By Philip Newman
Queens, like New York City as a whole, has lost Jewish population over the past decade, a Jewish community service organization reported.
Dr. Jacob Ukeles, a leading researcher in a new study by the United Jewish Appeal-Federation, said Queens is now estimated to be home to 186,000 Jews, down 20 percent from the last such survey in 1992.
New York City’s Jewish population had declined by nearly 6 percent over the past 10 years to 972,000. It has fewer than 1 million Jews for the first time in a century, but the survey indicated that most simply moved to the suburbs since the metropolitan area now has 1.4 million Jews.
Brooklyn and Staten Island were the only boroughs to show Jewish population gains. Ukeles said Russians had contributed heavily to the population gain of 27 percent in Brooklyn. Brooklyn has an estimated 456,000 Jews.
Although Brooklyn neighborhoods such as Flatblush, Brighton Beach and Borough Park are areas where Russian immigrants have been settling for a number of years, the survey was not that specific.
“We will have a further part of the survey in the fall with information on New York’s neighborhoods in relation to Jewish residents,” Ukeles said.
“We have large numbers of large families of Orthodox people,” Ukeles said of the new Russian immigrants in Brooklyn. “New York has the largest Orthodox community in the country.”
Staten Island is home to 42,000 Jews, up 27 percent over 1992.
The greatest loss of Jewish population was 45 percent in the Bronx, where there are 45,000 Jewish residents.
Manhattan, with an estimated 243,000 Jews, was down 20 percent since the previous survey.
UJA researchers conducted more than 4,500 telephone interviews last year for the survey, titled “Jewish Community Study of New York 2002.”
The survey also said that poverty among Jews has doubled, from 10.5 percent to 21.2 percent in the past decade.
Reach contributing writer Philip Newman by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 136.
