Your city's Jewish community

[Docere]

Is the ethnic composition of the white population of Essex really that different from that of Westchester?

Essex

Italian 7.8% (26% of NHWs)
Jewish 6.6% (22% of NHWs)
Irish 5% (17% of NHWs)

Westchester

Italian 14% (28% of NHWs)
Irish 12.1% (24% of NHWs)
Jewish 11.8% (24% of NHWs)

Italian Americans and Jews are about half the white population in both, as is pretty typical in the NYC region. The Jewish population is about 85% of the Italian population in both.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Docere

So we're comparing the percentage of the population in a subsection of a county (Coachella Valley, population of 350,000) to the New Jersey part of the NYC metro area (but subtracting out Bergen on one end and Ocean on the other)?

I think a more reasonable comparison to "New Jersey" (at least in terms of population in a contiguous area) would be Orange + Inland Empire.

No. I’m saying that you have places like the Coachella Valley (370,000), South Bay (675,000), and south OC (987,000) that are similar in size and percentage (5-6% range) to many of the counties in NJ — counties where Jews make up 10-15% of NHWs. You said that “Jewish enclaves” aren’t measured at the county level, yet you pointed out a few pages back how Middlesex County being 7.5% Jewish wasn’t high for NYC-area standards but demonstrated the “Jewish-heav[iness]” of the metro.

NJ’s average, including Ocean (which is 15.7% “plain vanilla” German) and Bergen, is 7.3%. Not only is that well below Italian and Irish, it also isn’t close to 20% representation of NHWs. That isn’t to say that there aren’t places that are over 20% Jewish or represent a fifth of NHWs. You’ve also deviated from your “Irish are ethnic whites” mantra by not grouping them with Italians. Are the Irish now all of a sudden WASPs because it’s convenient? I also don’t know why you even brought up Jews outnumbering WASPs because you clearly know that the NYC area isn’t WASPy to begin with.

A statement I made earlier sums it up: NJ has a strong Jewish culture, but it’s not defined by Jewish culture like NY. You’ve essentially said that you agree with this statement by acknowledging the big drop-off. Yes there’s Bergen County and Lakewood, but the rest is 6.3%.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Docere

As for the communities listed, the point is you can find a heavily Jewish suburb even in some random NJ county (like Monmouth or Middlesex) that's not particularly elite or particularly Jewish by NYC metro area standards. It really shows how large Jewish communities exist pretty much throughout the region. Monmouth and Middlesex have Jewish percentages similar to the "Jewish sector" counties in other metros like Lake IL or the Montgomerys.

But even with those communities, the percentages of Monmouth and Middlesex are even lower than Lake County, IL and they’re still outnumbered by Italian and Irish. It’s like you’re using an Electoral College-like, “winner-take-all” approach whereby two heavily Jewish enclaves represent the entire county even though the average is similar or even lower than other places with similar-sized populations (Lake, IL; Montgomery, MD; suburban Philly and Boston counties) and the share of NHWs is clearly a notch below what you’d find in NY.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Docere

Chabad does Jewish outreach and essentially tries to proselytize secular Jews to embrace orthodoxy. And they show up pretty much anywhere there's Jews. I suspect a survey of Coachella would find a highly assimilated community with high levels of intermarriage and a low Orthodox percentage.

More subtle shifting of the goal posts. NJ (and NY) has tons of non-religious, yet “culturally Jewish, I post Instagram photos of me lighting my menorah with caption #chagsameach” Jews.

The irony in what you said is that I linked to an article headlining Palm Springs as a destination that people from back east and Canada schlep to in order to celebrate Jewish holidays. The article implies that they aren’t people who own homes there.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm not seeing a big distinction here. Livingston and Millburn are very heavily conservative Jewish like certain towns on LI, Westchester and Rockland. Englewood and Teaneck are heavily Modern Orthodox like Five Towns.

CT, not NJ, is the big regional outlier. CT has no real Jewish enclaves, though there are more Jewish-friendly towns. Greenwich and Westport are more open than New Canaan and especially Darien.

You make the point more succinctly than I.

[Docere]

Well, let's have a look at Palm Springs.

The city is about 60% NHW - and maybe 6% Jewish.

The most Jewish census tract (population 2,000) is 7% Russian/Eastern European ancestry, so maybe around 21% Jewish. An adjacent tract (population 2,500) is 5% Russian/Eastern European.

Palm Desert is 65% NHW, and has the same Russian percentage (1.9%) as Palm Springs, so again maybe 6% Jewish. Two adjacent 5.5% Russian tracts (Eastern European is too small to be listed).

So there's some Jewish concentrations in Coachella Valley.

[Docere]

Long Island (population 3 million) is about 10% Jewish. The NJ part of the NYC metro (double the population) is 7.5% Jewish.

LI is more Jewish than NJ by percentage but this isn't a difference in kind IMO. There are 270,000 Jews on LI, and around half a million in the NJ counties.

And the Jewish population share levels off in both NY and NJ levels off (Suffolk isn't very Jewish either). So I don't see it as a "state" thing, using an apples comparison.

