Abstract
Since 1981, UJA-Federation of New York has commissioned a study of New York Jewry, approximately every 10 years—1981, 1991, 2002, 2011. These studies have provided a rich source of knowledge and understanding of the largest Jewish community outside of Israel.
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- 1.
Throughout this report, the eight-county area served by UJA-Federation of New York will be called the eight-county New York area. The same eight counties were the focus of the 1991 and 2002 New York Jewish community studies. The eight-county area is a part of the much larger New York metropolitan area defined by the US Census as the New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-CT-PA Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA).
- 2.
Note: All tables refer to the eight-county New York area in 2011 and to Jewish households (those with at least one adult Jew) unless otherwise noted. In some columns, due to rounding, figures may not add to exactly 100 %, or to column totals.
- 3.
Since 1981, studies of the New York Jewish community have been conducted on a decennial basis with the exception of 2002, when the fall 2001 start date for administering the survey was delayed until March 2002 after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.
- 4.
The Berman Jewish DataBank makes numerous studies available at www.jewishdatabank.org
- 5.
The unit of analysis in this chapter shifts between households, respondents, respondents and spouses, adults, and children, as appropriate. Respondents provided extensive demographic information about their spouses, and only age, sex, relationship, and Jewish status about all other adults.
- 6.
See e.g., Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. 2008. US Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Affiliation: Diverse and Dynamic. Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Available as PDF at www.religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf
- 7.
Using 150 % of the federal poverty guideline to define poverty takes into account the high cost of living in the New York area, and is consistent with the definition used in the 2002 study. In the 2011 study, by this definition, a person living alone (not senior) would be considered poor with an income of $16,500 or less; for a three-person household, such as a married couple with a child, $27,000 or less qualifies as poor; and for a five-person family, the 150 % threshold is $38,000.
- 8.
See, for example: Roberts, Sam. 2011. “One in Five New York City Residents Living in Poverty.” New York Times, September 22. www.nytimes.com/2011/09/22/nyregion/one-in-five-new-york-city-residents-living-in-poverty.html
- 9.
Examples of near-poor households: a (non-senior) single-person household earning between $16,500 and $28,000; a family of three, such as a single mother with two children, earning between $27,000 and $45,000; a five-person household, such as two parents with three children, earning between $38,000 and $64,000.
- 10.
The questions on public assistance were asked only of households with low income or who self-assessed their financial condition as challenged. Specifically, the 40 % of all respondents who were asked these questions met any one of the following conditions: (1) income under $50,000; (2) income between $50,000–99,999 with three or more household members; (3) income refused or unspecified but feels “cannot make ends meet” or “just managing to make ends meet.” Because of this filtering, a small number of respondents who were not asked these questions may also be receiving the various forms of public assistance. The narrative sets their number at zero, although strictly speaking a small number of more affluent households may be recipients of public assistance.
- 11.
The survey asked about charitable giving to three types of causes: “any charity or cause that is not specifically Jewish,” to UJA-Federation of New York, and “(other than to UJA-Federation) to any other Jewish charity, cause, organization, or to a synagogue.” The analysis here keeps the latter two categories separate. In other places, they are combined to look at all giving to Jewish causes (including UJA-Federation and other Jewish causes).
- 12.
For purposes of these comparisons, Orthodox respondents have been excluded. Had they been included, the gaps between in-married and intermarried would be even wider.
- 13.
These results are underscored by a methodological consideration: the children of the intermarried who were interviewed are those who identify as Jews rather than those who ceased identifying as Jews. Since previous research has demonstrated that only a minority of intermarried couples’ children grow up to identify as Jews (and, as we will see, only a minority of today’s children of intermarriage are being raised as exclusively Jewish), we can surmise that survey respondents who are the children of the intermarried represent an upwardly biased selection of the children of the intermarried. After all, these are the probable minority who grew up to identify as Jews; non-Jews with such upbringing would not have entered the survey.
- 14.
- 15.
No accepted and felicitous term is available to designate Orthodox Jews situated at either end of the traditional–modern continuum. For the more traditional, we have such nomenclature as ultra-Orthodox, rigorously Orthodox, Haredim. For the more modern Orthodox, we have the term Modern Orthodox or centrist Orthodox. This narrative uses terms identified by a focus group of New York Orthodox Jewish professionals: “Modern Orthodox” to refer to those at the more liberal end of the continuum (and some others not elsewhere specified) and Hasidic or Yeshivish for the two main categories of the more traditional end of the spectrum. Haredi or Haredim (plural) refers to a category that embraces Hasidic and Hasidim, along with Yeshivish.
See also, for example: Bayme, Steven. 2006. “New Conditions and Models of Authority: Changing Patterns Within Contemporary Orthodoxy.” In Rabbinic and Lay Communal Authority, edited by Suzanne Last Stone, 113–128. New York: Yeshiva University Press. Available as PDF. at www.bjpa.org/Publications/downloadPublication.cfm?PublicationID=5576. Waxman, Chaim I. 1998. “The Haredization of American Orthodox Jewry.” The Jerusalem Letter/Viewpoints 376 (February): 1–5. Available as PDF at www.bjpa.org/Publications/downloadPublication.cfm?PublicationID=2373
- 16.
“Russian-speaking Jewish households” are defined as those where at least one member is Jewish and at least one member either speaks Russian with family or friends or was born anywhere in the former Soviet Union. The Jewish Community Study of New York: 2002 definition differs slightly: “respondent born in the former Soviet Union or completed interview in Russian.” These operational definitions are too small to make any appreciable difference in comparing the two surveys’ Russian-speaking populations.
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Cohen, S.M., Ukeles, J.B., Miller, R. (2014). Overview of New York Jewry. In: Dashefsky, A., Sheskin, I. (eds) American Jewish Year Book 2013. American Jewish Year Book, vol 113. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01658-0_2
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