Facts About the Jewish Community in New York City

• The Jewish community in New York City is still as important as ever and continues to be the largest concentration of Jewish people in the world!

• There are 1,412,000 Jewish people in the eight counties that compose New York and its environs. To this, however, one may add over 350,000 Jewish people in New Jersey and 50,000 in southern Connecticut, many of whom live in suburbs and bedroom communities that still look to New York City as their center.

• One of the major changes in the fabric of Jewish life in New York City and the area immediately surrounding it is the dramatic rise in intermarriage. Recent statistics show that 22% of couples in New York are intermarried-a high percentage, although still well below the national average. This includes married couples who were wed at a time when intermarriage was relatively rare. From 1998-2002, however, that number rose to 36%. This represents over a four-fold increase in the past thirty years.

• The three major branches of Judaism – Orthodox, Conservative and Reform – all have large theological seminaries in New York City. There are more Orthodox rabbis in New York than anywhere else in the world. The city also contains the worldwide headquarters of three important branches of the Hasidic movement: Lubavitch, Bobover and Satmar. The proportion of Jews identifying themselves as Conservative and Reform in New York City has fallen from 70% to 55% in only 11 years. The Orthodox community grew from 13% in 1991 to 19% in 2003, while 25% of New York’s Jewish population considers itself “just Jewish” (non-religious).

September 2005