Your city's Jewish community

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

I'm pretty sure much of the North Shore Jewish population is in the slightly less expensive, slightly newer "inland" communities. Northbrook, especially, but maybe Glenview and/or Deerfield? Some of this might be New Trier territory. Also some might only consider North Shore to be the lakefront areas.

Glencoe is definitely stereotyped as the Jewish North Shore community, though.

And I believe Highland Park and Buffalo Grove have decent sized Jewish populations.

New Trier high school district is all of Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe and Northfield, as well as tiny little slivers of Glenview and Northbrook.

The VAST majority (>95%) of Glenview and Northbrook are located in the aptly name Glenbrook high school district.


Growing up on the northshore in the 70s/80s, Glencoe and highland park were definitely seen as the heart of the northshore's Jewish population. There has obviously been some bleed as jews have moved inland into the communities away from the lake.

Traditionally, "northshore" was limited to just the direct lakefront communities north of the city from Evanston up to lake forest, but I think most would now include prosperous upper middle class inland burbs like Glenview, Northbrook, Deerfield, etc. in a broader definition these days. Buffalo Grove still seems like a bridge too far though at roughly 9 miles in from the lake.

[mrnyc]

in summary -- there are 150k jews in ohio and jewish communities in every city of any size, however, about 9 out of 10 live around cleveland.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Because Toronto has a giant zone of core affluence, and Detroit/Cleveland don't. In North America, Toronto probably has one of the highest shares of wealth proximate to the core.

Though it's true that Toronto doesn't just have Jews in/near the core, it has Jewish districts in/near the core. This is arguably distinct from places like SF and DC, and perhaps even Chicago (though Chicago was historically so much bigger it could be argued its "Forest Hill" is on the North Shore - Orthodox Chicago is an older neighborhood than Cosmopolitan Jewish Toronto. Forest Hill is more like inner North Shore).

Chicago's Jewish community in 1945 was concentrated on the West Side in Lawndale, with a secondary concentration in Albany Park.

Albany Park seems to represent the transition from west to north.

The movement out of the old Jewish neighborhoods after 1945 (Lawndale abruptly, Albany Park more gradually) was mainly to West Rogers Park (which went from less than 2,000 Jews in 1930 to 11,000 Jews in 1950 to 48,000 Jews in 1963), to Skokie (a postwar suburb that was majority-Jewish in the postwar era), and to certain North Shore suburbs such as Glencoe and Highland Park (which both had a handful of wealthy Jews in the interwar years while other North Shore suburbs such as Winnetka, Kenilworth and Lake Forest were restricted).

This established a pattern of Orthodox and Traditional-Conservative closer in, Reform further out. West Rogers Park became Orthodox dominated, Skokie less so but still more traditional, while the establishmentarian Reform demographic dominated on the North Shore. Though the north side lakefront neighborhoods have a lot of Reform and secular Jews as well.

So I don't think there really is a "Forest Hill" in Chicago or a "Glencoe" in Toronto. The cities just developed differently.

[Docere]

28,000 Jews in Long Beach and surrounding area (1.8% of the population):

https://www.jewishlongbeach.org/resources/study

[Quixote]

Oh wow, didn't know that the federation included most of the Gateway Cities, Huntington Beach, and Buena Park.

So Long Beach's Jewish population is 18,112, or roughly 3.9% of the city's population, while the surrounding area is about 0.9% Jewish.

I'd estimate that the LA County portion of the surrounding area amounts to about 20,000.

With the addition of the SGV and subtraction of the Greater LA federation's overlap with Ventura County, that likely puts the Jewish population of LA County at about 580,000-600,000 (about 5.9-6% of the population).

LA: 580,000
OC: 87,000
IE: 51,000
Ventura: 41,000

Total: 759,000

I really think that community studies on OC, SGV/IE, Palm Springs, and Ventura County would show that there are 40-50K more Jews than what the American Jewish Population Project found.

