East Bay Jewish Community Study - Jewish Federation of the ...

Interviewing Process
The interviews were composed of two portions:
Screening.
The survey began with a series of screening questions that required approximately 2.6 minutes
to complete. These questions were asked of everybody reached on the phone, including those
in both the Jewish and non-Jewish households. The goal of this first section was to assess
whether the respondent or household qualified for the full survey, as well as to gather data
necessary for making population estimates. Accordingly, the screening section began by
recording basic respondent data (gender and age) and confirming that the household was
located in the greater East Bay region. Then it asked about the number of landlines in the
household and the number of adults and children in the household (household size), information
required for calculating population estimates. Finally, the last part of the screening section
determined whether the household could be considered a Jewish household according to the
aforementioned criteria and, if so, how many people in the household were Jewish. (see figure
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Please note the ―skip logic‖ used in the part of the screening determining the Jewish status of a
household. Individuals who indicated they were Jewish in the religion question (RELIG1) were
allowed to skip directly to the question asking the number of Jews in their household and then
moved onto the full survey. Individuals indicating no religion or another, non-Jewish, religion
were given several other opportunities to qualify: if they considered themselves to be Jewish in
any way, if any other member of the household considered themselves to be Jewish, or if they
or a household member were born or raised Jewish. At this point, if the interviewer reached a
non-Jewish member of a Jewish household, every attempt was made to switch to the Jewish
member of the household.
As it turned out, none of Jewish households that went on to complete the full survey required all
of the follow-up questions. In fact, 49 percent indicated they were Jewish in the first question
about religion and the remaining 51 percent said they considered themselves Jewish in any way
when asked directly. That means that none of the respondents were asked the questions about
being born or raised Jewish and, if the respondent was not Jewish, whether there was a Jewish
household member. There were five respondents that did qualify as Jewish households based
on the follow-up questions, but they all subsequently ―broke-off,‖ or refused to complete the
survey.
The Jewish Household Survey.
The Jewish household survey was only administered to Jewish households, as determined by
the interviewee’s responses in the screening portion. Following the screening, interviewees in
non-Jewish households were thanked for their time and the interview was terminated. For
Jewish households, the survey portion was administered immediately following the conclusion
of the screening, although, if necessary, respondents could request and schedule a call-back
time to complete the survey.
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