Despite being classified as White and seen as highly assimilated, Jews represent an invisible minority (Langman, 1999). In particular, Jews not only face aspects of discrimination that are similar to racial minority groups (i.e., unfair treatment; Ruggiero & Marx, 1999), but also experience prejudice that is unique to the Jewish group (i.e., lack of accommodations in majority society). This noted discrimination marginalizes Jewish experiences and negatively influences both personal and collective well-being (Dion & Earn, 1975). However, literature suggests that inclusion in one’s minority in-group offers a sense of belonging. As supported in racial minorities, it is hypothesized that a Jewish identity may similarly account for more positive views of oneself and one’s ethnic group. Given this, this study explored the relevance of the rejection-identification model (Branscombe et al., 1999) for Jews by assessing whether Jewish identity mediated the relationship between perceived discrimination and personal and collective well-being. Furthermore, given the differing Jewish denominations, a second purpose was to assess the moderating effects of denomination on this mediation relationship.

Participants included 387 American Jews, ages 18 to 85. Ninety-two identified as Orthodox, 157 as Conservative, and 141 as Reform. Structural equation modeling was utilized to examine mediation and moderation. Results indicated that all three denominations consider religion, peoplehood, pride, community, Israel, and ethnicity & culture as factors comprising their Jewish identity. The Orthodox endorsed all of these Jewish identity factors the most strongly. However, Jewish identity did not mediate perceived discrimination and personal or collective well-being, thus rejecting the rejection-identification model for the Jewish group. Moderation by denomination was not found in the relationship between Jewish identity and personal well-being and between perceived discrimination and personal well-being. However, moderation was found in the relationships between perceived discrimination and Jewish identity, Jewish identity and collective well-being, and perceived discrimination and collective well-being. Therefore, this indicated that one’s denominational group significantly affects the strength of relationships involving collective well-being but not personal well-being. More specifically, the collective well-being relationships were only significant for the Conservative and Reform groups. Implications of these findings are discussed.