New York – A new report has found that a greater number of Jews live in the US than in Israel.
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Researchers from the University of Miami (UM) and the University of Connecticut (UConn) have published a 2010 report on the American Jewish population, as part of a new North American Jewish Data Bank Report series.
The new report called Jewish Population in the United States-2010 has estimated the total number of Jews in the U.S. at around 6.5 million.
The authors, however, have suggested that there may be some double counting in the methodology and believe the number to be fewer than 6.4 million.
Interestingly, the U.S. report contradicts the estimate that will appear in the World Jewish Population Report to be issued in the near future in the same report series, which will show 5.3 million U.S. Jews, explained Ira Sheskin, lead author of the report.
“The article on the Jewish Population in the U.S. shows a greater number of Jews in the U.S. than in Israel, while the World Report will claim the opposite,” said Sheskin.
The difference is in the methodology.
“While the World Report uses national studies for its estimate, the U.S. Report sums up estimates of the Jewish population in over 1,000 local Jewish communities to develop a national estimate,” said Sheskin.
The report was published by the Mandell L. Berman-North American Jewish Data Bank at the University of Connecticut, in coordination with the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (ASSJ) and Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA).
The data collected previously made possible an analysis of the Jewish population by US Congressional districts for the first time, explained Arnold Dashefsky of the Uconn.
“Each report that we have prepared, including reports for 2006, 2007, and 2008, is better than the previous one because we continue to add new scientific estimates and discover new concentrations of Jews in local communities,” said Dashefsky.
Did they only count matrilineal Jews, or did they also include patrilineal Jews. What about those who have Jewish mothers but don’t consider themselves Jewish (e.g., Harrison Ford)?
They probably count people who mother wasn’t jewish.
Yea Yea. But how many are truly jews and not assimilated.
But, they forgot to mention that in the US the Jewish population is declining to to intermarriage & assimilation, while in Israel thank Gd, it’s growing.
#3– why not just count people who wish to be counted? People who don’t consider themselves Jews, and choose not to practice Judaism in any way, shape or form cannot really be dragooned into the tribe in any meaningful way (and, in all probability, will not have too many identifiable Jewish descendants). Others who may be only “half” Jewish might actually wish for and choose an active participation in Judaism. The bottom line is that your particular method of “counting” Jews (which itself is a halakhic problem) may not be all that functional inside of a few more generations.
Usually the demographers then break it down into how strong the Jewish identity is, for example, how much percent fast on Yom Kippur and/or attend Yom Kippur services, how many have a Passover Seder, how many have a Mezuzah on their door, how many are Shoimer Shabbos, how many eat kosher, how many are Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or other, like traditional, and lastly how many are Shoimrei Torah Umitzvois. According to my calculation, there are over one and a half million Shoimrei Torah Umitzvois in Israel but less then a million in the Unites States. Also the total numbers in Israel and the different groupings are growing much faster in Israel then in America where maybe the numbers are even shrinking.
” we would have to count most Spanish speaking people who no doubt descent from Jews”
Where on earth do you come up with that comment. The amount of Spanish speaking people who descenD from Jews is hardly the majority, and is more likely in the realm of less than 1/10 of 1 percent.
A couple of years ago I read an article (I forget in which publication) that indicated that there were, at best estimate, 50 million Americans who had at least one Jewish grandparent. Given normal odds, that means that there are at least 12 million halachic (matrelineal) Jews in the U.S. and, theoretically, possibly all 50 million.
If two million Jews in the US would make Aliyah and move to the West Bank, we would not be considering giving it back.
Hasn’t it always been that way?
Hey hey hey hey what’s with me they didn’t count me what am I chopped liver?
Poster # 6 (David Moshe); It (the definition of who is Jewish) does not go by personal preference. If someone is considered to be A Jew according to Halacha, he is counted among the Jewish population, whether he likes it or not. On the other hand, if someone is not considered to be a Jew, according to Halacha, he is not counted as being Jewish, his own personal choice not withstanding. Halachically, only Matrilineal Jews are considered to be so.