October 3, 2013

Pew's big survey of Jewish Americans

The Pew Center has published a long report, A Portrait of Jewish Americans, on the first major survey of Jews in America in a long time. This is a fairly exhausting task to take on, since there is a small sample size of Jews so standard random surveys don't work well, Jewish organizations have strong opinions on the subject of Jewish demographics (the list of acknowledgments is endless), and so many people have different opinions on (as the title of the second chapter says) "Who is a Jew?"

Pew came up with a little under 1.8% of the American adult population being "Jewish by religion" (presumably including converts). You don't have to be terribly religious to fit into this category: 31% of the Jews by religion attend synagogue never or less often than yearly.

Another 0.5% of the U.S. population are "Jews of no religion" (even though a majority of those identify as only partly Jewish. Lumping them together, Pew comes up with 2.2% of the adult population being Jewish. Oddly enough, that's the same number as the last couple of surveys over the last two decades. (That finding tends to cut down on the number of "Jews in Decline" headlines.)

Interestingly, another 1.0% of the population is "Jewish Background." But, they don't get counted as Jewish by the Pew Center. These are primarily people of Christian faith who have at least one Jewish parent. Among this group, 73% identify wholly or partly as Jewish, and 28% of them made a donation to a Jewish group within the last year, but that's not good enough. Apparently, the rule that the Pew Center came up with, after all its deliberations with Jewish leaders, is that people of no religion are fine being counted as Jews, even if they only partly identify as Jews, but professing a non-Jewish religion is a dealbreaker. Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli would have disagreed, but this is 21st Century America so the standards are not as lax as in Queen Victoria's time.

Finally, another 0.5% of the population falls into the "Jewish Affinity" category. This appears to consist of people like the late Christopher Hitchens and various other eccentrics. 

Here are the Pew rules:
- Jews by religion – people who say their religion is Jewish (and who do not profess any other religion); 
- Jews of no religion – people who describe themselves (religiously) as atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular, but who have a Jewish parent or were raised Jewish and who still consider themselves Jewish in some way. 
These first two groups constitute, for the purposes of this analysis, the “net” Jewish population. In addition, the survey interviewed: 
- Non-Jewish people of Jewish background – people who have a Jewish parent or were raised Jewish but who, today, either have another religion (most are Christian) or say they do not consider themselves Jewish; 
- Non-Jewish people with a Jewish affinity – people who identify with another religion (in most cases, Christianity) or with no religion and who neither have a Jewish parent nor were raised Jewish but who nevertheless consider themselves Jewish in some way. Some say, for example, that they consider themselves partly Jewish because Jesus was Jewish, because “we all come from Abraham” or because they have Jewish friends or relatives. 
Most of this report focuses on the net Jewish population (Jews by religion and Jews of no religion). Whenever the views or characteristics of U.S. Jews (or just “Jews”) are discussed, this refers to the combined categories of Jews by religion and Jews of no religion.

There is a ton of information in this report. Here's an interesting table on education and income that I wouldn't have guessed, but makes sense now that I see it:

The highest income Jewish denomination (is that the right word?) is Modern Orthodox, who also have the highest percentage of college graduates. 37% have a household income of $150,000 or higher, and 65% have a B.A. or better.

The highest income gentile denomination are white Catholics, where 13% of households claim that income level. Both Catholics and Jews tend to live in larger urban areas with higher costs of living and higher incomes. Note that income and wealth aren't the same thing: Catholics tend to be lacking in trust funds. According to Pew, mainline white Protestants are just ahead of white Catholics in college education.

There is much else of interest.

56 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve, aren't half of your biological ancestors Jewish? If so, how do you fit into any of the categories? Are you not Jewish just because you choose not to self-identify with the tribe?

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure where I would fit into this confusing list. Mostly Jewish background, some Christian background, not Jewish or Christian by religion.

SFG said...

I rather liked the word 'Hebrew' to indicate the ancestry without the religion, but it never caught on. Disraeli would have thus been a Hebrew Christian.

Pretty much, if you convert to Christianity you're gone from the community. Though I think religions that aren't actually practiced indigenously in America by many people, like Buddhism, would be OK--look at Allen Ginsberg. I think Islam would count you out as well.