[Quixote]

Coachella Valley is estimated to have 20,000 Jews (a figure from 2015 that was given likely because it's a nice round figure, otherwise no formal study has been conducted since 1998) across a relatively fast-growing region of 370,000 people. Coachella Valley also has one city, Coachella (51,500), that is essentially 100% Latino.

NHWs:

Cathedral City: 15,750
Coachella: 950 NHW
Desert Hot Springs: 8,600
Indian Wells: 4,200
Indio: 24,000
La Quinta: 20,500
Palm Desert: 34,000
Palm Springs: 27,800
Rancho Mirage: 13,400

About 149,000 in an area with a total population of 370,000, which makes it about 40% NHW. With a Jewish percentage of 5.4%, the Jewish share of NHWs is in the 12-14% range.

Is NJ, overall, not more similar to this compared to NYC/Nassau/Westchester, where Jews comprise roughly 30-32% of NHWs? The Jewish average for this area is 11.9%. Adding Suffolk County drops it down to 11.1%

11.1% Jewish over an area with a population of 11.95 million (NYC, LI, Westchester) vs. 7.3% Jewish over an area with a population of 6.87 million (North/Central Jersey). South Florida is roughly the same size as North/Central Jersey and has a slightly higher Jewish percentage of 7.8%. LA County is 5.8% Jewish, but it has 3 million more people and the Jewish share of NHWs is over 20%. And there are plenty of medium-large counties like Lake County, IL; Montgomery and Bucks Counties, PA; Montgomery County, MD, etc. that are NJ-like.

What NJ does have are more intangible factors like Lakewood and proximity to NYC. Otherwise, you can find peers in several metros.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Docere

Long Island (population 3 million) is about 10% Jewish. The NJ part of the NYC metro (double the population) is 7.5% Jewish.

LI is more Jewish than NJ by percentage but this isn't a difference in kind IMO. There are 270,000 Jews on LI, and around half a million in the NJ counties.

And the Jewish population share levels off in both NY and NJ levels off (Suffolk isn't very Jewish either). So I don't see it as a "state" thing, using an apples comparison.

It is a state thing. The NY part of the metro is an order of magnitude more Jewish than NJ... Brooklyn and Manhattan alone have more Jews than all of NJ. In Queens, Jews comprise 25-30% of NHWs; 30% in The Bronx. Westchester is both bigger, has a higher Jewish percentage, and a larger Jewish share of the NHW population than Bergen. Rockland and Putnam Counties (the AJPP grouped them together) combined are 24.3% Jewish, while Orange and Sullivan (Sullivan not being part of the CSA) are 10%.

NY is just of a different kind and degree than NJ. The numbers make this very clear, as far as I'm concerned.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Docere

So there's some Jewish concentrations in Coachella Valley.

I just think that a place with a population of 370,000 that's sort of "out in the middle of nowhere" which:

1. Has a Jewish history
2. Has its own federation (as opposed to being lumped together with the rest of the IE)
3. Is a destination for people from the opposite corner of North America to celebrate Jewish holidays
4. Has been the location of the Jewish National Retreat multiple times (2016, 2017, 2023) despite being harder to get to than the other places where it's been held (Providence 2018, DC 2019, Toronto 2020 (was it canceled because of the pandemic?), Stone Mountain 2021, and Miami 2022)

All clearly indicate that it's a place for Jews and that there's a Jewish culture there, unlike the affluent Hamptons where the Manhattan elite escape to.

[Quixote]

Comparison of the Woodmere/Lawrence/Cedarhurst corridor with Livingston/Short Hills/Millburn. I've also added the percentages for Italian, Irish, German, and English for context.

Woodmere

Polish 15.2%
Unclassified 13.8%
Russian 11.7%
American 11.4%
Eastern European 7.9%
(Italian 7.3%)
(German 6.2%)
Hungarian 3.9%
(Irish 3.7%)
(English 1.7%)
European 1.6%
Israeli 1.0%
Czech 1.0%
Ukrainian 1.0%

Lawrence

Polish 21.0%
Russian 14.6%
Unclassified 14.0%
American 10.3%
Hungarian 7.7%
European 5.4%
(Italian 3.1%)
Eastern European 2.9%
(Irish 2.8%)
(English 2.7%)
Romanian 2.6%
(German 2.5%)
Czech 1.5%
Ukrainian 1.3%

Cedarhurst

Unclassified 28.7%
Russian 7.7%
Eastern European 6.8%
(German 6.3%)
(Italian 5.8%)
Polish 5.5%
European 5.1%
American 4.9%
(Irish 3.8%)
Israeli 2.9%
Hungarian 2.8%

...

