February 20, 2012 | 1:31 pm

Adopt Your Girlfriend: Subprime Personhood

Posted by Pini Herman

Incorporate and Get Supreme Court Personhood

A Florida billionaire has adopted his adult girlfriend in an effort to divert a portion of his assets to her, is accused of killing one 23-year-old Scott Wilson in a drunk driving crash two years ago and faces both criminal charges and a civil suit. The adoption has brought legal response from the billionaire’s biological children.

A state-paid judge, ostensibly representing the people of the state of Florida’s interests, signed the adoption order.  In the next US census when the enumerator mails a survey, makes a phone call or comes knocking on the door and John Goodman and his “daughter” come to the door after having marathon legal non-consanguineous adult incestuous father/daughter sex, they can show the official census enumerator the official judge-signed court certificate that they must be officially listed, on the pain of legal penalty, as father and daughter.

Their undocumented maid, living in their manse’s small maids room, who opened the door for the enumerator is also enumerated, for now, but John Goodman, the billionaire, could be a financial supporter of FAIR (Federation of American Immigration Reform) which is trying to ban the enumeration of undocumented immigrants and has petitioned to courts to “un-adopt” such persons from being accounted for in political reapportionment of Congressional representation.

John Goodman, the billionaire, is mightily trying to protect his shares in corporations through girlfriend adoption. These corporations which have been recently given free speech rights of subprime personhood through the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision.  This gives the right of these corporations to weigh in, using corporate wealth and resources, not only in the election and appointment of politicians, but also judges who may continue to expand their inanimate rights of personhood. Additionally, corporations recently received from the U.S. Supreme Court, additional subprime uber-person rights so they can basically escape from the civil justice system when engaging in discriminatory or predatory behavior, the Supreme Court weakened the class action right of flesh and blood people.

Sub-prime personhood is now also being created for human embryonic cells and blastula and John Goodman, the billionaire, may hold that belief about when personhood begins and may encourage his corporations to help appoint and elect the judges, whom I pay with my tax dollars, to enforce his theology of personhood.

As the Biblical/Koranic Abraham might have said, to an incredulous idol worshipping chief judge when he put the ax in the hand of the intact “jealous” idol surrounded by the splinters of the destroyed idols, the idol did it. That an inanimate, man-made object could have human characteristics did not pass the personhood sniff test then and it does not pass the person-hood sniff test now.

Our politicians and judges, by constructing beings out of thin air put an ax in the hands of man-made inanimate constructions and ignore the hands of men who push that ax that fells people.  We flesh and blood people are not granted the same protections as the inanimate “persons/beings/entities” corporation owners have constructed through legal legerdemain. These corporations constituted of a privileged wealthy few, not necessarily U.S.citizens, can leverage this increased corporate power, for any purpose they see fit, including war and peace, without having to put their own, or their children’s, physical bodies in danger.

A society is at peril when even a clear acceptable count of persons can’t be made.  This country went to bloody war with itself in 1865 over the Constitution’s provision of counting some persons as little as three-fifths of a whole person.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish populationwas third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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February 17, 2012 | 12:47 pm

Jewish Identity: Public Education, Educated and Educators and Willing to Pay $300 More Property Tax

Posted by Pini Herman

A Tax Increase May Be Needed

Public education is vital to the Jewish community and supported by the vast majority of the Jewish community.  In practical terms because Jews are disproportionately home and property owners out tax investment in the public education system is great.  I personally pay a lot in property taxes and public education is vital to me.

If the Jewish Federation had fielded a Jewish Population Study of LA recently, it would likely find as I did in the last one 14 years ago that there were a high proportion of Jews employed in public elementary, secondary and post-secondary education, as well as within the private education sector.  Another finding would probably be that Jewish educators were disproportionately female and had significant representation in the arts and music programs being target for elimination by the LAUSD.

Apart from the educators, the white students remaining in the LAUSD are disproportionately Jewish.  So it is our own Jewish kids and parents who will be carrying the burden of the LAUSD proposed cuts.

If the Jewish Federation still had a working Jewish community relations council, as it did in the past, they would be mightily working the school board and the pols to avert the cuts on which the vote has just been delayed on the $6 billion budget plan that would cause thousands of LAUSD employees to lose their jobs. 

