Your city's Jewish community

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Docere

Re: San Francisco, what's interesting is that it had one of the largest German Jewish populations in the US in the 19th century and I believe the second largest Jewish population after New York. But the Yiddish-speaking Eastern European wave was minimal.

So a majority of Jews in the Bay Area were, until recently, of German rather than Eastern European origin.

Until the last election, the Bay area supplied California's 2 Jewish Senators, Feinstein and Boxer.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Docere

Silver Spring was home to the postwar Jewish middle class in DC, with some wealthier Jews living in Bethesda. Since then the Jewish population has shifted westward.

Here's some 1970 figures for Jewish population in Montgomery County, via the journal Jewish Social Studies:

Silver Spring 16,500 21.3%
Bethesda 6,800 9.5%
Wheaton 6,000 9.1%
Kemp Mill 5,500 55.3%
White Oak 4,500 23.3%
County total 60,000 11.5%

I think the CDP boundaries have changed a bit since then.

Jews in Bethesda tended to live in the newer areas--my parents were socially friendly with some of those and they all lived in recently built homes farther from DC than the core of Bethesda but still technically in that community. The other places mentioned I actually think of as part of "greater Silver Spring". My dad worked in White Oak (at the Naval Ordinance Laboratory which developed not only guns but missiles and satellites). Kemp Mill was another Kay-developed area. Wheaton Plaza was the local mall.

One social factor of interest was residual discrimination. Even in the 1950s and early 1960s, Jews either were barred or just not very welcome at Montgomery County country clubs (some famous like Congressional where Presidents play golf, then and now). So several new Jewish-focused clubs were developed in and near the areas where Jews were moving from DC (and sometimes Baltimore). Woodmont was one:

An historically Jewish country club wants to revoke Barack Obama’s complimentary membership because of the U.N. abstention
Before last month Woodmont Country Club — which charges $80K initial fee — was ready to give him a free membership

http://www.salon.com/2017/01/11/an-h...un-abstention/

There were others. People today may not understand the importance of club membership in that era when centrally air-conditioned homes (and backyard pools) in Washington's steamy summer climate were rare. Many non-golfing families joined because they had pools (and usually few if any black people, even at the Jewish clubs, because this was also the era when public pools in the DC area were being desegregated). But as the 1960s joined, "swim clubs", having pools but no golf courses, became more common.

[Urbanguy]

Hawaii's affiliated Jewish population is not very large -- the highest estimate I've seen was around 10,000 with the majority living in Honolulu & Maui. Although smaller in population when compared to many other locations, Jew's have a long history in Hawaii and have made quite an impact politically as Linda Lingle (born in Missouri) had become the Nation's first elected Female Republican Jewish Governor & one of the State's current US Senators Brian Schatz (with family ties to Michigan & Manitoba) is also Jewish. The most well-known Jew from Hawaii would probably be Bette Midler.

[Docere]

Some Montreal stats: There are 22,000 Sephardic Jews, representing 25% of the local Jewish population. About 7,000 Montreal Jews speak Yiddish at home, reflecting the sizable ultra-Orthodox population.

In Toronto, there are 36,000 Jews who were either born in or whose parents were born in the FSU (19% of the Jewish population).

Both cities have sizable Jewish immigrant populations. Montreal's Jewish population has fallen since the exodus of Montreal Jews to Toronto in the 70s and 80s, but immigration helped keep the a Jewish community there.

http://www.jewishdatabank.org/Studies/canada.cfm

[Crawford]

There are 546,000 Ultra-Orthodox/Hasids in the NYC area, according to NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/m...odox-life.html

Not sure what the comparable breakdown would be for Orthodox/Modern Orthodox, and obviously the more secular Conservative and Reform.

But I bet you that the NYC area is far more weighted towards Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox than any other U.S. metro, and I bet you the Reform population is proportionally much less significant than in past decades.

[Docere]

Absolutely. In most US Jewish communities, Reform is by far the largest movement, while NYC is much more Orthodox, and probably has more traditional-but-not-quite orthodox or "Conservadox" Jews as well.

The proportion that is foreign born is significantly higher as well.

I'm almost certain the Jewish vote in NYC for the Democrats is well below the national 70-75% figure.

[muppet]

London's Jewish community is dwindling rapidly as people move out of the city thanks to the fortunes to be made in the current housing bubble (at the mo it's a Jewish, Indian and Caribbean flight to greener pastures and suburbia). They're down to 160-180,000 (not far off the 19th Century population), but I've seen significant changes in my area alone which only a decade ago had a large community; many of the Jewish delis and businesses have moved on, and the area is becoming more dominated by Romanians now. Also there's a high preponderance of British Jews giving up the faith, especially with newer generations - Jewish ancestry in the London area must be in the millions thanks to the massive ghettoes through history.