Livingston-Short Hills-Millburn

Livingston

Unclassified 14.2%
(Italian 13.0%)
Polish 8.8%
Russian 8.7%
(Irish 8.2%)
American 5.6%
(German 5.2%)
(English 3.1%)
Eastern European 2.7%
European 1.5%
Hungarian 1.2%
Ukrainian 0.9%
Israeli 0.8%
Austrian 0.8%
Romanian 0.7%
Iranian 0.6%

Short Hills

Unclassified 14.5%
(Italian 10.1%)
Russian 9.5%
(Irish 9.3%)
(German 7.6%)
(English 6.3%)
American 5.9%
Polish 5.9%
Eastern European 5.5%
European 1.7%
Ukrainian 1.4%
Hungarian 1.2%
Austrian 0.9%

Millburn

Unclassified 13.4%
(Italian 10.7%)
(Irish 9.3%)
Russian 8.8%
(German 7.0%)
Polish 6.2%
American 5.9%
(English 4.7%)
Eastern European 3.9%
European 1.7%
Ukrainian 1.1%
Hungarian 1.0%
Austrian 0.9%


As you can see, Italian is still the most common ancestry in those three NJ communities, with Irish being second or nearly tied for second.

[Docere]

Why are we comparing the Orthodox Five Towns and Reform/Conservative suburbs of Essex County? Short Hills is comparable to Scarsdale.

[Docere]

So NJ's Jewishness is being overstated while Coachella's isn't getting the "credit" it deserves? I find the whole thing very curious.

And why is Lakewood some weird outlier? It's one of the largest Orthodox concentrations in the world. Orthodox Jews make up a very significant share of NYC Jews and they can be found in urban Brooklyn, inner-ring suburban Five Towns, and the metropolitan fringes like Lakewood and Rockland. Which again speaks to the Jewishness of NY/NJ.

[Crawford]

The Orthodox aren't exceptions; they're fast becoming the norm.

NY-NJ Jewish norms are increasingly like this:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.3280...8192?entry=ttu

And not like the stereotype:
https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0129...8192?entry=ttu

The community is poorer, less educated, less cosmopolitan than popular perception and increasingly distinct from other U.S. and non-Israeli communities.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Quixote

I just think that a place with a population of 370,000 that's sort of "out in the middle of nowhere" which:

1. Has a Jewish history
2. Has its own federation (as opposed to being lumped together with the rest of the IE)
3. Is a destination for people from the opposite corner of North America to celebrate Jewish holidays
4. Has been the location of the Jewish National Retreat multiple times (2016, 2017, 2023) despite being harder to get to than the other places where it's been held (Providence 2018, DC 2019, Toronto 2020 (was it canceled because of the pandemic?), Stone Mountain 2021, and Miami 2022)

All clearly indicate that it's a place for Jews and that there's a Jewish culture there, unlike the affluent Hamptons where the Manhattan elite escape to.

its interesting that what appeared, at least on the ground in our recent trip out there, to be the wealthiest areas, had the most jews.


Cathedral City: 15,750
Coachella: 950 NHW
Desert Hot Springs: 8,600
Indian Wells: 4,200
Indio: 24,000
La Quinta: 20,500
Palm Desert: 34,000
Palm Springs: 27,800
Rancho Mirage: 13,400

[Docere]

The "levelling off" of the Jewish population share is far sharper in L.A. than in NYC.

In the L.A. city/Westside/SFV core, you have a pretty similar levels of Jewish population share to NYC. If L.A. city is say, 8% Jewish that's about a third of the NHW population. The Westside is about 25% Jewish. It's hard to get the number exactly because L.A. County is a patchwork of cities - what constitutes "the core"?

But when you go beyond this, the number drops to pretty "normal American" levels.

Using the Brandeis figures for the suburban counties:

Ventura County 4.8% (11% of NHWs)
Orange County 2.7% (7% of NHWs)
Riverside County 1.4% (4% of NHWs)
San Bernardino County 0.8% (3% of NHWs)

[Docere]

Trying to line up the Jewish federation figures up with L.A. County. SFV contains 41% of the Jews in the service area, Westside 26%.

San Fernando Valley 231,000 / 1,436,000 16%
Westside 147,000 / 529,000 28%

https://maps.latimes.com/neighborhoods/index.html

The LA federation service area is 8% Jewish. I'm assuming that's about 30% of NHWs in the area.

[austlar1]

Most of Jewish LA from above:
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1023...er=0&entry=ttu

[Docere]

The reason I look at Jewish percentage of NHWs as well as the percentage of the population is not to imply that's the primary measure. By that logic, Ocean County's Jewishness would be "downgraded" because it's in an overwhelmingly white county. By that logic, one could say Montgomery County, Maryland is "as Jewish" because the percentage of the NHW population is the same as Ocean which it obviously isn't.

I do it because in majority-minority counties/cities, a very high Jewish percentage of the NHW population usually means there's Jewish enclaves and NHW areas are often Jewish areas. This is most obvious in Los Angeles, Miami-Dade and NYC.

[Quixote]

The SFV (especially if you’re going to lump in the Conejo Valley) and Westside are a huge area though. Meanwhile, 35% of NYC-area Jews live in Brooklyn and Manhattan — a small section of the metro area geography that constitutes about 20% of the metro population. And they’re not in every section of both boroughs, either. Between the UES, UWS, and Borough Park alone (5.7 square miles total), you have at least 200K Jews — already 10% of the entire metro Jewish population.