New report shows a greater number of Jews in U.S. than in Israel

WASHINGTON - A new report has found that a greater number of Jews live in the US than in Israel.

Researchers from the University of Miami (UM) and the University of Connecticut (UConn) have published a 2010 report on the American Jewish population, as part of a new North American Jewish Data Bank Report series.

The new report called Jewish Population in the United States-2010 has estimated the total number of Jews in the U.S. at around 6.5 million.

The authors, however, have suggested that there may be some double counting in the methodology and believe the number to be fewer than 6.4 million.

Interestingly, the U.S. report contradicts the estimate that will appear in the World Jewish Population Report to be issued in the near future in the same report series, which will show 5.3 million U.S. Jews, explained Ira Sheskin, lead author of the report.

“The article on the Jewish Population in the U.S. shows a greater number of Jews in the U.S. than in Israel, while the World Report will claim the opposite,” said Sheskin.

The difference is in the methodology.

“While the World Report uses national studies for its estimate, the U.S. Report sums up estimates of the Jewish population in over 1,000 local Jewish communities to develop a national estimate,” said Sheskin.

The report was published by the Mandell L. Berman-North American Jewish Data Bank at the University of Connecticut, in coordination with the Association for the Social Scientific Study of Jewry (ASSJ) and Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA).

The data collected previously made possible an analysis of the Jewish population by US Congressional districts for the first time, explained Arnold Dashefsky of the Uconn.

“Each report that we have prepared, including reports for 2006, 2007, and 2008, is better than the previous one because we continue to add new scientific estimates and discover new concentrations of Jews in local communities,” said Dashefsky. (ANI)