The JCCA sample was limited to those who declared their religious identification to be Jewish. The latter are among the least involved Jews in the population. Consequently, it slightly over-estimates the overall American Jewish population s levels of Jewish identification. Therefore, its use as a benchmark here produces conservative, somewhat understated estimates of the impact of Young Judaea. But, simple differences between Young Judaea alumni and other American Jews cannot provide the total and final answer to the key question of this study.
Simple comparisons fail to take into account a large number of confounding background factors.
Thus, in order to isolate the impact of the Young Judaea experience, we sought to remove, statistically, all background factors. The main problem with trying to assess the impact of Young Judaea by comparing the alumni with other American Jews is that the alumni are not randomly distributed throughout the American Jewish population. They share certain characteristics that might pre-dispose them to higher or lower levels of Jewish identification. Young Judaea alumni are self-selected. Their Jewish schooling, for example, figures to have been more intensive than that of the average American Jew their age.