[Docere]

So in Chicago, there seems to a fairly contiguous north/northwest Jewish sector running from West Rogers Park, to Skokie/Lincolnwood, western Wilmette, up to Glencoe and Highland Park, then inland into Northbrook, Deerfield and at the end Buffalo Grove. The main "gap" seems to be Winnetka which was initially bypassed (I suspect it had very few Jews 40 or 50 years ago but now has some Jews though less than its neighbors, and Kenilworth which still has few Jews). And then Lake Forest still has few Jews. So there's still evidence of the old WASP-Jewish split, though less so than in the past. Obviously there's strong overlap between the Jewish population and favored quarter settlement; the Jewish population is mostly located in or adjacent to it.

[Crawford]

Buffalo Grove is a little weird, and doesn't fit the pattern. Probably a little like Dix Hills on Long Island. A postwar sprawly upper middle class area with great schools where secular Jews settled in large numbers in the 60's and 70's, and where their presence now seems to be slowly fading in favor of Asians drawn to schools. Dix Hills is a little wealthier and estate-y, built more like Barrington, but ethnic mix is more Buffalo Grove.

[Docere]

There are three majority-Jewish census tracts in the city of Toronto (all along Bathurst of course).

The first is Cedarvale, in the Bathurst-Eglinton area. Includes Toronto's two most prestigious synagogues, Holy Blossom (Reform) and Beth Tzedec (Conservative)

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.6978...7i16384!8i8192

Two contiguous tracts south of Lawrence Ave, the heart of the Orthodox Jewish community

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7159...7i16384!8i8192

Thornhill north of the city has five majority-Jewish tracts, including one in an area that was developed by an Orthodox Jewish developer that was specifically developed for the Orthodox community that's 78% Jewish. Few areas are more visibly Jewish outside of Israel and Brooklyn:

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7995...7i16384!8i8192

[Docere]

The LA Jewish community is quite concentrated on the Westside, Wilshire and the San Fernando Valley. Affluent communities such as San Marino, La Canada-Flintridge as well as Orange County were traditionally more WASP. Though the San Marino and to a lesser extent La Canada have become Asian.

[Quixote]

Yep, generally speaking, the type of whites that live in San Marino and La Canada Flintridge are more or less the same type of “old stock legacy” whites that live on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and in OC. Although south OC is newer and attracts more outsiders, and empirical observation suggests that Jews are more likely to settle in new-development areas over established, historically WASP areas like Yorba Linda, Villa Park, Huntington Beach, San Juan Capistrano, and San Clemente, which are sort of the last vestiges of classic 1960s/70s ultra-conservativism. Newport Beach and Laguna Beach are too rich and Irvine too big and new for them not to have more of a Jewish presence.

[Docere]

There's been most areas flipping from WASP to Asian than Jewish to Asian in LA, probably because white non-Jews are much more inclined to leave the L.A. metro area. Plus L.A. has had a lot of Jewish immigration from Iran, Israel and the FSU. I recall reading that about half of L.A. area Jews are first or second generation.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by Docere

Jewish (religion) and English ancestry in some favored quarter neighborhoods:

Rosedale-Moore Park

English 23%
Jewish 7%

Yonge-St. Clair

English 20%
Jewish 12%

Casa Loma

Jewish 22%
English 16%

Forest Hill South

Jewish 39%
English 10%

Lawrence Park South (Lytton Park)

English 22%
Jewish 16%


Neighborhood reference map: https://www.toronto.ca/city-governme...s-communities/

As noted in this post, the pre-war favored quarter neighborhoods in Toronto are generally WASP and/or Jewish. Forest Hill is the Jewish neighborhood in the favored quarter. And Jews are still the largest "ethnic" element in the traditionally WASP Yonge St. neighborhoods. All these above neighborhoods are about 80% white.

Asians generally bypass these older neighborhoods, but they do live in the postwar York Mills on the northeastern edge of the favored quarter. Chinese are the largest ethnic group in the Bayview-York Mills-Bridle Path area. The most WASPy part is the oldest areas, Hogg's Hollow and Sunnybrook (pre-1960), while the Bridle Path, Banbury and St. Andrew-Windfields areas (built up in the 1960s) are heavily Asian now and still fairly Jewish though less than in the past.

