Your city's Jewish community

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Docere

So Long Beach, south OC, Coachella and Ventura County are less Jewish by percentage than the entire state of NJ. It's a nonsensical comparison.

Let's put it this way. In SoCal, I don't think there's any suburbs outside of L.A. County are more than 20% Jewish. In NJ, you'll find them all over the place (and of course there's the huge Orthodox concentration in Lakewood). In many NJ counties, Jews outnumber WASPs/White Protestants.

While I agree there's no Jewish quarter and many secular and assimilated Jews or people of Jewish backgrounds live in non-Jewish areas, I do think there's a "Jewish sector" in L.A. You can take a slice of contiguous geography where 1) the majority of the Jewish population lives and 2) it contains all the Jewish enclaves. You can't do that in the NYC area, there are big Jewish concentrations in all directions.

These are differences in kind, not just degree.

You could do the same thing for NY/NJ/CT as well. NYC plus Nassau and Westchester account for the majority. Brooklyn and Manhattan alone account for 35% of the entire metro Jewish population. It's actually this dense urban concentration across a relatively small geographic area that has allowed Jewish culture to be what it is there.

This is sort of similar to the "Greater NYC has no favored quarter" argument, where you have wealth and educated professionals in all directions. Yet, there's clearly a north/east tilt. It's the same with Jews, only swap out Fairfield for Nassau. The one (large) NJ county that has a NY-like Jewish percentage is Bergen, and that's north of Manhattan bordering Rockland. Ocean County, which is an outlier as it is, is still far more Italian and Irish. Bergen is also significantly more Italian. NJ on the whole is just not quite as intense, even if there is Lakewood and Livingston.

As for LA, the point I was trying to make was that you have to go to the opposite corner of the metro (south OC and Coachella Valley) to capture communities that are in the 4-6% range. The Coachella Valley is the farthest place from the Westside and SFV, and it's Jewish enough to have its own federation.

[Quixote]

Using a different analogy, there are Mexicans all over Greater LA. Literally every municipality and unincorporated place has Mexicans. Yet, Boyle Heights, East LA, Pico Rivera, etc. are "next-level" in kind and degree.

None of the NJ counties match Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Nassau in both size and percentage. Is there a NJ equivalent to the Five Towns that doesn't exist in isolation like Lakewood?

[Quixote]

Jewish share of NHWs in NJ:

Bergen County
10.8% Jewish
56.9% NHW

19%

Hudson County
2.8% Jewish
28.49% NHW

9.8%

Passaic County
4.4% Jewish
38.8% NHW

11.3%

Essex County
6.6% Jewish
29.8% NHW

22.1%

Morris County
7.2% Jewish
67% NHW

10.7%

Union County
5.3% Jewish
36.72% NHW

14.4%

Somerset County
7.8% Jewish
52.8% NHW

14.8%

Middlesex County
7.5% Jewish
39.9% NHW

18.8%

Monmouth County
8.5% Jewish
74.9% NHW

11.3%

Ocean County
13.6% Jewish
83.7% NHW

16.2%

Mercer County
6.0% Jewish
46.7% NHW

12.8%

[Quixote]

Only three NJ counties are close to the 20% threshold, and two of them have relatively low NHW percentages.

[Quixote]

Manhattan
15.8% Jewish
46.8% NHW

33.8%

Brooklyn
19% Jewish
35.4% NHW

53.7%

Nassau County
14.2% Jewish
57.4% NHW

24.7%

[mrnyc]

^ i saw this as of 2005 --

There are 1,412,000 Jewish people in the eight counties that compose New York and its environs. To this, however, one may add over 350,000 Jewish people in New Jersey and 50,000 in southern Connecticut, many of whom live in suburbs and bedroom communities that still look to New York City as their center.

https://www.chosenpeople.com/facts-a...new-york-city/

[Docere]

I would agree that the Jewish percentage declines, for the most part, the further away you from NYC. And the same is true for L.A.

But the difference is there's no Jewish enclaves outside of a core area in Westside/SFV L.A., and outside of L.A. County the Jewish percentage is not really that high. While the Jewish percentage is high pretty much throughout the NYC metro area and NJ has some of the most Jewish places in America.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Docere

I would agree that the Jewish percentage declines, for the most part, the further away you from NYC. And the same is true for L.A.

