One of the first decisions that had to be made in conducting this study and analyzing its results was to answer the question, “Who is a Jew?” This is an ancient question with no single, timeless answer. On the one hand, being Jewish is a matter of religion – the traditional, matrilineal definition of Jewish […]

American Jews overwhelmingly say they are proud to be Jewish and have a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people, but their identity is also changing: 22% of American Jews now say they have no religion.

The survey suggests that intermarriage is common among Jews; 44% of all currently married Jewish respondents – and 58% of those who have married since 2005 – indicate they are married to a non-Jewish spouse. The survey also shows that in some important respects, U.S. Jews have a distinctive demographic profile: They are older than […]

The Jewish community in the U.S. has a long tradition of conducting pioneering social scientific research on the size and characteristics of U.S. Jewry. The last major national survey effort undertaken by the U.S. Jewish community to enumerate and describe the Jewish population was the 2000-2001 National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS), sponsored by the United […]

Most American Jews feel at least some emotional attachment to Israel, and many have visited the Jewish state. Four-in-ten believe Israel was given to the Jewish people by God, a belief that is held by roughly eight-in-ten Orthodox Jews. Six-in-ten U.S. Jews are optimistic that a way can be found for Israel and an independent […]

The size of the U.S. Jewish population has been a matter of lively debate among academic experts for more than a decade. Because the Pew Research survey involves a representative sample of Jews, rather than a census of all American Jews, it cannot definitively answer the question. However, data from the survey can be used […]

On a variety of measures, Jews are less religious than the general public. For example, roughly one-quarter of Jews say religion is very important in their lives, compared with more than half of Americans overall. Similarly, a quarter of Jews say they attend religious services at least once or twice a month, compared with 50% […]