Luckily my LAUSD board member, Steve Zimmer, heeded my tiny phone call and proposed the delay and said:

There is no public education without adult education, without the arts…There’s a difference between drastic cuts and catastrophic cuts.

Make you voice heard:

Call or email any or all of the following LAUSD School Board Members:

District 1      Marguerite.LaMotte@lausd.net • 213-241-6382      
District 2      Monica.Garcia@lausd.net • 213-241-6180 *
District 3      Tamar.Galatzan@lausd.net • 213-241-6386
District 4      Steve.Zimmer@lausd.net • 213-241-6387
District 5      Bennett.Kayser@lausd.net • 213-241-5555
District 6      Nury.Martinez@lausd.net • 213-241-6388                    
District 7      Richard.Vladovic@lausd.net • 213-241-6385
*LAUSD SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT

And let Dr. Deasy hear from you, too!
Superintendent_JohnDeasy@LAUSD.NET 213-241-7000

UPDATE: The ax is suspended in mid-air for 21 days. The board has time to consider alternatives, including placing a ballot measure to increase property taxes by $300 annually to obtain $220 million.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish populationwas third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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February 14, 2012 | 11:38 am

Jewish Identity: Sharpies vs. Parnassim

Posted by Pini Herman

Parnass or Sharpie

More than 200 groups, from animals rights organizations to political activists, say most of their donated funds vanished after the group that watched over the money stopped operations in the LA Times.

Makes one think about how Madoff got local Jewish charities in the hole recently.

The Forward recently had an penetrating article about the growth of donor-advised-funds in the Jewish and general community, pointing out the dangers of the wealthy “parking” their monies, while getting immediate tax benefits.

A discussion of Jewish communal ethics around the role of charitable stewardship is needed.  Are the decision makers adhering to the general communal well-being values of the “parnass” or are they adhering to the primary values of self-interest, self-dealing and doing-well-by-doing good of the “sharpie.”

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish populationwas third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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February 12, 2012 | 11:58 am

Whitney Houston: A Jewish Way of Death

Posted by Pini Herman

Prescription Drugs?

Whitney Houston died of still unknown causes in the environs of the most densley Jewish political entity besides Kiryas Joel in the United States, Beverly Hills. 

While drowning is being considered and toxicology test results are weeks away, Whitney Houston may have died of the new dominant plague of prescription drugs, evidence of which was found in her room at the Beverly Hilton by the Beverly Hills Police Department.  Whitney Houston ironically died just less than 3 miles from where Michael Jackson was declared dead at UCLA.  This may be epicenter of the prescription drug death triangle.  The epidemiological picture may not be a coincidence with the significant number of Dr. Feel-Good offices populating the expensive real estate of Beverly Hills.

Drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States. Fueling the surge in deaths are prescription pain and anxiety drugs that are potent, highly addictive and especially dangerous when combined with one another or with other drugs or alcohol. Among the most commonly abused are OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma.

The epidemic of substance abuse has been documented in the Jewish community in the last LA Jewish Population Survey.  It would not be surprising if there was a disproportionate number Jews dying of drug deaths within this general societal trend.

Jews have an unearned reputation for sobriety. The LA Jewish Population Survey found that one-in-forty, or 6000 LA Jewish households reported having at least one member who needed assistance with problems of alcohol or substance abuse. There is a higher acceptance of use of substances such as marijuana in the Jewish community than the general population.

It would not be surprising if there was a disproportionate number Jews dying of drug deaths within this general societal trend.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population was third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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February 10, 2012 | 7:19 pm

Kevin Youkilis Marrying Out to Tom Brady’s Sister: Counting Jews

Posted by Pini Herman

The Youkilis family name has an unusual history from his entry on Wikipedia. His Jewish great-great-great-grandfather, a native of 19th-century Romania, moved to Greece at the age of 16 to avoid conscription at the hands of the notoriously anti-Semitic Cossacks. He became homesick, however, and returned to Romania after a couple of years, although he changed his surname from “Weiner” to the Greek name, “Youkilis”, to avoid army and jail. Some researchers make use of distinctive surnames to identify distinct ethnic populations, the Youkilis surename was definitely a curveball for Kevin.

“People have come up to me and starting speaking Greek to me and I don’t speak it,” Youkilis said. “I feel bad. Ever since I was in Lowell (Class A), people have thought I was Greek. People shout at me, ‘I’m Greek, you’re Greek.’ But I’m not.”