But the difference is there's no Jewish enclaves outside of a core area in Westside/SFV L.A., and outside of L.A. County the Jewish percentage is not really that high. While the Jewish percentage is high pretty much throughout the NYC metro area and NJ has some of the most Jewish places in America.

Coachella Valley is a Jewish enclave, and is not “Jewish by default” due to being wealthy. Estimates range from 20,000-35,000. That puts the Jewish percentage in the 5-10% range and the Jewish share of NHWs in the double digits. It’s the concentration, history, geographic isolation, and randomness, not the sheer numbers. There's even a synagogue in "out-of-the-middle-of-nowhere" Idyllwild:


Google Maps

South OC is more “Jewish by default,” but it does have a good concentration of chabads and synagogues. As OC is 2.7% Jewish, south OC (population 1 million, or slightly less than a third of the county population) is probably in the 4-6% range. Laguna Woods is a Jewish neighborhood — 5% Russian, 4.1% Polish, 1.8% Hungarian, and 1.1% Romanian. May or may not be 20%, but a good chance that it’s 15%, and definitely at least 10%. If it’s 15%, then the Jewish share of NHWs is around 20%.

Bergen County and Lakewood aside, is NJ really closer to a Nassau or Palm Beach than a Montgomery County, MD, Lake County, IL, or south OC? When talking about majority-white areas, the Jewish share of the NHW population seems equally as relevant. If there are communities after communities where the Jewish population is 20% or more, what are those places? I’m not as familiar with NJ. Is a community “Jewish” if it has a high percentage but is still more Italian/Irish?

I get the sense that being culturally tied to NYC is a major factor. While I generally believe in taking a macro-look at metros, cultural/demographic differences are where divisions can be created. With respect to NJ, Jewish is clearly secondary to the standard Italian/Irish model, even if there is a Lakewood. None of that is to say that there aren't a lot of Jews or that there isn't a strong Jewish culture, but it is to say that Jewish culture doesn't define NJ like it does NY.

[Docere]

Less than 10% of the population is not a Jewish enclave imo. There may be a Jewish presence but it's not an enclave.

The NYC area Italian presence stands out as well. Italian is the most common white ancestry group in the region and in nearly every suburban county.

Italian Americans and Jews together make up about half the NHW population in the NYC region, while WASPs are a very small minority.

[Quixote]

If that's the case, then Queens isn't a Jewish enclave. However, you did mention that Jews represented a quarter of all NHW.

What if all NHW whites in the Coachella Valley were Jewish, lived in the same neighborhood, but only made up, say, 7% of the population? So a town of 20,000-35,000 that's 100% Jewish. Would that not be a Jewish enclave?

I also am curious to know what communities in NJ, besides Lakewood, Livingston/Millburn/Short Hills, and Teaneck are "Jewish enclaves" that are 20% or more Jewish and where Jews comprise at least one out of every fifth resident.

[Quixote]

In a sense, you could argue that South Florida is pound for pound more Jewish than even NY/NJ/CT because Jews comprise about 25% of the NHW population and no other European ancestry comes close, even in Miami-Dade. In Greater NYC, Italian and/or Irish ancestry is still more prevalent than Jewish in every suburban county except Rockland.

[Docere]

"Enclave" is defined by the neighborhood or suburb level, not the county level.

Queens itself isn't a Jewish enclave, but it contains Jewish enclaves such as Forest Hills and Kew Gardens.

Similarly L.A. County isn't a Jewish enclave but it contains enclaves such as Beverly Hills and parts of the SFV.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Docere

Italian Americans and Jews together make up about half the NHW population in the NYC region, while WASPs are a very small minority.

What's wrong with WASPs? Though they're "ethnic" whites, Italian-Americans are still gentiles and, generally speaking, strongly identify with being Catholic.

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by Docere

"Enclave" is defined by the neighborhood or suburb level, not the county level.

Queens itself isn't a Jewish enclave, but it contains Jewish enclaves such as Forest Hills and Kew Gardens.

