WASHINGTON – Some 127,000 Israelis live in 41,000 households in New York City,
Long Island and Westchester County. On average, they are poorer, less educated
and more Orthodox than native Jews in the area, according to the Jewish
Community Study of New York: 2011 by the UJA Federation of New York.
The
study defines an Israel household as one where either the respondent or spouse
was born in Israel, or one in which the respondent has lived in Israel but was
not born in the US, which excludes American Jews who had spent several months or
more Israel and then returned to the US.
Israeli-headed households
account for 6 percent of Jewish households in greater New York.
Some
121,000 of the 127,000 people in these households are Jews, 8% of greater New
York’s Jews.
Israeli New Yorkers are significantly less educated than
their Jewish peers: 39% of Israeli New Yorkers have only a high school education
or less, compared with 23% of New York Jews; 11% of Israeli New Yorkers have
some college, compared with 23% of New York Jews; and 50% of Israeli New Yorkers
have at least a BA, compared with 55% of New York Jews.
Israeli New
Yorkers are also poorer than their Jewish peers, the report said. Although their
employment patterns and income distributions resemble those of non-Israelis,
they do have a higher proportion of poor households than other New Yorkarea Jews
(24% versus 18%). Poor and near-poor Israeli New York households account for 39%
of the total, compared with 28% poor and near-poor Jewish New York
households.
Israeli-Americans’ reputation as being distant from Jewish
life is undeserved, the report said. Israeli New Yorkers are twice as likely to
be Orthodox than native Jews (38% versus 18%), and half are as likely to be
Reform (12% versus 24%), partly reflecting the small appeal of Reform Judaism to
Israelis.
Some 9% of Israeli New Yorkers have intermarried, compared with
23% of non-Israelis; 65% of Israeli New Yorkers belong to a synagogue, compared
with 43% of New York Jews; 72% of Israeli New Yorker children are enrolled in
day care, compared with 45% of children of New York Jews.
Israeli New
Yorkers are more insular than New York Jews, the report said. Some 74% of
Israeli New Yorkers say they have mostly Jewish friends, compared with 51% of
New York Jews.
Some 1.54 million Jews live in 694,000 households in the
eight counties of New York City, Long Island and Westchester County, of whom
1.09 million live in New York City itself. The figure rises to 1.71 million
people when families with a non-Jewish spouse are included.
Israeli New
Yorkers are more concentrated in Brooklyn than New York Jews (45% versus 28%),
especially in Borough Park and Flatbush.
The Greater New York Jewish
population is the highest in the US and the second highest in the world, after
Israel. The New York Jewish population rose in the 2000s, after falling in
1990s.
An additional 20,000 to 30,000 Israelis live in the New Jersey
suburbs of New York, which brings the number of Israelis living in metropolitan
New York as a whole to about 150,000.
Some 250,000 Israeli-Americans live
in metropolitan Los Angeles, according to Congressman Howard Berman, who
represents a district in the area.
|