[Docere]

I think London had around 150,000 Jews in 1914 - so basically its Jewish population is the same as a century ago.

How big is the Jewish population in the Home Counties? I believe Hertfordshire has a sizable and growing Jewish population.

[Yofie]

Originally Posted by Docere

In what places are Jews over 50% of the population?

In the NYC area, the list is probably Great Neck and the Five Towns on LI, Lakewood NJ and the Hasidic communities in Rockland. (Plus the neighborhoods of Borough Park, Brighton Beach, Midwood in Brooklyn and Forest Hills/Rego Park, Queens).

Other places in the US could include Beachwood, Ohio, and maybe Beverly Hills and Miami Beach.

In Canada, there's the Montreal suburbs of Hampstead and Cote St. Luc. Toronto doesn't have any though a large contiguous area of Thornhill would be majority-Jewish.

Originally Posted by mrnyc

hmm, good question. amberly village or sycamore/blue ash suburbs in cincinnati and bexley in columbus are the more jewish areas in those cities, but they are not majority jewish.

Bexley (in Columbus) and University Heights (in Cleveland) used to have Jewish majorities (I think they were about 60% Jewish ca. the 1960s-1970s) but now they're down to just pluralities (I'd say around 40% Jewish probably). Those two areas in Ohio are very similar in other ways, including the quality of the housing, total population size, and the presence of a smaller university affiliated with a Christian movement (the Lutheran-run Capital University in Bexley, and the Catholic-run John Carroll University in University Heights). Beachwood, east and southeast of University Heights, has had a strong Jewish majority for a very long time, I believe since about the 1960s. I don't know nearly as well in that regard about the Cincinnati neighbourhoods mentioned here, such as Amberley or Blue Ash.

In Montreal, Cote St. Luc has had a Jewish majority all along (since at least ca. 1960), while Hampstead did not have one until 1971 or so, and many areas of Cote des Neiges/Snowdon used to have a Jewish majority back in the 1960s and 1970s but don't anymore.

In the Chicago area, Skokie used to have a Jewish majority, but I believe not anymore. And I can't think off the top of my head any area in Chicago that now or still has a Jewish majority.

Miami Beach, as mentioned, used to have a Jewish majority but not anymore. I believe, though, that further up the coast in Miami-Dade County, Aventura has a very strong Jewish majority (though I'm not sure since when), and I think next-door Hallandale might also.

Finally, in the Boston area, it's Sharon that's had a Jewish majority for a few decades. From what I've heard, it used to be something like 85% Jewish but now it's 60% Jewish. For their part, Newton and Brookline (with larger numbers of Jews and closer in to downtown Boston) merely have large Jewish minorities (35-40% Jewish).

[ssiguy]

Montreal's Jewish community use to be Canada's largest and most influential but when the separatist Part Quebecois got into power in the 1970s, thousands fled to Toronto as the PQ always had a healthy amount of anti-Semitism.

In Montreal most today live in the well-to-do Western Island. In Toronto most still live along the Bathurst Corridor often jokingly referred to as "The Gaza Strip". Vancouver has always had a small and rather uninfluential Jewish community centered along Oak Street.

[Docere]

I'd be surprised if Columbus has anything close to a Jewish majority area.

[Yuri]

São Paulo's Jewish community is the second in South America, way behind Buenos Aires, with 70,000 members overall. The large majority of them are Ashkenazis, arrived during the Great European migration to the continent.

As it's happening elsewhere, they have remarkably high TFR, even the secular ones (the majority). My fiance works with a Jewish architect, focused on interiors (with the crisis, the only thing that's paying off). All the clients are also (secular) Jewish themselves and it's crazy how many children they have. They are exactly like the rest of São Paulo's upper-middle class, except for that. Right now they are working on apartment where the couple have four girls and are expecting the 5th.

[Yofie]

Originally Posted by Docere

I'd be surprised if Columbus has anything close to a Jewish majority area.

The closest to being so in Columbus would be Bexley, along with Berwick to the south and Eastmoor to the east. As I've mentioned, Bexley at one point had a Jewish majority but now it's down to a substantial minority.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Montreal's Jewish community use to be Canada's largest and most influential but when the separatist Part Quebecois got into power in the 1970s, thousands fled to Toronto as the PQ always had a healthy amount of anti-Semitism.