Big Bill said...

Being Jewish and following/believing in the religion called Judaism are not the same thing.

Judaism is a two-caste religion.

The upper caste (Jews) are Jewish by blood. They may be apostate Jews (e.g. believers in the divinity of Jesus or Rabbi Menachem Schneerson) but they are still "Jews".

The lower caste (gentiles) can be devout followers of Jewish law applicable to the lower caste (i.e. the Noachide Laws) but they will not be Jews (i.e. they will not be of the upper caste).

Converts (gentiles who want to officially join the Tribe--the upper caste) are a special case.

Because of the race/blood-based nature of Jewishness--i.e. membership in the upper caste--it is critical that Jews either keep their breeding records or know where they can be accessed.

In one recent sad case from Israel, a woman who was born into a famous rabbinical family was deemed by Israeli authorities not to be a Jew because her breeding records were lost in the Holocaust. Without the breeding records she and her offspring were ejected from the government-approved Jewish breeding pool in Israel.

Given the rather unusual nature of Judaism and tribal membership, one should question the statistics in the Pew survey.

Anonymous said...

I hope I am not crossing any guidelines by posting this unrelated reply. Post Apartheid South Africa is always such a great topic since you have to turn the liberal assumptions upside down to be 'fair'.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/southafrica/content/current/story/676327.html


The lack of black players in the RSA cricket side has led to the cricket board considering quotas for the black players, majority of the cricket players of South Africa have been white and RSA has been a very competitive cricket side since their reintroduction after the apartheid.

Ofcourse any such decisions will lead to massive opportunity costs such as Kevin Pietersen a white South African who is currently England's best batsman and moved to England after he could not get into the RSA provincial teams. He has openly condemned the quota system.

Whats most puzzling is that some of cricket's alltime greats have been black. Gary Sobers, Vivian Richards, Brian Lara and so many others from the Caribbean. The most likely scenario is that the problem is not ability but infrastructure and culture among the RSA black population.

The social justice crowd is all hammer no nail.



Anonymous said...

I wonder what would be the percentage of higher income catholics if you stripped out Mexicans, other Latin Americans and all other third world origin catholics?

How about catholic as traditionally understood ie the Irish, certain Germans and European 'ethnics'?
How would they compare to the old-stock protestants, the descendants of the group that more or less owned the USA prior to 1900? Have they surpassed them? When the ethnics landed thay literally had nothing and the old-stock protestants had everything. It is justified to say they were the owners of the soil of the USA.
I wonder on what position on the totem-pole do the protestants come?
Will, in time, the mexes ever climb up the ladder the way the ethnics did?

neil craig said...

If 31% of observing Jews attend religious services between almost never and never and there are so many who could qualify if they expressed a religious preference it suggests a significant majority of historic Jews are de facto agnostic.

This seems to put them out of step with the US as a whole and may explain why Jews are unrelentingly what American call "liberal".

Karen said...

Interesting that St. Edith Stein, who was Jewish enough for the Nazis, wouldn't qualify for this study.

Luke Lea said...

How many are "modern orthodox"? What percentage of the total?

FUBAR Nation Ben said...

The report is flawed. According to Jewish law, a Jew is only someone who has a Jewish mother. That means the Jewish share of the population is smaller.

d..... said...

I noticed that the college grad %age among Modern Orthos is higher than Reform/Conservative. This surprised me, but it doesn't shock me. I wouldn't bet my rent money on this but it strikes me that Modern Orthos are more of a self-selected group than natal. I know a fair amount of people who became observant and after the first flush of dancing with the Hasidim in Brooklyn wore off, gravitated to Modern Orthodoxy. But I'm not sure.

They have a higher than normal birthrate (that is, higher than normal for modern people) but not as high as the Ultra Orthos.

In any case I am simply reconciled to the inevitably of an Ultra Orthodox Jewish America in the future. I think the numbers decree it.

Anonymous said...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/sep/26/jellyfish-theyre-taking-over/?pagination=false

Jellophobia!

Brazilian said...

