A tale of two communities

HE recent publication of the Jewish Americans in 2020 report by the Pew Research Centre offers not only insight into the largest Diaspora Jewish community, but also a rich dataset we can align with the Gen17 Australian Jewish Community Survey and better understand ourselves.

With carefully developed strategies for ensuring the datasets are representative of the US and Australian Jewish communities, we have a great opportunity to compare not just the two populations as a whole, but also to see whether there are any distinctive patterns when it comes to American and Australian Jews of specific ages, relationship statuses or kinds of Jewish identification.

At that granular level, are we more similar or different to American Jews? What are Australian Jewry’s distinguishing points of strength which we should celebrate and nurture to continue thriving? Are there insights from which we can learn?

How many Jews are there in the US and Australia?

The Pew Research Centre estimates that, as of 2020, there were 7.5 million people who identify as Jews in the US, making up 2.5 per cent of the country’s population (of which 6.7 million are Jewish according to Jewish law). David Graham, eminent demographer of Australian Jewry, estimated in his analysis of the Australian census that the number of Jews in Australia is 117,903, being 0.49 per cent of our country’s population.