Youkilis is the son of a Romanian Jewish jewelry wholesaler, who Youkilis has described as a

“well-known third baseman in the Jewish Community Center fast-pitch softball league.”

Youkilis was a kid who grew up in Cincinnati rooting for the Reds, who dutifully went to Hebrew school through Bar Mitzvah (“It was a long Haftorah,” he recalls), before his parents allowed him to concentrate on baseball.  Later the Red Sox infielder had to make the tough decision about whether to play on Yom Kippur, and he chose to play.  This disgusted some Jewish observers but there are Jews of all flavors and this choice doesn’t make him any less a self-identifying Jew.

For sure, the children will have the multi-sport potential, but how will they be raised?  Will their religion be baseball, football?  Is this adequate for a well rounded person.  I think that Judaism has a lot to offer, especially if you enjoy the sport you’re involved in.  Some rabbis have been known to encourage competitive play on the Sabbath on the principle that what give a person pleasure should be done, even more so, on the Sabbath.

I hope that the happy couple will discuss religion and the upbringing of their children.  I would love to count them in my upcoming Jewish population surveys.  Perhaps they will grow up belonging to a Jewish Community Center like their dad and grandpa have.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population was third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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February 8, 2012 | 3:37 pm

Jewish Community Charting Errors Add Up

Posted by Pini Herman

Jewish Population May Appear Larger Than It Actually Is

This blog ends with an attempt to simplify with a parable. Whether the U.S. Jewish population is 5.2 million or 6.4 million may seem like a demographers’ squabble (previously in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) . The primary issue may be: Does the organized Jewish community continue to field an admittedly expensive National Jewish Population survey which it has historically done for the past twenty years or is there a cheaper and adequate alternative?  A group at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies Brandeis publicized a much cheaper, and they hoped to demonstrate, as good a tool as the previously fielded National Jewish Population Survey.  I wish that Brandeis had succeeded in their claim of pioneering a new estimation method that would save the Jewish community significant resources, now even scarcer due to the economic downturn.

The 5,148 Jewish households found by the 2000-1 National Jewish Population Survey by calling hundreds of thousands random digit dialed (RDD) telephoned American households produced the last estimated 5.2 million number of American Jews. 

The Brandeis group achieved their 6.4 million American Jews 2010 estimate by creating a panel of a bit over a thousand Jewish households by using a pre-existing survey panel frame of fifty thousand American households maintained by a firm called Knowledge Networks.  Knowledge Network rents out the use of their panel which it argues mimics the US population and is not subject to the weaknesses brought about by increasing cell phone use that affect the utility of the RDD method. 

The second stage of the Brandeis group’s method was taking over a hundred national surveys done in the past decade which asked: “What is your religion,” often with less than two thousand adult household respondents per survey and standardizing these surveys to the Knowledge Networks’ demographic characteristics to derive what the percentage of respondents answering Jewish was in the surveys. From this the Brandeis group reported that 1.8 percent of all the adult respondent in the standardized 150 surveys were Jewish.  1.8 percent of the US census yielded the estimated adult Jewish population estimate and the under age 18 children seemed to be estimated from what was learned from the thousand Jewish households from the Knowledge Networks panel which was then determined to be an overall estimate of 6.4 million U.S. Jews.

Every survey has some error.  What’s important is if the error goes in a specific direction or its just random and may be just a wash.  I have found that using Random Digit Dialing introduces randomization which better controls for directional error which can magnify or diminish a population characteristic. Jewish surveys depend on reliably identifying Jews for which the “Jewish screener questionnaire” has long been the gold standard.  The Brandeis group was able to use a Jewish screener questionnaire only on the Knowledge Networks households panel but not on the other surveys on which their population estimate was based.

I wish that the American Jewish population, using the same way of defining Jews as in the past, was growing, or even remaining stable at 5.2 million.  I haven’t seen evidence of significantly increased birthrates, longevity and/or in-migration from abroad among Jews in the U.S.  In my mind, I just can’t account for the Brandeis group’s estimated increase of 1.2 million Jews, or 23 percent, in the last decade.  I don’t think that the last two RDD based National Jewish Population Surveys missed a million Jews in 1990 and 2000.

I’m sure there are cheaper ways to derive a US Jewish population estimate because in 1996 I began testing one component of a method that could be adapted for more valid Jewish population estimates and subsequently published a paper about the findings in 1997.

