddenly, the combination of public school and Hebrew school rather than day school doesn’t seem like such a bargain.
Read more on Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/a-cost-benefit-analysis-of-being-jewish/381009