The American Jewish population has grown 10 percent in the last seven years and is mostly liberal, 65 or older and white, according to a new American Jewish population estimate of the 48 contiguous U.S. states by Brandeis University’s Steinhardt Social Research Institute.
As of 2018, there are approximately 7.5 million Jews in the contiguous United States, which is about 2 percent of the U.S. population. The United States is home to the largest Jewish community in the world even above Israel, which has 6.5 million Jews according to recent government statistics.
“The cynicism about American Judaism, and this belief that we are a shrinking population, we are a vanishing population, is incorrect,” said Leonard Saxe, director of the Steinhardt Center at Brandeis University, whose study was based on data from 150 independent survey sampling 234,000 adults, including 5,300 Jews.
“The prophecy of the vanishing Jew has not come to fruition,” he stated.
In 2019 and the previous two surveys, the percentage of Jewish Americans who are white has remained at approximately 89 percent. The percentage is higher among younger Jews, according to the study, which found that 14 percent of Jews aged 18 to 24 identified as non-white or Hispanic.
Additionally, 26 percent of the Jewish population is aged 65 or older. While 41 percent are aged 18 to 44, within that group, 10.5 percent of Jews are 18 to 24.
Jews nationwide also predominately identify as Democrats at 51 percent, and 17 percent of Jews are Republicans. Jewish liberals come in at 42 percent, while 20 percent identified as Jewish conservatives and 37 percent as moderates.
