The majority religion in Sweden seems to be Lutheran.
If we’re going by television shows and movies, I would say unless otherwise specified characters are assumed to be protestant or non religious. In the cases where people are Jewish or Catholic it is quite obvious and usually part of the schtick or plot.
I guess what I’m trying to say is nobody ever says “Hey, remember that TV show where the Baptist chick marries the Episcopalian guy?” No, when it comes to religious characters on television we recall the ones with the rich traditions. Not that Protestants don’t have these cultures, but they’re maybe not as colorful. Everyone knows that Rhoda Morganstern was Jewish but Mary Richards was nonsecular. She was probably Swedish.
Or it could just be because the Jews own everything.
Now it would be very interesting to know how big a percentage of American entertainers / writers, or the populace of NY and LA are Jewish? I reckon there are many areas in the US with almost no Jews, possibly many occupations without them, too, given the mere ~2% of the total. How much different are the specific “fields” above?
I am part Swedish-American, and a convert to Judaism.
When I was growing up, my family did not have any particular Swedish-American customs, holidays, or cuisine. We were much more assimilated into American culture than most Jews are. I suspect this is true of a lot of Swedish-Americans.
My theory as to why this is is that Swedish-Americans were always allowed to assimilate into mainstream culture if they wished to do so. Jews weren’t. Until the 1960s, some hotels and country clubs didn’t allow Jews. That didn’t happen to Swedish-Americans. If we wanted to join the country club and live just like our WASP neighbors, we could do it. Jews couldn’t. Jews were not allowed to assimilate, and that encouraged them to have a separate culture. Swedes were allowed to assimilate into the mainstream American culture, and we did.
Jews are much more able to assimilate now than 40 years ago, and there’s some evidence (such as high rates of intermarriage) that that’s happening.
According to Wikipedia, 18.7% of the population of New York City is Jewish.
LA has a Jewish population of 621,000 out of a total population of 3.8 million. If both of those numbers are counting the same thing (I’m not sure exactly what each includes), that’s 16.3%.
Almost anytime it’s an upper class wedding, such as in Wedding Crashers, I’ve noticed that it’s often Episcopalian, whose priests look similar to Catholics.
I consider that fact that I even know that Jews are divided into Ashkenazi and other groups is evidence that I know way more about Jews than about comparable US cultures. For example, I have no idea into what subgroups the French, Germans, Romanians, Hungarians, etc divide themselves into.
I disagree. There are a lot of movies in which the wedding is either part-Jewish (with a Rabbi and a priest present) or entirely Jewish. I have seen the “step on the wineglass to break it” ceremony countless times in movies and TV shows.
This is not true. As of 2007 estimate, 163,769,315 people in the USA lived in metro areas of greater than one million people. There are 51 areas that exceed one million. Just over half of the people in the United States live in the top 40 of those. The Greater Birmingham, AL area is the 47th on the list, fwiw.
Wow, totally disagree. IME, most Americans are pretty ignorant of Jewish culture and Judaism. They’ve heard a lot of the words, but don’t really know what most of them mean. For instance, I’m sure most Americans know the word “kosher” and have an idea that it means that it’s what Jews are supposed to eat or not eat, but I’ve personally run into plenty of people who weren’t aware that kashrut consists of anything more complicated than “no pork”.
What’s amazing to me is that Judaism is an absolutely miniscule religion in the world - about 0.2% of the global population, yet it’s often called part of the “Big 3” here along with Christianity and Islam even though there are 55 times as many Hindus and 23 times as many Buddhists worldwide. (cite)
Sikhism is actually a bigger religion than Judaism, yet how much do Americans know about Sikhism?
One thing is clear to me - Jews are great at marketing.
Beyond writers & artists, if I’m not mistaking the names of Producers and Executive Producers that appear in the beginning or end of a movie, a huge percentage of them are Jewish.
