Your city's Jewish community

[Docere]

I don't know if I'd call it "Jewish gentrification," but the St. Clair West area of Toronto has gotten much more Jewish in recent years. Entirely non-Orthodox, and politically progressive. The census tracts in the Hillcrest-Humewood area are about 15-20% Jewish now. Up 60 or 70% in just a decade.

It's right at the southern end of the Bathurst Corridor at St. Clair. A lot of it is probably Forest Hill/Cedarvale spillover, younger families who want to stay in the area. It's located between the core neighborhoods like the Annex to the south and Forest Hill to the north.

Makom Toronto - which promotes Jewish culture - is quite visible in the area:

https://makomto.org/

[Quixote]

^ That’s more like what I was referring to: an influx of Jews but by no means the majority.

Lake Balboa, Reseda, and Winnetka haven’t undergone gentrification, but they have the ingredients for it. These neighborhoods aren’t like the northeast Valley. There are already Jews living there based on looking at the names of the homeowners in the area. With tasteful house flips and more trees, the neighborhoods aren’t far off from being like Valley Village, Valley Glen, or even the flat areas of Studio City.

[Quixote]

Rabbis of LA | Rabbi Eli Gurary: Serving an Up-and-Coming Community

Lake Balboa, the Van Nuys-adjacent neighborhood, isn’t exactly a thriving Jewish community … yet.

November 23, 2022

...

Pico-Robertson. La Brea. Valley Village. Lake Balboa?

Lake Balboa, the Van Nuys-adjacent neighborhood, isn’t exactly a thriving Jewish community … yet. But as housing prices continue to rise in traditionally Jewish neighborhoods in Los Angeles, young families are making their way into this up-and-coming area. And Rabbi Eli Gurary, the rabbi at Chabad of Lake Balboa, is there to serve them.

...

Over the past few years, Gurary and his family have had to do some legwork to figure out how many Jewish people live in Lake Balboa. They knocked on the doors of close to 4,000 homes and asked if anyone was Jewish.

“We told them we were here for them,” he said. “I estimate that 10% of the homes were Jewish, or at least one person in them was Jewish.”

...

Chabad of Lake Balboa currently has 75 families, but it’s growing rapidly as more people move to the neighborhood.

“The need is here,” Gurary said. “There are many Jewish families here, especially younger families, and there isn’t much Jewish infrastructure. It’s up and coming. It’s more affordable than Encino, Tarzana or Sherman Oaks.”

...

https://jewishjournal.com/community/...ing-community/

[Docere]

It's not as dramatic in racial/class terms though, as Canadian cities are quite different in this respect. Toronto's core is quite affluent and inner Toronto is about as white as Seattle.

The area was always pretty middle class, it was never a lower income area. Mostly white, a mix of WASPs, Italians and Jews, some Greeks and Portuguese. Some Filipino and Caribbean community too. Incomes have gone up, house prices have gone up.

The population is becoming a lot more Jewish, however. A Reform day school opened in the area.

[Quixote]

^ That's another element of LA's Jewish population -- Jewish areas tend to be either majority Jewish or a mix of WASPs and Jews, with relatively small racial minority populations. The SFV is also becoming increasingly Armenian, but there isn't an area where Armenians and Jews pretty much constitute the entire white population. Can Jews live alongside another "unique" ethnic group that's far more insular?

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by RST500

LA's Jewish population is probably in decline, but if I had to guess probably at a slower rate than the overall White population.

I read somewhere that Suffolk County, NY's Jewish population is in decline.

But if there's one metro area that is "probably in decline" right now, it's South Florida for the simple fact that a whopping 58% of Palm Beach County's Jewish adult population is 65 years of age or older. In Broward County, that figure is 41%. Young adults ages 18-24 account for only 7.4% of the Jewish population in Broward.

I don't know how large the Orthodox share is or if wealthy NYers will continue to migrate there en masse.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Quixote

^ That's another element of LA's Jewish population -- Jewish areas tend to be either majority Jewish or a mix of WASPs and Jews, with relatively small racial minority populations.

Toronto's Jewish neighborhoods are a contiguous band centered along Bathurst St., which some have described as "the longest Jewish neighborhood in the Diaspora."

The Jewish corridor is adjacent to, and in some cases overlaps, with the favored quarter. Forest Hill is the predominantly Jewish part of the favored quarter. The favored quarter is very white. Most of the non-Jewish population in Forest Hill is WASP, and Jews are the largest "ethnic" element in traditionally WASP North Toronto.

Orthodox Jewish North York is north of Forest Hill, and it lies between the favored quarter centered along Yonge to the east and the working class polyglot neighborhoods to the west.

[Docere]

Humewood-Cedarvale

Population: 13,845

Jewish religion 28%

English ancestry 11.2%
Italian ancestry 5.8%

Visible minorities 31.7%
Largest VM group: Filipino 9.8%

Forest Hill South

Population: 10,865

Jewish religion 38.4%

English ancestry 9.8%
Italian ancestry 5.2%

Visible minorities 22.2%
Largest VM group: Chinese 5.2%

Forest Hill North

Population: 12,285

Jewish religion 38.5%

English ancestry 5.5%
Italian ancestry 3.5%

Visible minorities 30.8%
Largest VM group: Filipino 12.3%

Bedford Park-Nortown

Population: 22,150

Jewish religion 37.5%

English ancestry 11.6%
Italian ancestry 6.9%

Visible minorities 25.3%
Largest VM group: Filipino 7.5%

Englemount-Lawrence

Population: 21,295

Jewish religion 35.8%

English ancestry 3.6%
Italian ancestry 3.8%

Visible minorities 43.7%
Largest VM group: Filipino 20.6%

Bathurst Manor and Clanton Park (M3H postal code)

Population: 38,175

Jewish 26.9%

English ancestry 3.7%
Italian ancestry 8.8%

Visible minorities 42.4%
Largest VM group: Filipino 16.9%

And just outside Toronto:

Thornhill, Vaughan (L4J postal code)

Population: 74,555

Jewish 42.9%

English ancestry 2.7%
Italian ancestry 4.6%

Visible minorities: 35.5%
Largest VM group: Chinese 11.9%

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by docere

toronto's jewish neighborhoods are a contiguous band centered along bathurst st., which some have described as "the longest jewish neighborhood in the diaspora."

lol.

