Geography and American Jews in the Twenty-First Century

First, this paper examines the changing size and geographic distribution of the American Jewish community from colonial times to 2020 using maps presented at 20­year intervals from 1860 to 2020 mostly using data from the American Jewish Year Book.

Second, this paper uses the Pew Research Center 2020 data on American Jews and the author’s Century 21 data set to examine geographic variations by community, by Census Region, and by density of Jewish settlement to illustrate the extent to which region of residence is related to levels of Jewish connection, demographic status, and political status.

For US Census Regions, the hypothesis is that Jews who reside in the more traditional areas of Jewish settlement (the Northeast and Midwest) are different from those who do not, both in their demography and their level of Jewish connection.

For the density of Jewish settlement hypothesis, the data are divided into the five different geographic sectors: the New York CMSA, the South Florida CMSA, Southern California, all other metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with relatively large Jewish populations, and the “Rest of the US” which includes many smaller MSAs as well as rural areas. The hypothesis is that Jews who settle in areas of greater Jewish density will show stronger Jewish connections than those in areas of lower Jewish density.

Comparisons will be made with the findings in Geographic Differences among American Jews (Sheskin 2004), a report from the United Jewish Communities Report Series on the 2000-01 National Jewish Population Survey to see how these relationships have changed over time