Examining a Non-Centralized Religoethnic Community

American Jewry shares the long-standing American commitment to noncentralized decision-making. Decision-making in the United States is not decentralized but noncentralized. That is, there is no single center that can determine how or where decision-making should be dispersed, as the notion of decentralization implies. Rather, there are many different centers of decision-making, each of which exists legitimately in its own right, while the existence of each is protected within the society in some "constitutional" way. In political life even the federal government, powerful as it is, is simply one center ? some would even describe it as a cluster of centers ? among many.