Statistics |
American Jews 2014
Ten percent of the 5.3 million
American Jews are “Orthodox” (straight belief). Eighteen percent are
Conservative, thirty-five percent are Reform, and 37 percent are
non-denominational. Among synagogue members, twenty-nine percent are
Conservatives, twenty-two percent are Orthodox, and thirty-nine percent are
Reform. The other ten percent are Reconstructionist or belong to a very small
sect.
Seventy percent of all American Jews participate in seders, fifty-three percent
fast on Yom Kippur, twenty-three percent light Sabbath candles, and twenty-two
percent keep a kosher home.
The median (not the mean) age of
American Jews is fifty. The median age of the Orthodox is forty. Reform Jews
exhibit a median age of fifty-four. All U.S. Jews have a birthrate of 1.9, with
non-denominational Jews at the lower end. Their birthrate is only 1.4 while the
Orthodox have a birthrate of 4.3. Conservatives and Reform have low birthrates
of 1.8 and 1.7 respectively. Furthermore, 28% of those raised in Reform leave
Judaism entirely.
Among those who are Orthodox, 98% of
those married have a Jewish spouse. Among Conservatives, 73% are married Jewish.
Fifty percent of Reform Jews have a Jewish spouse, and 31% of secular Jews have
married a Jew. Fifty-six percent of all Jews are married to a Jew. More
recently, 71% of Jews have married non-Jews.
Fifty-seven percent of orthodox Jews vote Republican. Seventy percent of all
Jews vote Democrat, and 77% of Reform Jews vote Democrat. This is true of 64% of
Conservative Jews.
Twenty-two percent of former Jews have no religion. These folk have a birthrate
smaller than any other Jews, as 79% are married to non-Jews. Two thirds of these
are not raising their children in any manner as Jews. Thirty-two percent of
these agnostics were born after 1980 and this is true of 58% of those born in
2000 or later.
While 67% of Jews with a religion donate to the poor, only 20% of agnostics make
such donations.
Only 69% of Jews by any definition feel any attachment to Israel.
All this has led to a growing polarization between Jews by religion and those
who have Jewish ancestry but are not otherwise Jewish. Shalom u’vracha. Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including The German Jews in America (2014). |