[Docere]

A lot of Filipinos in the Bathurst corridor, where they're the largest visible minority group.

Jewish neighborhoods are whiter than average of course, but the non-Jewish population varies greatly in these areas.

[Capsicum]

Originally Posted by Docere

Toronto's Jewish neighborhoods are a contiguous band centered along Bathurst St., which some have described as "the longest Jewish neighborhood in the Diaspora."

Any reason why Toronto's ended up like this and not other cities? Just sheer coincident, accident of geography, or did something favor this shape?

Come to think of it, extremely linear band-like ethnic enclaves that extend very far spatially are not really that common, aren't they?

[Quixote]

Apparently the most recent study of the Coachella Valley was conducted in 2008, not 1998, although a different methodology was used. The study found approximately 21,600 Jews living there.

https://www.jewishdatabank.org/databank/local-studies

[Docere]

Is Coachella "L.A." or its own thing? In a mega-county, 100 miles out. They have their own federation, which makes sense.

[Quixote]

In 1997/1998:

...

The population survey was conducted in 1997 by the Jewish Federation, but not released until now. It covers the area served by the Jewish Federation, which is most of Los Angeles County and a portion of eastern Ventura County. The population count of 519,151 is up 3.6% from the 500,869 in the 1979 survey.

The totals do not include Jews in the Long Beach and San Gabriel Valley areas, which are served by separate Jewish federations, nor Jews in Riverside and Orange counties. Including those communities would increase the area’s Jewish population to an estimated 590,000.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...641-story.html

...

So from about 590,000 in 1997 to about 740-750,000 in 2021. That's about a 25% increase.

The Jewish population has also expanded outward, mostly to Ventura and Orange Counties.

519,151 / 590,000 = 88%
564,700 / 740-750,000 = 75%

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Any reason why Toronto's ended up like this and not other cities? Just sheer coincident, accident of geography, or did something favor this shape?

Come to think of it, extremely linear band-like ethnic enclaves that extend very far spatially are not really that common, aren't they?

It is interesting. Toronto's Jewish community has been moving up Bathurst St. since the 1940s, it was the corridor they followed as they moved out of Spadina and the inner west end. First to Forest Hill and North York, then Thornhill a generation later.

You also have all the flavors of Jewish communities all along the street. Establishmentarian Forest Hill, Orthodox Bathurst-Lawrence, Russians around Sheppard and so on.

In the 1960s and 1970s, there was some migration to Bayview Avenue, a very desirable street to live nearby. The orientation of the community being north-south led some to feel it wasn't "connected" to the main community. So the center of gravity then moved to Thornhill when Vaughan opened up in the 1980s. Bathurst has an almost magnetic pull.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Quixote

In 1997/1998:



https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...641-story.html

...

So from about 590,000 in 1997 to about 740-750,000 in 2021. That's about a 25% increase.

The Jewish population has also expanded outward, mostly to Ventura and Orange Counties.

519,151 / 590,000 = 88%
564,700 / 740-750,000 = 75%

Has there really been a 45% increase in the Jewish population in the last 25 years?

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Docere

Has there really been a 45% increase in the Jewish population in the last 25 years?

That seems like an extremely dubious claim.

[Quixote]

I wanted to get a sense of the size of the Orthodox population. The 2021 study found that 7% of the Jewish adult population is Orthodox, but when it came to religion, they excluded 18-21-year-olds. Subtracting out those ages gives you a population of about 30,000 Orthodox Jewish adults.

There's a strong correlation between "immersed" Jewish engagement and Orthodoxy (obviously). With about 74,000 "immersed" Jews (17% of all Jewish adults) and 35% of them having minor children at home, I think the 60,000 Orthodox Jewish population figure is very reasonable. That also roughly aligns with the national average.

[Docere]

Outside of NY/NJ, I'd guess the following NA cities have at least 20,000 Orthodox Jews: Baltimore, Chicago, L.A., Miami/South Florida, Montreal, Philadelphia, Toronto.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by craigs

That seems like an extremely dubious claim.

Yes, it's wrong.

In 1997-2001:

Antelope Valley (Lancaster-Palmdale): 3,000
LA: 519,151
Long Beach + West OC: 23,750*
Murrieta Hot Springs: 550
Palm Springs (Coachella Valley): 13,850
Redlands: 1,000*
Riverside-Corona-Moreno Valley: 2,000*
San Bernardino-Fontana: 1,000*
San Gabriel + Pomona Valleys: 30,000
Ventura County (excluding Simi-Conejo): 15,000
Victorville: 100*

* Indicates figures "updated" between 2010-2016, but the figure is low enough to not make a difference

The total comes to 609,401.

What's missing is OC. I don't believe OC had 80,000 Jews in 1997, but this Jewish Journal article from 2000 cites the Jewish Federation of OC claiming 70,000.

Total: 679,401

8.2-9.4% increase since the late 90s.