Here’s an attempt at explaining the Brandeis research by creating a parable:

As the waters of American surveying have gotten murkier because of increased telephone RDD refusal rates and decreased telephone land-line penetration, the use of the reliable SONAR of Jewish population study, the RDD Jewish screener process, has been growing in cost because of the increased number of soundings needed to discern the sea floor terrain and characteristics of the Jewish community.

The ship’s pilot,  the organized Jewish community, is tired of paying for SONAR soundings for those expensive charts and has been muddling through using outdated charts, instinct, memory and luck to navigate channels that it knows are shifting.  Let’s say that the seafloor has coral reefs and one type of coral is the “Jewish” coral.

Along comes a chart-maker who says “I have a shiny new and inexpensive way to make charts for you.  I’ve found the company with a big powerful glass bottom ship that I can use to look at the sea bottom and find the Jewish corals and then I can use a fleet of inexpensive little glass bottomed boats, built by others for other purposes, and adjust their glass bottoms on the basis of my measurements of Jewish coral from the large glass bottomed ship to create a chart of the Jewish coral community.  The chart-maker’s best efforts don’t take into account that the glass on the bottom of the big glass bottomed ship and fleet of glass bottomed boats is more convex, therefore, magnifying the Jewish community.  This is an attempt to stencil on the glass bottom that “Jewish Coral May Look Larger Than They Actually Are.”

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population was third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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February 3, 2012 | 1:55 pm

Jewish Identities for Christians

Posted by Pini Herman

Find the Jew

I never thought about it much, but as a gatekeeper for Jewish identities in several Jewish population studies over the years, I’ve bounced more than a few Christians who seemed theologically inclined to describe themselves as Jewish, but beside their beliefs, nothing else pointed in that direction.  I just wouldn’t count them or told the interviewers to thank them, drop them and go on to the next interviews.  I wasn’t going to waste precious Jewish communal population research resources on “false positives.”

Brushing the phenomenon off, I never really collated the numbers or went back to do any special statistics or study about this.  I just grouped these Christians calling themselves Jews as non-Jews.

Well, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 1928

” In Utah Mormons Call Themselves Jews and Jews Are Considered “gentiles”

Then, of course, there are Messianics who define themselves as Jews and in their worldview is expressed in Yahoo Answers:

“Basically there are two kinds of Jews. Messianic Jews and Non Messianic Jews.”

Then we go on to Christians who stop believing in the New Testament and Jesus

Plenty of full-on Christians call themselves Jews - “Completed” Jews, “Messianic” Jews, “Grafted” Jews, etc.

Then there are Christians who believe that Christianity IS NOT a repudiation of Judaism. But Christianity is a fulfilling of Judaism and so as one respondent told me, he was the true Jew.

People can call themselves anything they like, but as a standard bearer and enforcer for the organized Jewish community, I have to draw the sociological line somewhere.  There are also many people who would be considered Jews by other Jews or the State of Israel, but I don’t include them in the Jewish count because they they refuse to consider themselves to be Jewish by religion or other means.

All of this would be of interest as dinner party conversation, but it turns out that is could be a component of rather large error in the newly published estimates of the the size of the American Jewish Community by a group at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University.  Their estimate at 6.4 million is about a million Jews higher than previously accepted estimates.

In a previous blog I have put forth the arguments of where they may have made some methodological missteps and perhaps overreached in their ability to make accurate estimates with the demographic materials they have on hand.  Since they are relying on large survey datasets which haven’t been “cleaned” of Christians calling themselves Jews, its now a topic that may have to be researched and explored in order to find the prevalence of this phenomenon in order to control for it in this type of Jewish population research.

Pini Herman, PhD. has served as Asst. Research Professor at the University of Southern California Dept. of Geography,  Adjunct Lecturer at the USC School of Social Work,  Research Director at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles following Bruce Phillips, PhD. in that position (I was recently notified that with 40,000 visitors this year the 15 year old study of the LA Jewish population was third most downloaded study from Berman Jewish Policy Archives in 2011) and is immediate past President of the Movable Minyan a lay-lead independent congregation in the 3rd Street area. Currently he is a principal of Phillips and Herman Demographic Research. To email Pini: pini00003@gmail.com To follow Pini on Twitter: Follow @pinih

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