www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/why-israel-s-expat-campaign-offended-so-many-u-s-jews-1.399292www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/why-are-american-jews-abandoning-israel-1.6652
American Jews
Services at an American reform synagogue.The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of
Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Russia,
Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, and their U.S.-born descendants. A lot of American jews have Polish roots.
A minority from all Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented, including Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews (Jews descended from the Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa), and a number of converts. The American Jewish community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions, as well as encompassing the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance.
Depending on religious definitions and varying population data,
the United States is home to the largest or
second largest (after Israel)
Jewish community in the world. The population of American adherents of
Judaism was estimated to be approximately
5,128,000 (1.7%) of the total population in 2007 (301,621,000); including those who identify themselves culturally as Jewish (but not necessarily religiously), this population was estimated at 6,489,000 (2.2%) as of 2008. As a contrast, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics estimated the Israeli Jewish population was 5,664,000 in 2009 (75.4% of the total population).
Demographics of Jewish AmericansThe Jewish population of the
United States is either the largest in the world, or second to that of
Israel, depending on the sources and methods used to measure it.
Precise population figures vary depending on whether Jews are accounted for based on halakhic considerations, or secular, political and ancestral identification factors. There were about 4 million adherents of Judaism in the U.S. as of 2001, approximately 1.4% of the US population. The community self-identifying as Jewish by birth, irrespective of halakhic (unbroken maternal line of Jewish descent or formal Jewish conversion) status, numbers about 7 million, or 2.5% of the US population. According to the Jewish Agency, for the year 2007 Israel is home to 5.4 million Jews (40.9% of the world's Jewish population), while the United States contained 5.3 million (40.2%).
The most recent large scale population survey, released in the 2006 American Jewish Yearbook population survey estimates place the number of American Jews at 6.4 million, or approximately 2.1% of the total population. This figure is significantly higher than the previous large scale survey estimate, conducted by the 2000–2001 National Jewish Population estimates, which estimated 5.2 million Jews. A 2007 study released by the
Steinhardt Social Research Institute (
SSRI) at
Brandeis University presents evidence to suggest that both of these figures may be underestimations with a potential 7.0–7.4 million Americans of Jewish descent. Jews in the U.S. settled largely in and near the major cities. The
Ashkenazi Jews, who are now
the vast majority of American Jews, settled first in
the Northeast and
Midwest cities, but in recent decades increasingly in
the South and
West. Within the metropolitan areas of
New York City,
Los Angeles, and
Miami lives nearly
one quarter of the world's Jews.
Jewish immigrationThe Jewish population of the US is the product of waves of immigration primarily from
Europe; it was initially inspired by the pull of social and entrepreneurial opportunities, and later as a refuge from the push of
continuing antisemitism there. Few ever returned to
Europe, although committed advocates of
Zionism have emigrated to
Israel.
America and its culture developed as an easy-to-enter "
Melting Pot" for many cultures, creating a new commonality of culture and political values. This open culture allowed many minority groups, including
Jews, to flourish in
Christian and predominantly
Protestant America. Antisemitism in the United States has always been less common than in other historic areas of Jewish population, whether in Christian Europe or in the
Muslim Middle East, where most nations developed around different majority ethnicities or languages.
Barbra Streisand, Jewish-American singer and actressAmericanizationJacob Schiff played a major role as a leader of the American Jewish community in the late 19th century. As a wealthy
German Jew,
Schiff made important decisions regarding the arrival of Eastern European Jewish immigrants. At a time of increasing demand for immigration restriction,
Schiff supported and worked for
Jewish Americanization. A
Reform Jew, he backed the creation of
the Conservative Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He took a stand favoring
a modified form of Zionism, reversing his earlier opposition. Above all,
Schiff believed that
American Jewry could live in both
the Jewish and
American worlds, creating a balance that made possible an enduring
American Jewish community.
Jacob Schiff (1847 – 1920), a German-born Jewish American banker Current situation
Jon Stewart , Jewish-american political satirist, writer, television host, actor, media critic and stand-up comedian.American Jews continued to prosper throughout the early 21st century.
American Jews are disproportionately represented in business, academia and politics. Forty-five percent of the top 40 of the Forbes 400 richest Americans are Jewish.
Twenty percent of professors at leading universities are Jewish. Forty percent of partners in the leading law firms in New York and Washington are Jewish. Thirty percent of American Nobel prize winners in science and 37 percent of all American Nobel winners are Jewish. An estimated thirty percent of Ivy League students are Jewish.
Demographically, the population is not increasing. With their success,
American Jews have become increasingly
assimilated into American culture, with
high intermarriage rates resulting in either a falling or steady population rate at a time when the country was booming. It has not grown appreciably since 1960, comprises a smaller percentage of America's total population than it had in 1920, and seems likely to witness an actual decline in numbers in the decades ahead.
Jews also began to move to the suburbs, with major population shifts from
New York and
the Northeast to Florida and
California. New Jewish organizations were founded to accommodate an increasing range of Jewish worship and community activities, as well as geographic dispersal.
Politically, the Jewish population remained strongly liberal. The heavily Democratic pattern continued into the 21st century. Since 1936 the great majority of Jews have been Democrats. In 2004 74% of Jews voted for Democrat
John Kerry, a Catholic of partial Jewish descent, and in 2006 87% voted for Democratic candidates for the House.
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