In the 19th century Benjamin Disraeli wrote a book basically telling that jews control the world behind the scenes, lol.

Anonymous said...

Unless you take the Nazi view that the taint is in the blood, it's pretty hard to say that someone who attends a church is still "Jewish" in any meaningful sense. Or if you take that view, then you have to take all the Jewish converts, mischlings, etc. and call them not Jewish.

Anonymous said...

The Jewish proportion of the population gets exaggerated by a generous application of the one-drop-rule. I notice that Steve himself favors a very expansive definition of "Who is Jewish?". A lot of Jews are Jewish in the same sense that Benjamin Jealous is black or Marco Rubio is "Hispanic". In other words, not very, but they really WANT to be seen as Jewish because it is advantageous to be seen that way.

Anonymous said...

highest income gentile denomination are white Catholics

I'd like to see what the numbers are for Asian Catholics and Protestants, because I have a feeling that they are the "highest gentile denominations."

JN

kaganovitch said...

Steve , Hitchens was actually halachically jewish and thus would fall under pews category of jews of no religion. Also striking is fact that wealthiest cohort (modern orthodox)skews Heavily republican 56-37!

SFG said...

"Also striking is fact that wealthiest cohort (modern orthodox)skews Heavily republican 56-37!"

Really? Makes sense in light of the culture wars. They're not in favor of gay marriage or sex on TV, and favoring Israel actually will help you with those guys.

Anonymous said...

What percent of iSteve readers are Jewish? Someone should do a poll.

IHTG said...

The "Modern Orthodox" and their equivalents in Israel are a modern day yeoman class. Just high quality people all around. Treasure them.

Anonymous said...

The report is flawed. According to Jewish law, a Jew is only someone who has a Jewish mother. That means the Jewish share of the population is smaller.

You are off base. Jewish is a religion, not a race.

Anonymous said...

Income varies by geographic region.

College education might also vary by region. Being involved in the military, oil industry or agriculture might require a different set of skills and certificates than being a lawyer which in the US requires a Bachelors degree.

So Jewish might be capturing geographic differences.

Anonymous said...

The "Modern Orthodox" and their equivalents in Israel are a modern day yeoman class. Just high quality people all around. Treasure them.

A "yeoman" is a farmer who owns and works his own farm. "Modern Orthodox" are professionals or businessmen who use hired labor, no?

Anonymous said...

I hope I am not crossing any guidelines by posting this unrelated reply. Post Apartheid South Africa is always such a great topic since you have to turn the liberal assumptions upside down to be 'fair'.
The lack of black players in the RSA cricket side has led to the cricket board considering quotas for the black players, majority of the cricket players of South Africa have been white and RSA has been a very competitive cricket side since their reintroduction after the apartheid.


And then you have the Springboks, South Africa's national rugby team, one of the very best in the world. Out of the 22 players there are two blacks and two who appear to be Cape Coloured. All the rest are Caucasian.

Peter

Nanonymous said...

The most surprising to me:
"Jewish" without ANY college has the same percentile of high income as the top gentile group (Catholic non-Hispanic) regardless of education.

What exactly is this? Housewifes marrying at 18 to rich Wall St. types? I am having hard time thinking of this population consisting of high school dropouts or industrious plumbers that made it all work...

ricpic said...

...Jewish is a religion not a race.

Jews - I'm Jewish - have no interest in converting gentiles. There is no universalist impulse in Judaism. The traditional definition - a Jew is someone born of a Jewish mother - is still the correct and severely limiting definition and indicates that Jews are a distinct people.

Anonymous said...

Yeoman: 1300, "attendant in a noble household," of unknown origin, perhaps a contraction of Old English iunge man "young man," or from an unrecorded Old English *geaman, equivalent of Old Frisian gaman "villager," from Old English -gea "district, village," cognate with Old Frisian ga, ge, from Proto-Germanic *gaujan.

Sense of "commoner who cultivates his land" is recorded from early 15c.; also the third order of fighting men (late 14c., below knights and squires, above knaves), hence yeomen's service "good, efficient service" (c.1600). Meaning "naval petty officer in charge of supplies" is first attested 1660s. Yeowoman first recorded 1852: "Then I am yeo-woman O the clumsy word!" [Tennyson, "The Foresters"]

Anonymous said...

