Abstract
This chapter examines the size, geographic distribution, and selected characteristics of the Jewish population of the US. Part I addresses the procedures employed to estimate the Jewish population of over 900 local Jewish communities and parts thereof. Part II presents the major changes in local Jewish population estimates since last year’s Year Book. Part III examines population estimates for the country as a whole, each state, the four US Census Regions, the nine US Census Divisions, the 20 largest US Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), and the 51 Jewish Federation service areas with 20,000 or more Jews. Part IV examines changes in the size and geographic distribution of the Jewish population at national, state, and regional scales from 1971 to 2014. Part V presents a description of local Jewish community studies and a listing of studies currently in progress. Part VI relates to Chap. 2 on gender by presenting comparisons of Jewish communities on synagogue attendance and levels of emotional attachment to Israel by age and sex. Part VII presents an atlas of local American Jewish communities, including a national map of Jews by county and 14 regional and state maps of Jewish communities.
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Notes
- 1.
See Sheskin (1998). The fact that about 8–12 % of American Jews, despite rising intermarriage, continue to have one of 36 Distinctive Jewish Names (Berman, Caplan, Cohen, Epstein, Feldman, Freedman, Friedman, Goldberg, Goldman, Goldstein, Goodman, Greenberg, Gross, Grossman, Jacobs, Jaffe, Kahn, Kaplan, Katz, Kohn, Levin, Levine, Levinson, Levy, Lieberman, Rosen, Rosenberg, Rosenthal, Rubin, Schwartz, Shapiro, Siegel, Silverman, Stern, Weinstein, and Weiss) facilitates making reasonable estimates of the Jewish population. See also Mateos (2014) on the uses of ethnic names in general.
- 2.
For an example, see footnote 4 in Sheskin and Dashefsky (2008).
- 3.
Note that while we have classified DJN and “different methodology” methods as Scientific, the level of accuracy of such methods is well below that of the RDD methodology. Most studies using a “different methodology” have made concerted efforts to enumerate the known Jewish population via merging membership lists and surveying known Jewish households. An estimate of the unaffiliated Jewish population is then added to the affiliated population.
- 4.
The number of Jews in Florida in 2014 excludes Jews in part-year households (“snowbirds”). The historical record does not indicate the portion of the population that was part year in 1971.
- 5.
For more detail on these communities, see Hartman and Sheskin (2012).
- 6.
Palm Beach County consists of two Jewish communities: The South Palm Beach community includes Greater Boca Raton and Greater Delray Beach. The West Palm Beach community includes all other areas of Palm Beach County from Boynton Beach north to the Martin County line.
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Acknowledgement
The authors thank the following individuals and organizations:
1. The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) and former staff members at its predecessor organizations (United Jewish Communities and Council of Jewish Federations), Jim Schwartz, Jeffrey Scheckner, and Barry Kosmin, who authored the AJYB US Jewish population chapters from 1986 to 2003. Some population estimates in this report are still based on their efforts;
2. Laurence Kotler-Berkowitz, Senior Director of Research and Analysis and Director of the Berman Jewish DataBank at The Jewish Federations of North America;
3. Rae Asselin, Program Assistant, and Pamela Weathers, Research Assistant, at the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life at the University of Connecticut, for their excellent assistance;
4. Chris Hanson and the University of Miami Department of Geography’s Geographic Information Systems Laboratory for assistance with the maps;
5. Mandell L. (Bill) Berman for his strong support of this effort.
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Appendix
Appendix
Communities with Jewish population of 100 or more, 2014
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Sheskin, I., Dashefsky, A. (2015). Jewish Population in the United States, 2014. In: Dashefsky, A., Sheskin, I. (eds) American Jewish Year Book 2014. American Jewish Year Book, vol 114. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09623-0_17
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