Top Document: soc.culture.jewish FAQ: Who We Are (2/12) Previous Document: Question 2.20: Is it true that Jews are all (fill-in-the-blank)? rich? (or smart, or ...) Next Document: Question 2.22: How many Jews are in the world? See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge Answer: A 1990 [yes, this appears to be the latest survey] National Jewish Population Survey of the Council of Jewish Federations (which can be found at the [5]North American Jewish Data Bank ([6]http://web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/cjstu/na.htm) reports the following: American Jews: (TOTAL......5,515,000) Born Jews, Consider Judaism their religion.....4,210,000 Born Jews, Citing no religion..................1,120,000 Jews by Choice (formerly gentiles)...............185,000 Reform.......................41.4% "Traditional"*............... 3.2% Conservative.................40.4% Reconstructionist............ 1.6% Orthodox..................... 6.8% Miscellaneous "Jewish"*...... 1.4% "Just Jewish"*............... 5.2% *: self-description, though not a denomination. Survey Criteria for the classifications: Orthodox: Emphasizes the binding unchanging character of Jewish law Conservative: Asserts the continuing authority of Jewish law as part of a dynamic and developing tradition. Reform: Emphasizes the Jewish prophetic values and accepts Jewish practices that it considers relevant for modern times. Reconstructionism: A humanistic approach to Jewish tradition that redefines the idea of G-d in humanistic terms. The [7]Information Please Almanac, at [8]http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0193644.html, reports that as of 1998, Jews made up approximately 2% of the population of the United States. This is about the same percentage as in 1900, but is lower than the percentage in 1970 (3.2%). The top 5 non-Christian religions in the United States, according to the Almanac, are as follows: Adherents 1900 Mid-1970s Mid-1990s Mid-1995 (Projected) Mid-2000 Nonreligious 1.00M 11.73M 22.23M 23.39M 24.55M 1.3% 5.6% 8.7% 8.8% 8.8% Jews 1.50M 6.70M 5.54M 5.52M 5.50M 2.0% 3.2% 2.2% 2.1% 2.0% Muslims 0.01M 0.80M 3.60M 3.77M 3.95M 0.0% 0.4% 1.4% 1.4% 1.4% Buddhists 0.03M 0.20M 1.68M 1.86M 2.00M 0.0% 0.1% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% Black Muslim 0.00M 0.20M 1.25M 1.40M 1.65M 0.0% 0.1% 0.5% 0.5% 0.6% As this chart shows, the percentage of Jews in the U.S. is projected to be slowly shrinking. For this survey, the count for Jews is based on the core Jewish population relating to Judaism, excluding Jewish persons professing a different religion but including immigrants from the former U.S.S.R., Eastern Europe, Israel, and other areas. User Contributions:Top Document: soc.culture.jewish FAQ: Who We Are (2/12) Previous Document: Question 2.20: Is it true that Jews are all (fill-in-the-blank)? rich? (or smart, or ...) Next Document: Question 2.22: How many Jews are in the world? Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: SCJ FAQ Maintainer <maintainer@scjfaq.org>
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM
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