On second thought, the "highest income gentile denomination" in the United States may be Hindu, not Asian Protestants or Catholics.

Of course, Hindus act politically like Jews do (a well-educated, high income-earning non-Christian minority concentrated in urban and suburban areas, often specializing in mercantile/professional endeavors). But that's another story.

JN

Anonymous said...

Modern orthodoxy is probably the branch of Judaism that people are most unfamiliar with. When people here "Jew" they usually picture long Beard and long money-lending coat or the secular Jews who control the media and whatnot.

And as you could imagine, the definition of modern orthodoxy is a controversial subject within Orthodox Judaism, but I think the general consensus is that is that it includes all Jews who religiously fall in between conservative Judaism and the avg YU student.

Within modern orthodoxy there is a good percentage (probably a majority) who don't believe in the Torah but stay orthodox because of all their friends and familial ties. They are often referred to as "orthopractic"

MO's being the most successful Jewish group is to an extent a self fulfilling prophecy since yeshivish folks who becomes professionally successful are likely to turn modern.

candid_observer said...

You don't get into the real issue that's putting everyone into a tizzy, namely the huge intermarriage rate in the Pew poll -- 58%.

Can't last long as a separate group with separate interests with intermarriage rates like that.

The irony of the Jewish fight against anti-Semitism is that it has been too successful for their own good as a group. It has broken down so many barriers for them that they have no reason NOT to assimilate. They needed some real level of persecution and discrimination to stay together as a group.

Talk about unintended effects.

Anonymous said...

I love Fat Bill so much. Dunno how he makes his living but I'd recommend he seek out a Blood Libel Trial somewhere and serve as an expert witness for the prosecution.

"Tell us Senior Fats, who was Baba Basra and when did she live?"

Perspective said...

This survey seems to explicitly define Jewishness by religion and not ethnic background. While interesting, it could potentially omit important data from self identified 'ethnic Jews'.

ZZ said...

Where are all these non-college-educated, non-Hasidic Jews?

I don't think I've met one in California before. I can understand some being women who grew up in the 1950's or before, but there are a lot more than I was expecting.

Luke Lea said...

According to Pew about 3% of Jews are modern orthodox. They are a very self-selected group, less than one tenth of one percent of the total population or, if my math is right, roughly 250,000 persons all told. If that includes children, then less than half that (assuming more than two children per family on average, so around 100,000 adults all told. Sen. Lieberman is an example. Who else in public life?

Steve Sailer said...

The Diveroli-Boteach clan, but I won't hold that against the MO.

peterike said...

Far as I've seen, Jews are the only "religion" ever where many members will refer to themselves as an "atheist Jew."

Has there ever been an "atheist Catholic"? An "atheist Muslim"?

That turn of phrase -- the atheist Jew -- kind of gives the game away.

Hunsdon said...

candid observer said: The irony of the Jewish fight against anti-Semitism is that it has been too successful for their own good as a group. It has broken down so many barriers for them that they have no reason NOT to assimilate. They needed some real level of persecution and discrimination to stay together as a group.

Hunsdon said: They're working on that.

Mr. Anon said...

"Anonymous said...

""The report is flawed. According to Jewish law, a Jew is only someone who has a Jewish mother. That means the Jewish share of the population is smaller.""

You are off base. Jewish is a religion, not a race."

It is you who are wrong. Judaism is a religion. Jewishness is an ethnic affiliation - i.e. a race.

Anonymous said...

"The Diveroli-Boteach clan, but I won't hold that against the MO."

Jack lew is MO. Boteach isn't mo. MOs don't wear black velvet yarmulkas. I mean they could, but it's very rare.

Generally MOs aren't in high profile public position since shabbos observance makes it difficult. MOs tend to gravitate to law, finance and medicine (as opposed to entertainment, media, politics that you see a lot of secular Jews gravitate).

kaganovitch said...

