by the Roman Empire c. first century CE, leading to what is known as today as the Jewish Diaspora. In contemporary sociology Jewish identity began to gain the attention of Jewish sociologists in the United States with the publication of Marshall Sklare's "Lakeville studies". Among other topics explored in the studies was Sklare's notion of a "good Jew". The "good Jew" was essentially an idealized form of Jewish identity as expressed by the Lakeville respondents. Today, sociological measurements of Jewish identity have become the concern of the Jewish Federations who have sponsored numerous community studies across the U.S.; policy decisions (in areas such as funding, programming, etc.) have been shaped in part due to studies on Jewish identity. Antisemitism and Jewish identity According to the social-psychologist Simon Herman, antisemitism plays a part in shaping Jewish identity. This view is echoed by religious leaders such as Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who writes that modern Jewish communities and the modern Jewish identity are deeply influenced by antisemitism. Right-wing antisemitism, for example, is typically a branch of white supremacy: it traditionally conceives of Jews as a distinct race with intrinsic, undesirable qualities that must be exterminated from the population. Left-wing antisemitism, by contrast, frequently views Jews as members of the white race, an idea that is a precursor to the criticism of Zionism as a racist ideology, as well as the exclusion of Jews from goals of intersectionality. As Blake Flayton, a columnist at The Jewish Journal, wrote in The New York Times in 2019: "We often refrain from calling out anti-Semitism on our side for fear of our political bona fides being questioned or, worse, losing friends or being smeared as the things we most revile: racist, white supremacist, colonialist and so on. And that is exactly what happens when we do speak up...While white supremacists plot to murder Jews across this country, 'anti-Zionists' on college campuses seek to marginalize us as white supremacists." See also References External links Leadel.NET - Leading Jewish Inspiration. What makes Jewish Identity on the web? HERMAN, Simon N. Jewish Identity: A Social Psychological Perspective. Transaction, 1977. GOLDBERG, David Theo & KRAUSZ, Michael. Jewish Identity. Temple University Press, 1993. Half-jewish Three Intellectuals and a People, by Laurent Cohen (an article about the Jewish Identity of Hannah Arendt, Gershom Scholem and Simone Weil). Eretz Acheret, 5 November 2009. Identity politics Religious identity Secular Jewish culture Jewish society Jewish culture