Similarly L.A. County isn't a Jewish enclave but it contains enclaves such as Beverly Hills and parts of the SFV.

The Coachella Valley is large enough to be its own county with a Jewish percentage similar to similar-sized small-to-medium-sized counties in NJ that represent "Jewish-heaviness" in "all directions," according to you. And within the Coachella Valley, there are likely "Jewish enclaves" that are over 10% Jewish.

So Ocean County isn't a "Jewish enclave" then either, especially since the Jewish percentage doesn't meet the 20% threshold for NHWs, despite its impressive overall Jewish share at the county level. Yet at the same time, you've also used "Ocean County" to essentially mean "Lakewood" while defending NJ.

[Docere]

In fact most of the Jewish population lives in Queens live in Forest Hills/Rego Park, Kew Gardens/Fresh Meadows and the Rockaways.

[Quixote]

South OC: 987,000

Let's say 5%, or 49,000 of OC's 87,000 Jews

Coachella Valley: 375,000

20-35,000 --> 5.3-9.3%

South Bay: 675,000

Past sources have said 40-45,000 --> 5.9-6.7%

Santa Clarita Valley: 280,000

Past source (from 2009) said "approaching 20,000" --> 7.1%

...

NJ counties with similar-sized populations:

Hudson County
18,900 / 673,830 (2.8%)

Passaic County
21,500 / 494,347 (4.4%)

Essex County
51,600 / 781,913 (6.6%)

Morris County
34,000 / 474,280 (7.2%)

Union County
30,600 / 574,404 (5.3%)

Somerset County
23,200 / 296,373 (7.8%)

Middlesex County
58,700 / 783,408 (7.5%)

Monmouth County
53,200 / 629,135 (8.5%)

Mercer County
22,500 / 375,894 (6.0%)

...

With the exception of Bergen and Ocean, are any of those counties really orders of magnitude more "Jewish-heavy"?

If the center of LA's Jewish population is the Westside and the Valley Hills, you have to go west, north, east, and south to capture areas with Jewish population percentages that are not unlike NJ (sans Bergen, Ocean), Suffolk, and CT.

The difference between Greater NYC and everywhere else is Brooklyn and Manhattan, where you have 730,000 Jews packed and living on top of each other (literally) within a very small geographic area — a dense concentration only exceeded by Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. NYC is the capital of Ashkenazim and "New York Jew" might as well be its own ethnic sub-group.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Coachella Valley is a Jewish enclave, and is not “Jewish by default” due to being wealthy. Estimates range from 20,000-35,000. That puts the Jewish percentage in the 5-10% range and the Jewish share of NHWs in the double digits.

What is the source of the estimate of 35,000 Jewish residents amounting to 10% of the total population of the Coachella valley?

[Quixote]

Originally Posted by craigs

What is the source of the estimate of 35,000 Jewish residents amounting to 10% of the total population of the Coachella valley?

The Jewish Federation of Palm Springs and Desert Area / Jewish Federations of North America by way of Wikipedia. The link is broken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coachella_Valley

[Quixote]

Typically for retirees and sunny getaways, Palm Springs area attracts Jewish High Holy Days worshipers

...

Posner said people have long flocked to the desert, not just for the High Holy Days but for Passover, Hanukkah and Shavuot.

“The Jewish community in the desert has a slower pace and a charm to it that people from the larger cities like,” Posner said.

The rabbi said many come from the Los Angeles area–home to America's second largest Jewish community–but that people also come from Canada, Chicago and the East Coast to celebrate the religious holidays in the Coachella Valley.

...

https://www.desertsun.com/story/news...ays/678679001/

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Quixote

The Jewish Federation of Palm Springs and Desert Area / Jewish Federations of North America by way of Wikipedia. The link is broken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coachella_Valley

Not only is there a broken link, but also Wikipedia has slapped a warning on that part of the entry containing the unverifiable Jewish population estimate since 2012, reading "This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed."

So when you say you've seen estimates as high as 35,000 and 10% of the total population of the Coachella Valley, you're just saying you saw some random number that can't be backed up by anything and is essentially being challenged by Wikipedia.