The diveroli boteach clan probably doesn't identify as modern orthodox. Shmuly probably identifies as ultra,certainly in the past and perhaps even now,(whether anyone else would identify him as ultra is a different question of course). The diveroli branch as sefardim probably don't either identify as MO but it's possible

Anonymous said...

Jewish is a religion not a race.


It's a racial religion. The religion is tied to a genetically defined group of people, and they in turn are tied to the religion. This is actually a throwback to the way all religions used to operate thousands of years ago, before the big universalist religions swept the world. Every particular people had their own particular god or gods.

Anonymous said...

Jews can be defined as adherents of a religion, as an ethnicity or as a civilization.

Is there any other group of human beings who are like this? I am asking this seriously.

JN

Anonymous said...

"This appears to consist of people like the late Christopher Hitchens and various other eccentrics."

Hitchens mom was Jewish according to his bro. They didn't find out until they were quite old though.

Unknown said...

I read the Pew study, and I want to point out one key fact that the Aryan Nation whackjobs who comment here might want to think about. According to the study, Jews are going to self-extinction within a few generations.

58% of all jews and 71% of all non-Orthodox jews are intermarrying and not raising their children Jewish. So you have to address this fact in order to continue arguing that Jews are waging a covert race war against whites.

Anonymous said...

Israeli Court Rejects "Israeli" Nationality

ERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's population registry lists a slew of "nationalities" and ethnicities, among them Jew, Arab, Druse and more. But one word is conspicuously absent from the list: Israeli.

Residents cannot identify themselves as Israelis in the national registry because the move could have far-reaching consequences for the country's Jewish character, the Israeli Supreme Court wrote in documents obtained Thursday.

The ruling was a response to a demand by 21 Israelis, most of whom are officially registered as Jews, that the court decide whether they can be listed as Israeli in the registry. The group had argued that without a secular Israeli identity, Israeli policies will favor Jews and discriminate against minorities.


http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-court-rejects-israeli-nationality-status-062621938.html

Anonymous said...

"Hitchens mom was Jewish according to his bro. They didn't find out until they were quite old though."

Hitchens was a quarter Jewish (Jewish Grandmother). Not even the Nazis were interested in quarter Jews.

Anonymous said...

"Has there ever been an "atheist Catholic"?"

Lib Christians seem to be secular Christians.

Anonymous said...

'modern orthodox'

WTH? It's like 'revisionist dogmatists'.

Svigor said...

This seems to put them out of step with the US as a whole and may explain why Jews are unrelentingly what American call "liberal".

Faux-liberal. They support PR-savvy apartheid in Israel, the world's only explicit "western" ethno-state, while forming the vanguard of the opposition to ethno-states for white "gentiles." They advance liberal policies here, and the opposite there.

That's not liberal, it's ethnocentric.

If agnosticism explains ethnocentrism, what's up with Episcopalians?

Unless you take the Nazi view that the taint is in the blood, it's pretty hard to say that someone who attends a church is still "Jewish" in any meaningful sense. Or if you take that view, then you have to take all the Jewish converts, mischlings, etc. and call them not Jewish.

Or you could take the view that it's about tribal membership, making it all about loyalty. A tribe can adopt a racial alien as its own. A racial alien can act as a tribal member. Someone born to a tribe can leave and join another group. The tribe can expel someone born to it. Religious beliefs can be a part tribal membership one day, and not the next. Etc.

Jewish is a religion, not a race.

Perhaps, but in that case, the religion you refer to is not Judaism, because it includes atheists, agnostics, the non-observant, etc.

Jews - I'm Jewish - have no interest in converting gentiles. There is no universalist impulse in Judaism. The traditional definition - a Jew is someone born of a Jewish mother - is still the correct and severely limiting definition and indicates that Jews are a distinct people.

I still prefer the tribal definition. It includes converts, part-Jews who act like (and are accepted as) full-Jews, etc.

I also think it's more accurate to say that Judaism has a particularist impulse, rather than simply lacking a universalist impulse.

You don't get into the real issue that's putting everyone into a tizzy, namely the huge intermarriage rate in the Pew poll -- 58%.

Can't last long as a separate group with separate interests with intermarriage rates like that.


