American Jewish youth born abroad show more normal behavior patterns in their reactions to anti-Jewish bias and discriminations than the American-born Jewish youth, a Jewish scholar declared last night in an address at the 37th annual conference of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research. The conference, which opened last Saturday, will conclude its six days of sessions tomorrow.
The comparison of reactions by foreign-born and American-born Jewish youths was made by Dr. Victor D. Sanua, associate professor of psychology at Yeshiva University. He said the young American Jews born outside the United States react the way they do because of their stronger Jewish identification, which gives them greater security than that possessed by the Jewish youth born in this country. However, he pointed out, there have been, as yet, too few studies in this field to justify firm conclusions.
Another speaker, Leibush Lehrer, chairman of Yivo’s scientific collegium, discussed the reactions by second-generation and third-generation American Jews to the Nazi holocaust. He found that the younger Jews in this group show “greater sensitivity to the holocaust” than displayed by the older members of the group.
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