[Docere]

If you can access JSTOR, this article gives a history of Jewish residential patterns in LA County over time.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24805475

"Jews and Anglos [WASPs] did not live in the same places. One of out four Anglos lived in the "isolated areas" (primarily the isolated north), as compared with only 4 percent of Jews. Anglos were also far more likely to live in the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys: 13 percent vs. 3 percent. Jews, on the other hand, were more likely to live in Valley Hills (14 percent of Jews vs. 2 percent of Anglos), West Los Angeles (17 percent vs. 6 percent of Anglos), the West Valley (14 percent of Jews vs. 9 percent of Anglos), and the urban core (14 percent of Jews vs. 9 percent of Anglos)...in 1997, Jews and Anglos lived in different socio-ecologies...Jews were 7 times as likely to live in the Valley Hills, and 2.8 times as likely to live in West Los Angeles. In terms of density, Jews in the Valley Hills accounted for 48 percent of the population and 61 percent of the white, non-Hispanic population. In West Los Angeles, Jews constituted 26 percent of the overall population and 45 percent of the white, non-Hispanic population."

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by Docere

If you can access JSTOR, this article gives a history of Jewish residential patterns in LA County over time.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/24805475

"Jews and Anglos [WASPs] did not live in the same places. One of out four Anglos lived in the "isolated areas" (primarily the isolated north), as compared with only 4 percent of Jews. Anglos were also far more likely to live in the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys: 13 percent vs. 3 percent. Jews, on the other hand, were more likely to live in Valley Hills (14 percent of Jews vs. 2 percent of Anglos), West Los Angeles (17 percent vs. 6 percent of Anglos), the West Valley (14 percent of Jews vs. 9 percent of Anglos), and the urban core (14 percent of Jews vs. 9 percent of Anglos)...in 1997, Jews and Anglos lived in different socio-ecologies...Jews were 7 times as likely to live in the Valley Hills, and 2.8 times as likely to live in West Los Angeles. In terms of density, Jews in the Valley Hills accounted for 48 percent of the population and 61 percent of the white, non-Hispanic population. In West Los Angeles, Jews constituted 26 percent of the overall population and 45 percent of the white, non-Hispanic population."

I get West Los Angeles and West Valley as geographic area descriptors. What specifically constitutes the Valley Hills? Are they talking about areas like Encino, Sherman Oaks, and Studio City? I guess I always considered those areas as part of the West SF Valley.

[craigs]

Yeah, there's some janky terminology there. For example, I suspect they are referring to the Westside--a wide swathe of LA, Beverly Hills, Culver City, Santa Monica, etc. rather than just the neighborhood of West Los Angeles. I lived in West Los Angeles beginning in 1999, and it wasn't significantly Jewish. The part of West LA I lived in abutted the Sawtelle neighborhood, so unsurprisingly the biggest groups in my building and neighborhood were Japanese-Americans and generic white UCLA students.

[Docere]

Valley Flats = south of Ventura Blvd

West LA = Westside

[Quixote]

Jews settled in areas more closely tied to LA city proper and Hollywood money. The SGV and western IE are quite distinct from Central LA, the Westside, and the SFV. They feel like different worlds.

The South Bay also has its own vibe, but I could see lots of wealthy secular Jewish families moving into all the new spec homes being built in Manhattan Beach. I don’t see it being a place where well-connected industry and society types concentrate like, say, Santa Monica.

[Crawford]

Who lives in those LA County beach towns? What's the demographic in Manhattan Beach and environs? I know it's wealthy and white, but I never really got a grasp of the crowd.

It definitely isn't the Westside crowd, or the Coastal OC crowd. Is it like Palos Verdes, just more beachy? Kind of WASPy and outdoorsy/sporty? There seem to be a lot of retired surfers, soccer players and the like, doing the nesting thing.

[Docere]

The Bay Area, in contrast to L.A., never seemed to have Jewish neighborhoods or suburbs. I can't find anything resembling one.

Why the difference? My guess is San Francisco was a major German Jewish center in the 19th century and only a minor center for Eastern European Jewish immigration. German Jews set the tone. While in L.A. (essentially a 20th century city), Eastern European Jews in Boyle Heights and in Hollywood set the tone.

[Docere]

Montreal's establishmentarian Westmount seems to be a fairly even mix of francophones, Jews and WASPs.

Westmount

Jewish (religion) 22.5%
French mother tongue 20%
French (origin) 16%
Irish 11%
English 10%
Scottish 9%
Canadian 9%