Jewish Teen Literally Vanishes During Latest Pew Research Study

Lucy and David: The missing link in the evolutionary story, and Lucy (left) the artist’s reconstruction of a young australopithecus. Image by Anya Ulinich

By Dagmar Waffelheuser February 28, 2015

Sixteen-year-old Justin Cohen disappeared during a follow-up interview to the 2013 landmark Pew Research Center’s survey of American Jews.

Pew researcher Stephen Ipsell, who conducted the interview, said this is the first time a subject has dematerialized in the middle of a 45-minute session.

“I noticed some fading around the edges around 10 minutes in when I asked about synagogue attendance, and then his legs started to go when he mentioned that he had never gone to Jewish summer camp, and then when I asked if he felt Jewish religiously, culturally, other, or neither, he just kind of shrugged, said ‘Eh,’ and then — poof! Gone.”

Ipsell said that Cohen’s disappearance, while the most dramatic, was not the sole episode of material transformation during the study.

“Well, I had one fellow who turned into a Buddhist monk before my eyes, and another girl suddenly started speaking Chinese, and then in one really tragic case, a college student started talking about Ron Paul and just couldn’t stop. He was still babbling when I left.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO