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January 11, 2002/27 Tevet 5762, Vol. 54, No. 17
Wait! Please don't hang up
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
The phone rings. You answer.
"Hello, my name is Ron Smith and I'm calling from ICR, an independent market research firm. We're doing a study to add to the information about the Greater Phoenix area collected by the U.S. census."
Suppress the urge to say, "I'm not interested," and hang up. That's because the call is designed precisely to gauge your interest. To find out what moves you. What you care about. What you need and want from your Jewish community. And how it might best be provided.
Starting later this month and continuing into the spring, phones will ring in 20,000 area households - some selected from the list from the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix, others through random digit dialing - as the 2002 Jewish Community Study of Greater Phoenix gets underway. Researchers plan to complete 750 interviews.
Under the aegis of federation, funded through a grant from longtime community members Harold and Jean Grossman, this first such study since 1983 will provide a snapshot of who we are, where we live, what we do. It is intended to help the community create a viable, visionary blueprint for the future.
Now that the opportunity is here, we need to make sure that we don't miss it. That means answering the call, engaging in a 20-25 minute interview covering a raft of issues from discerning Jewish identity to discussing communal participation, ritual observance, education and lifestyle.
Researchers will canvass a vast cross section of people who define themselves as Jews, not just those who manifest more traditional behaviors such as synagogue affiliation, support for Jewish causes or membership in Jewish organizations. A valid community profile, one that identifies unmet needs and underserved groups, must reflect the immense diversity and variety of contemporary Jewish life.
Preliminary questions will tell the interviewer if the respondent considers himself or herself, or another household member, Jewish. Non-Jewish respondents will be factored into statistical calculations to determine the size of the Jewish population. So allowing the interviewer to complete the necessary series of questions is essential.
"We hope people will stay on the phone and spread the word among their non-Jewish friends (to do the same)," says Jack Ukeles, whose firm, which carries his name, is overseeing the Phoenix study. Ukeles, a New York native and former city planner, has conducted nearly two dozen population studies.
"(The success of the study) depends on what we call the response rate and the cooperation rate," he explains, "the percentage of people who we reach and the percentage who actually talk to us."
Ukeles, working with sociologist Ron Miller, recently completed studies of the Jewish communities in Baltimore, Denver, Palm Springs, Calif., and Pittsburgh, as well as the 2001 National Jewish Population Study expected to be released this spring.
Ukeles is passionate about what he does, convinced that gathering data and using it to plan is critical to the Jewish future. "At the end of the day," he says, "good information will build good communities."
Contributing Editor Vicki Cabot serves on the board of the Jewish Federation of Greater Phoenix. Her husband, Howard Cabot, chairs the Demographic Study Committee.
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