This always brings up a question for me, and since I don’t think it merits its own thread I’ll ask it here:
If I’m not mistaken, due to historical reasons, Jews were barred from countless professions due to discrimination, and one of the ones they could get into was the movie business, and so a lot of the big Hollywood movie producers in the “Golden Era” of Hollywood were Jewish. Is this a correct assessment?
But, that was a while ago. Why don’t non-Jews get into the movie producing business? You’d think that, after so many decades, things would even out a bit. What keeps the percentage of Jewish movie producers so high? Is it just that you need a ton of connections to get started, and Jews have a historical advantage in that respect?
It just seems weird that the percent of movie producers is so unbalanced.
What? Black people? No way. Every show has at least one.
South Asians are by far the most underrepresented group in film and TV. I can count the number of recurring South Asian characters in US TV shows on one hand. One finger, actually.
If you take away Kal Penn, I can count the number of South Asian leads in US films on no hands.
That’s not a very fair comparison, though. French, Germans, Romanians and Hungarians don’t usually divide along clear lines the way Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews would, because the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews come from entirely different parts of the world - the former primarily have roots in Central/Eastern Europe, and the latter in Spain/North Africa.
While there’s a common thread due to the fact that they share a common religion, every other aspect of their cultures has been shaped by their geography - when you strip out the religious aspects, Sephardim have much more in common with Moroccans than they do with Ashkenazi.
A more appropriate comparison would be Russian Orthodox vs Italian Catholic, which seem to be groups most Americans seem to have a rough awareness of.
AbbyEmmaSasha, I’m pretty sure Kyla’s post isn’t a woosh at all. Just the other day, I spent an hour explaining the concept of Passover to my atheist cousin… she knew the holiday existed and is celebrated by Jews, but beyond that had absolutely no idea what it entailed. She had no idea that bread and grains are forbidden, or that there’s a big celebratory meal. (my Catholic grandmother knew more, but mostly because she’s familiar with the parts of Bible related to Exodus and the Last Supper)
What’s “too much” and how much should people know? Does the OP think there’s something wrong or troubling about this or see it as sinister? The reality is that there are a lot of Jews in U.S. entertainment dating back at least to vaudeville, and what you’re seeing in comedy and other parts of entertainment is a historical outgrowth of that.
[quote=“Polerius, post:1, topic:493037”]
Concepts which I have heard countless times:
[ul]
[li]Kosher[/li][li]Bar Mitzvah[/li][li]Sabbath/Shabbat[/li][li]Restrictions on what can and can’t be done on the Sabbath[/li][li]Yarmulke[/li][li]Hanukkah[/li][li]Rosh Hashanah[/li][li]Yom Kippur[/li][/quote]
There are Christian equivalents to several of these concepts (Sabbath, bar mitzvah, Hanukkah), and I agree with the poster who said you might have heard of these, but probably don’t know a lot about them.
[quote]
[list]
[li]etc[/ul][/li][/quote]
“Etc” isn’t Jewish, “yada yada” is.
[/LIST]
[quote]
[li]If we do know more about Jewish culture (relative to their population) than about any other culture present in the US, then what are the reasons behind it?[/li][/quote]
They run the banks. :rolleyes:
[quote]
[li]Is it because there are a lot of movie and TV producers & writers who are Jewish and they like to write about their culture?[/li][/quote]
There are definitely a goodly number of Jewish writers and producers. It may not even be “like to write about their culture” as much as “they write what they know.” I’m sure you’ve heard of Jewish humor and there’s certainly an element of mocking your own culture. Something like 50 percent of all Jewish comedians have at least one joke about how bad Hanukkah is compared to Christmas.
The below is a post of mine from a previous thread about Jewish stereotypes:
I suspect the reason the trend is still there is, as you suggest, connections… but remember, film is still a young industry. Many of the men who built Hollywood are still alive, or recently dead. Wait a generation or two, and things might be different.
It’s also worth noting that Jewish men control Hollywood. Jewish women are virtually invisible (at least among studio management).
Hava Nagila? Anyway, if you’re listening to the Pussycat Dolls version I don’t think that counts.