In Montreal most today live in the well-to-do Western Island. In Toronto most still live along the Bathurst Corridor often jokingly referred to as "The Gaza Strip". Vancouver has always had a small and rather uninfluential Jewish community centered along Oak Street.

Going up Bathurst:

Bathurst and Eglinton: Rich Reform and Conservative Jews

Bathurst and Lawrence: Orthodox Jews

Bathurst and Sheppard: Russian Jews

[Rico Rommheim]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Montreal's Jewish community use to be Canada's largest and most influential but when the separatist Part Quebecois got into power in the 1970s, thousands fled to Toronto as the PQ always had a healthy amount of anti-Semitism.

That's an extremely narrow interpretation of what happened.

The bulk of Montreal's Jewish exiles left for the same reason much of the blacks from Little Burgundy or the anglos from Westmount left: the rise of Quebec nationalism and the institutionalization of the french language. The Jews who left were secular and professional, and they left with their protestant anglo cohorts.

Ironically, Quebec nationalism did very little to convince the most religious jews to leave, indeed the Orthodox communities have only thrived since the 1960's.

Thanks to what's happening in Europe, Montreal's jewish community is booming nowadays. Thousands of secular, professional, young french-speaking sephardic jews are putting down roots in Montreal, challenging the historic English-oriented Ashkenazi community.

What we're slowly witnessing here is a re-invention of what it means to be jewish in Montreal. In the old days, being jewish meant you spoke english, lived west of st-laurent and were part of that old boy's club. Today, jewishness is becoming french-oriented and is less isolated in the western boroughs, and with a solid grasp of french integration into the mainstream quebec society is almost guaranteed.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

In Toronto most still live along the Bathurst Corridor often jokingly referred to as "The Gaza Strip".

I grew up in that area and I've never heard it called that.

[montréaliste]

Originally Posted by Rico Rommheim

That's an extremely narrow interpretation of what happened.

The bulk of Montreal's Jewish exiles left for the same reason much of the blacks from Little Burgundy or the anglos from Westmount left: the rise of Quebec nationalism and the institutionalization of the french language. The Jews who left were secular and professional, and they left with their protestant anglo cohorts.

Ironically, Quebec nationalism did very little to convince the most religious jews to leave, indeed the Orthodox communities have only thrived since the 1960's.

Thanks to what's happening in Europe, Montreal's jewish community is booming nowadays. Thousands of secular, professional, young french-speaking sephardic jews are putting down roots in Montreal, challenging the historic English-oriented Ashkenazi community.

What we're slowly witnessing here is a re-invention of what it means to be jewish in Montreal. In the old days, being jewish meant you spoke english, lived west of st-laurent and were part of that old boy's club. Today, jewishness is becoming french-oriented and is less isolated in the western boroughs, and with a solid grasp of french integration into the mainstream quebec society is almost guaranteed.

Yes.

Also, the Jewish community in Montreal is rooted in very old clusters of Sephardic Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origin, and Ashkenazis arriving in the late 1700's.
Aaron Hart, Ezekiel Hart were prominent politically as well as in business between Trois-Rivières and Montreal. The Jewish community never shied from controversy and has been vocal about its importance and the cosmopolitan values of the city they helped build and prosper.

I think that for the most part, anglo-centric ethnic communities have adapted to what were once perceived slights shocking many folks into expatriation or interprovincial mobility. A great number of French Québécois also moved in droves for other reasons, not least of which, economic. I remember when law 101, the language law first came in, how shocking it was for me and others who feared for the future of the city as a vital business and cultural space.
I likened it to the compulsory seatbelt law. That was shocking too, at first. Law 101 was revolutionary and damaging in some ways and enthralling in other ways. I cannot fathom Quebec without the legal framework that promotes and protects French from English predominance. I think that the aftermath of this situation was beneficial for all because now, all anglos who remain in the Province have a stake in providing their offspring with all the tools in the shed. Hard to beat.

[ColDayMan]

Originally Posted by Docere

I'd be surprised if Columbus has anything close to a Jewish majority area.

As Yofie mentioned, Bexley at one time had a substantial Jewish majority but that has been diluted over the years.

[Docere]

Right now France has the 3rd largest Jewish population in the world and Canada the 4th. If (God forbid) Marine Le Pen prevails (which is thankfully unlikely) I expect there to be a major exodus of the Jewish community in France.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Docere

Right now France has the 3rd largest Jewish population in the world and Canada the 4th. If (God forbid) Marine Le Pen prevails (which is thankfully unlikely) I expect there to be a major exodus of the Jewish community in France.

I don't want to over-dramatize, but it's already happening to some degree.