Huge is a relative term; "huge" in comparison to what? Nothing, that's what. The "intermarriage" rate for Jewish-Americans is lower than that for Americans of English, Scottish, Irish, French, German, Spanish, Italian, or any other European stock you'd care to name. No other group even keeps track of (much less frets about) such "intermarriage."

"Low intermarriage rate" would be an appropriate choice of words, "huge" is the opposite of true.

That turn of phrase -- the atheist Jew -- kind of gives the game away.

Hence, the tribal definition.

Jews can be defined as adherents of a religion, as an ethnicity or as a civilization.

Is there any other group of human beings who are like this? I am asking this seriously.


Tribes have religious aspects, but they tend to be subordinated to tribal interests. A tribe typically has an ethnic character, but again, it tends to be subordinated to tribal interests. "Civilization" tends to be a descriptive thing that can apply to any large group. I don't think any of this is remotely unique to Jewry. Dances with Wolves shows us something similar.

Cail Corishev said...

"'modern orthodox'

WTH? It's like 'revisionist dogmatists'."


Or "military intelligence," or "Swiss cheese."

Unknown said...

First of all, you've made a distinction, Svigor, but haven't found a difference. In every post you rhetorically pit ethnically white European christians against Jews in the (imaginary) race war. Then, when you need to demonstrate a difference, you rhetorically split that group up into smaller groups so that you can see them intermarrying each other. But in reality, it's just one ethnic group, by phenotype and genotype, and you argue for a single ethnic consciousness for that group (White European Gentile). Marriages between WEGs shouldn't count. Intermarriage is between tribes, not within them.

But, ok, fine. Let's pretend that ethnically Italian-American Catholics marrying ethnically Irish-American Catholics is actually "intermarriage". It is, after all, the only way to salvage your racial conspiracy theory.

Even so, how can you hold that Jews are executing an ethnically conscious war against these other tribes? (Remember: Italian Catholic and Irish Catholic are different tribes now). A 58% intermarriage still brings the Jews to extinction within a few generations. How can you argue a tribe which is actively engaging in self annihilation is instead doing the opposite thing?

Anonymous said...

A 58% intermarriage still brings the Jews to extinction within a few generations.

Not true. Because a Jew is defined as the offspring of a Jewish mother, the number of Jews should remain exactly the same.

Anonymous said...

"The group had argued that without a secular Israeli identity, Israeli policies will favor Jews and discriminate against minorities."

That's the general idea, sport.

Anonymous said...

>> According to Jewish law, a Jew is only someone who has a Jewish mother

"Jews" don't have any enforceable "laws".... historically they never did. Judaism as a stand-alone religion came into being only after the last (catastrophic)failure of rebellion against Rome.

Before that, the Hebrew nation had been ruled over by the House of David. A non-Priestly (ie, descendent of Aaron) family.

the Monarch could and did swap out High Priests to suit his political convenience; he could - and ocassionally did - put a High Priest to death.



Gosh, no one ever even bothered codifying Scripture until after the Return from Babylonia. The House of David didn't need bibles - it had police and it had tax-collectors.

As the great Yiddish-ist Sholem Aleichem joked: "a language is a dialect which has its own Army and its own Navy".


Jewish law is consulted & referred to in Israeli court decisions - but that is the limit.

the sovereigns in Israel today are ALSO secular: the Army, & the Security Organs. They are the ones who decide if Joe Shmoe will sit in prison.

Israel's citizenship rules today are quite the same as Ireland's - one grandparent from the tribe.... you will be issued a passport.
20% of the Israeli population is non-Jewish.

The IDF prints Hebrew New Testaments to swear in all the Christian GreenCard-holder draftees. Mostly Russians and Filipinos; smattering of others.


The First Temple WAS BUILT by Hiram of Tyre - a pagan. why? Because of his strong alliance with his fellow-Hebrew-speaking neighbors to the South. Yes, Virginia, Arabic didn't arrive in the Judea & Samaria until 700 years after the death of Jake of Nazareth. You could look that up.

And that ain't whistling hasbara, homie.

Anonymous said...

http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2013/10/feudalism-california-style.html

Known said...

What a nasty case of projection and strawman you got there Unknown.